Page:Poems Cook.djvu/362

The earth is hard, the trees are bare,
 The frozen robin drops;
The wind is whistling everywhere;
 The crystal brooklet stops;
But I have found a grassy mound,
 A green and shelter'd spot,
And there peeps up a primrose cup,
 With blue "Forget-me-not."
Oh! great to me the joy to see
 The spring-buds opening now;
To find the leaves that May-day weaves,
 On old December's brow.

They say the world does much to make
 The heart a frosted thing,—
That selfish Age will kill and break
 The garlands of our spring,—
That stark and cold, we wail and sigh
 When wintry snows begin,—
That all Hope's lovely blossoms die,
 And chilling winds set in.
But let me pray, that come what may
 To desolate this breast,
Some wild flower's bloom will yet illume,
 And be its angel guest;
For who would live when Life could give
 No feeling touch'd with youth,—
No May-day gleams to light with dreams
 December's freezing truth?

 

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"HE THAT IS WITHOUT SIN AMONG YOU, LET HIM FIRST CAST A STONE."—St. John viii. 7.

Beautiful eloquence, thou speakest low;
 But the world's clashing cannot still thy tones:
Thou livest, as the stream with gentle flow
 Lives in the battle-field of strife and groans.

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