XXVII.

=Winter.=

An interesting passage from Hesiod is given below. The extract is taken from the “Works and Days,” a poem giving instructions regarding agriculture, trade, and labor, blended with precepts of a moral character; and, in addition to the extremely remote date of its origin, the passage is also remarkable as one of the few instances in which a poet of the old heathen world has entered into detail of description on natural subjects. Its authenticity is, I believe, admitted. “The picturesque description given by Hesiod of Winter bears all the evidences of great antiquity,” says a learned German critic.

WINTER.

FROM HESIOD.

Beware the January month, beware Those hurtful days, that keenly piercing air, Which flays the herds; when icicles are cast O’er frozen earth, and sheathe the nipping blast.

From courser-breeding Thrace comes rushing forth O’er the broad sea the whirlwind of the North, And moves it with his breath; the ocean floods Heave, and earth bellows through her wild of woods. Full many an oak of lofty leaf he fells And strews with thick-branched pines the mountain dells He stoops to earth; the crash is heard around; The depth of forests rolls the roar of sound. The beasts their cowering tails with trembling fold, And shrink and shudder at the gusty cold; Thick is the hairy coat, the shaggy skin, But that all-chilling breath shall pierce within. Not his rough hide can then the ox avail; The long-haired goat, defenseless, feels the gale; Yet vain the northwind’s rushing strength to wound The flock with sheltering fleeces fenced around. _Translation of_ SIR C. A. ELTON.

A WINTER SCENE.

FROM “THE SEASONS.”

The keener tempests rise; and fuming dun, From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congeal’d. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hush’d air the whitening shower descends, At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the sky, With a continual flow. The cherish’d fields Put on their winter robe of purest white. ’Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low, the woods Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun, Faint from the west, emits his evening ray, Earth’s universal face, deep hid and still, Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox Stands cover’d o’er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven, Tam’d by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing store, and claim the little boon Which Providence assigns them. One alone,

The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of th’ embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth; then, hopping o’er the floor Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is: Till, more familiar grown, the table crumbs Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Though timorous of heart, and hard beset By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs, And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, Urg’d on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth, With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispers’d, Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow. JAMES THOMSON, 1700–1748.

WINTER SONG.

FROM THE GERMAN.

Summer joys are o’er; Flow’rets bloom no more Wintry winds are sweeping, Through the snow-drifts peeping, Cheerful evergreen Rarely now is seen.

Now no plumed throng Charms the wood with song; Ice-bound trees are glittering; Merry snow-birds, twittering, Fondly strive to cheer Scenes so cold and drear.

Winter, still I see Many charms in thee; Love thy chilly greeting, Snow-storms fiercely beating, And the dear delights Of the long, long nights. _Translation of_ T. BROOKS. LUDWIG HOLTY, 1748–1776.

HOLLY SONG.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly; Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly; Then, heigh ho! the holly; This life is most jolly!

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot; Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not. Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly; Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly; Then, heigh ho! the holly! This life is most jolly! SHAKSPEARE.

AN OLD-FASHIONED HOLLY HEDGE.

Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind than an impassable hedge of about four hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five feet in diameter, which I can show in my gardens at Say’s Court, at any time of the year, glittering with its armed and varnished leaves, the taller standards at orderly distances blushing with their natural coral—shorn and fashioned into columns and pilasters, architecturally shaped, at due distance?

EVELYN’S “_Silva_.”

CHRISTMAS CAROL.

HOLLY AND IVY.