Winter Scenes

From “The Seasons: Winter”   THE KEENER tempests rise; and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congealed. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes Fall broad and wide and fast, dimming the day With a continual flow. The cherished fields Put on their winter robe of purest white. ’T is brightness all; save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low the woods Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun Faint from the west emits his evening ray, Earth’s universal face, deep hid and chill, Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox Stands covered o’er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven, Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing store, and claim the little boon Which Providence assigns them. One alone, The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth; then, hopping o’er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is: Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Though timorous of heart, and hard beset By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs, And more unpitying man, the garden seeks, Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth, With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed, Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.