Herald Of The Times

POETRY.

From the New England Weekly Review.

THE FROST SPIRIT.

He comes—he comes, the Frost spirit comes, ye
may trace his footsteps now,
On the forest tops and the quiet vale and the green
hill's withered brow,
He has smitten the leaves of the dark old boughs
where their pleasant green came forth,
And the winds that follow wherever he goes have
shaken them down to Earth.

He comes—he comes—the Frost Spirit comes
from the frozen Labrador,
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas that the
white bear wanders o'er—
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the
luckless forms below,
In the sunless cloud of the atmosphere into marble
statues grow.

He comes—he comes—the Frost Spirit comes, on
the rushing Northern blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his
icy breath went past,—
With an unscorched wing he hath hurried on where
the fires of Hecla glow,
On the darkly beautiful sky above, and the ancient
ice below

He comes—he comes—the Frost Spirit comes, and
the disrupted lake shall feel
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to
the skater's heel—
And the streams that danced on the broken rocks,
or sang to the leaning grass
Shall bow again to their winter-chain, and in
mournful silence pass.

He comes—he comes—the Frost Spirit comes, let
us meet him as we may,
And turn with the blaze of the parlor-fire his evil
away:
And rather closer the circle round where that fire
light flashes high,
And laugh at the voice of the baffled fiend as his
sounding wing goes by!