OLD winter is a sturdy one, There's nothing he's afraid of. He spreads his coat upon the heath, He scouts the thought of aching teeth, Of flowers that bloom or birds that sing, Full little cares or knows he ; He hates the fire, and hates the spring, And all that's warm and cosy. But when the foxes bark aloud On frozen lake and river, When round the fire the people crowd, And rub their hands and shiver, When frost is splitting stone and wall, His home is by the North Pole's strand, Now from the North he's hither hied, 100 AIL, beauteous stranger of the grove! What time the daisy decks the green, Delightful visitant ! with thee I hail the time of flowers, The school-boy, wandering through the wood Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, What time the pea puts on the bloom An annual guest in other lands, Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, O could I fly, I'd fly with thee! We'd make, with joyful wing, Companions of the spring. John Logan. I COME from haunts of coot and hern, And sparkle out among the fern, By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges. Till last by Philip's farm I flow I chatter over stony ways, With many a curve my bank I fret I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever. I wind about, and in and out, And here and there a foamy flake With many a silvery waterbreak And draw them all along and flow For men may come, and men may go, |