The night is cold, the wind is bleak,
The nearest road the shepherds seek
To gain their home, to share the smile
That shortens, sweetens all their toil—
The smile of love, that well repays
The labor of the darkest days.
The driving snow comes down amain,
Across the field and down the lane;
The lucid stream that rolled along,
With rapid course and ceaseless song,
And wantoned in the sunny ray,
Now hushed and still’d its course doth stay:
The flowers and herbs that graced its side
In nature’s general death have died.
Along the hedge and in the grove
No more are heard, around, above,
The thousand songs, and chirps, and cries,
That thro’ the leafy arches rise.
The birds are gone, the trees are bare,
And sadly mourns the very air—
Their echo is no longer there
Their fitful sheep-bell on the gale,
Like some lost spirit’s dismal wail,
Now borne in fearful loudness near,
And now slow dying on the ear,
Comes with a witchery o’er the soul,
And seems like nature’s funeral toll—
The knell of beauty, life and grace,
And this her last sepulchral dress.
Is there a heart so hard, so cold,
Without emotion can behold
This general death, this quick decay
Of all that’s beautiful and gay?
What, shall the happy woodland chime
Be hushed, or seek a milder clime?
What, shall the garden and the grove
Be stripped of all that moved your love?
The yielding stream, whose glassy face
Gave back your form with tenfold grace,
Be dulled and stiffened, and your eye
Not know a tear, your heart a sigh?
It cannot be!—regrets must steal
O’er human souls, for we do feel.
Yes, there’s a close-linked sympathy—
For this we know our fate must be;
Though lord of nature, man’s a part,
And every change speaks to his heart;
But yet he hopes that spring shall come,
And call her favorites from the tomb—
That Flora shall descend and stand,
And cast her garland round the land;
And beauty, light, and joy, and bliss,
Bring back creation’s loveliness.
And so it is, (the thought I love,)
With the pure spirits from above.
Man has his winter, and they stoop
To give desponding mortals hope.
Sent by their Maker, they sustain
The drooping soul when worn with pain,
And point the heart with sorrow riven
To the pure joys of love and heaven.
Yet though they know man soon shall rise
In holy rapture to the skies,
They feel such grief as spirits may
At all the trials of the way,
And long to bear him from the earth
To waken in that glorious birth.
Yes, there’s a sympathy between
The world without and world within,
And there’s a sympathetic band
Connects us with that happy land.
_London, January 1836_.