Wisely regardful of th' 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.
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset

The hare,

By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs,
And more unpitying men, 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 wither'd herb through heaps of snow.

Thomson.

WINTER SONG.

UMMER joys are o'er ;

Flow'rets bloom no more :

Wintry winds are sweeping;

Through the snowdrifts peeping,

Cheerful evergreen

Rarely now is seen.

Now no plumèd throng

Charms the wood with song ;
Ice-bound trees are glittering ;

HOU hast thy beauties: sterner ones, I own,
Than those of thy precursors; yet to thee
Belong the charms of solemn majesty
And naked grandeur. Awful is the tone
Of thy tempestuous nights, when clouds are blown
By hurrying winds across the troubled sky;
Pensive, when softer breezes faintly sigh
Through leafless boughs, with ivy overgrown.
Thou hast thy decorations too, although
Thou art austere : thy studded mantle, gay

With icy brilliants, which as proudly glow
As erst Golconda's; and thy pure array

Of regal ermine, when the drifted snow

Envelopes Nature; till her features seem
Like pale, but lovely ones, seen when we dream.

Barton.

WOODS IN WINTER.

WHEN winter winds are piercing chill,

And through the hawthorn blows the gale, With solemn feet I tread the hill

That overbrows the lonely vale.

O'er the bare upland, and away

Through the long reach of desert woods, The embracing sunbeams chastely play, And gladden those deep solitudes

Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the silence broke,
The crystal icicle is hung;

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs

Pour out the river's gradual tide,

Shrilly the skater's iron rings,

And voices fill the woodland side.

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,

When birds sang out their mellow lay, And winds were soft, and woods were green, And the song ceased not with the day.

But still wild music is abroad,

Pale, desert woods! within your crowd; And gathering winds in hoarse accord Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.