Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O, hear!
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day.
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: O, hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O, uncontroulable! If even I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh! lift me as a wave, leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, From the snow five thousand summers old; On open wold and hill-top bleak
It had gathered all the cold,
And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; It carried a shiver everywhere
From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it and built a roof 'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof;
All night by the white stars' frosty gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams; Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight; Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt, Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze;
Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear
For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops And hung them thickly with diamond drops, That crystalled the beams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one:
No mortal builder's most rare device Could match this winter-palace of ice; 'Twas as if every image that mirrored lay In his depth serene through the summer day, Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost.
Within the hall are song and laughter, The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting in every corbel and rafter With lightsome green of ivy and holly; Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind; And swift little troops of silent sparks, Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer.
But the wind without was eager and sharp, Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings
The icy strings,
Singing, in dreary monotone, A Christmas carol of its own,
Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was-"Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless!"
The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch, And he sat in the gateway and saw all night The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold, Through the window-slits of the castle old, Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
So saying, Mercury vanished up to heaven; And Priam then alighted from his chariot, Leaving Idaeus with it, who remained
Holding the mules and horses; and the old man Went straight indoors, where the beloved of Jove Achilles sat, and found him. In the room Were others, but apart; and two alone,
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