Winter.

Majestic King of storms! around         Thy wan and hoary brow     A spotless diadem is bound         Of everlasting snow:     Time, which dissolves all earthly things,     O'er thee hath vainly waved his wings!     The sun, with his refulgent beams,         Thaws not thy icy zone;     Lord of ten thousand frozen streams,         That sleep around thy throne,     Whose crystal barriers may defy     The genial warmth of summer's sky.     What human foot shall dare intrude         Beyond the howling waste,     Or view the untrodden solitude,         Where thy dark home is placed;     In those far realms of death where light     Shrieks from thy glance and all is night?     The earth has felt thine iron tread,         The streams have ceased to flow,     The leaves beneath thy feet lie dead,         And keen the north winds blow:     Nature lies in her winding sheet     Of dazzling snow, and blinding sleet.     Thy voice has chained the troubled deep;         Within thy mighty hand,     The restless world of waters sleep         On Greenland's barren strand.     Thy stormy heralds, loud and shrill,     Have bid the foaming waves lie still.     Where lately many a gallant prow         Spurned back the whitening spray,     An icy desert glitters now,         Beneath the moon's wan ray:     Full many a fathom deep below     The dark imprisoned waters flow.     How gloriously above thee gleam         The planetary train,     And the pale moon with clearer beam         Chequers the frost-bound plain;     The sparkling diadem of night     Circles thy brow with tenfold light.     I love thee not--yet when I raise         To heaven my wondering eyes,     I feel transported at the blaze         Of beauty in the skies,     And laud the power that, e'en to thee,     Hath given such pomp and majesty!     I turn and shrink before the blast         That sweeps the leafless tree,     Careering on the tempest past,         Thy snowy wreath I see;     But Spring will come in beauty forth     And chase thee to the frozen north!