Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home;
Must borrow his winds who there would come.
Up and away for life! be fleet !—
The frost-king ties my fumbling feet,
Sings in my ears, my hands are stones,
Curdles the blood to the marble bones,
Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense,
And hems in life with narrowing fence.
Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep,
The punctual stars will vigil keep,
Embalmed by purifying cold,

The winds shall sing their dead-march old,
The snow is no ignoble shroud,

The moon thy mourner, and the cloud.

Softly-but this way fate was pointing,
"Twas coming fast to such anointing,
When piped a tiny voice hard by,
Gay and polite a cheerful cry,
Chic-chicadeedee! saucy note

Out of sound heart and merry throat,
As if it said, "God day, good sir!
Fine afternoon, old passenger!
Happy to meet you in these places,
Where January brings few faces."

This poet, though he live apart,
Moved by his hospitable heart,
Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort,
To do the honours of his court,
As fits a feathered lord of land;
Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand,
Hopped on the bough, then, darting low,
Prints his small impress on the snow,
Shows feats of his gymnastic play,
Head downward, clinging to the spray.

Here was this atom in full breath,
Hurling defiance at vast death;
This scrap of valour just for play
Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat grey,
As if to shame my weak behaviour;
I greeted loud my little saviour,

"You pet! what dost here? and what for?
In these woods, thy small Labrador,
At this pinch, wee San Salvador!
What fire burns in that little chest
So frolic, stout, and self-possest?
Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine;
Ashes and jet all hues outshine.
Why are not diamonds black and grey,

To ape thy dare-devil array ?
And I affirm, the spacious North
Exists to draw thy virtue forth.
I think no virtue goes with size;
The reason of all cowardice
Is, that men are overgrown,
And to be valiant, must come down
To the titmouse dimension."

"Tis good-will makes intelligence,
And I began to catch the sense
Of my
bird's song:
"Live out of doors,

In the great woods, on prairie floors.

I dine in the sun; when he sinks in the sea,

I too have a hole in a hollow tree;

And I like less when Summer beats
With stifling beams on these retreats,
Than noontide twilights which snow makes
With tempest of the blinding flakes.
For well the soul, if stout within,
Can arm impregnably the skin;
And polar frost my frame defied,
Made of the air that blows outside."

With glad remembrance of my debt,
I homeward turn; farewell, my pet!
When here again thy pilgrim comes,
He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs.
Doubt not, so long as earth has bread,
Thou first and foremost shalt be fed;
The Providence that is most large
Takes hearts like thine in special charge,
Helps who for their own need are strong,
And the sky dotes on cheerful song.
Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant
O'er all that mass and minster vaunt;
For men mis-hear thy call in spring,
As 't would accost some frivolous wing,
Crying out of the hazel copse, Phe-be!
And, in winter, Chic-a-dee-dee!

I think old Cæsar must have heard
In northern Gaul my dauntless bird,
And, echoed in some frosty wold,
Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold.
And I will write our annals new,
And thank thee for a better clew,
I, who dreamed not when I came here
To find the antidote of fear,
Now hear thee say in Roman key,
Paan! Veni, vidi, vici.

A T THE

"Tis the Gretchen's pitcous story That I hear yet do not hear, And its wailing, warning accents That awake nor awe nor fear,

For I move in a dream Elysian,
I have only ear and sight
For a voice that sweetens music,
And a face that brightens light.

It came with the curtain's rising,
That face of a faultless mould,
And the amber drapery glistened
With the lustre of woven gold.
I could hear a silken rustle,

And the air had fragrant grown,
But the scene from my sight had faded,
And I looked on that face alone.

In the midst of the grand exotics

That blossom the Season through,
It is there, a rose of the garden
Fresh from the winds and the dew-
Fresh as a face that follows

The hounds up a rimy hill,
With hair blown back by the breezes
That seem to live in it still.

So fresh and rosy and dimpled-
But, oh! what a soul there lies,
Melting to liquid agate

Those womanly tender eyes!
How it quickens under the music
As if at a breath divine,
And the ripening lips disparted

Drink in the sound like wine!

Passionate sense of enjoyment,
Absolute lull of delight-

They are hers as the sorrowful story
Awakens her heart to-night;

And those strains deliciously tender
Hold her in mute suspense,
Delighting each quick perception,
Regaling each subtle sense.

And she in her virginal beauty

As pure as a pictured saint,
How should this sinning and sorrow
Have for her danger or taint?
What guesses the rosebud, glowing
In light and odour and dew,
Of the rose of the wind's despoiling,
Lamenting the summer through?
So, if she shudder, as round her
The music dreamily flows,
'Tis but the maidenly instinct

That neither reasons or knows:
And still she listens and listens,
Entranced by some heavenly thought,
Some phrase of silvery sweetness,

Some cadence airily wrought.

Till the music surges and ceases
As the sea when the wind is spent,
And the blue of heaven brightens
Through cloudy fissure and rent.
It ceases and all is over,

The box is empty and cold,
And the amber drapery deadens
To satin that has been gold.