• ONE late November eve I stood
    Beneath an old oak tree,
    And every one of its yellow leaves
    Said something sad to me.
    'We're tired.we're old,"they moaned,"and the wind
    Pinches us cruelly!"
    The fields looked very bare and still;
    The river rippling near
    A word to the willows whispered
    That made them quake for fear,
    While every withered blade of grass
    Hung heavy with a tear.
    The cattle crouched beneath the hedge;
    The poor sheep never stirred;
    In safest shelter of the wood
    Sat silent every bird;
    Only the rooks,in flying home,
    Made their hoarse voices heard.
    I thought the Vale----so smiling once---
    In anger seemed to be frown,
    And wondering what this meant, I looked
    Across the fallows brown.
    To the far hills,and thence I saw
    Old Winter coming down.
    He was not very near---but well
    That figure gaunt I know;
    His robe was made of woven mist,
    His cap of folded snow.
    I heard the rattling of his bones,
    With cold they shivered so.
    His face was withers stern,and pale,
    His fingers long and thin,
    A lantern 'neath his mantle held
    The Northern Lights within ;
    And prisoned winds in his monstrous bag
    Set up a fearful din.
    The trees of the forest saw,and tossed
    Their arms high in the air,
    The leaves fell quivering to the ground
    And left the branches bare.
    The flowers shut their eyes at once
    And died in mute despair.
    The river hurrying to the sea
    Stood still in sheer affright,
    Valley and hill sent wildly up
    To Heaven a long good-night.
    Winter,ere morn,will bury them
    In a shroud of ghostly white!