DECEMBER
by: Christopher Cranch
(1813-1892)
- O more the
scarlet maples flash and burn
- Their beacon-fires from hilltop and from plain;
- The meadow-grasses and the woodland fern
- In the bleak woods lie withered once again.
-
- The trees stand bare, and bare each stony scar
- Upon the cliffs; half frozen glide the rills;
- The steel-blue river like a scimitar
- Lies cold and curved between the dusky hills.
-
- Over the upland farm I take my walk,
- And miss the flaunting flocks of golden-rod;
- Each autumn flower a dry and leafless stalk,
- Each mossy field a track of frozen sod.
-
- I hear no more the robin's summer song
- Through the gray network of the wintry woods;
- Only the cawing crows that all day long
- Clamor about the windy solitudes.
-
- Like agate stones upon earth's frozen breast,
- The little pools of ice lie round and still;
- While sullen clouds shut downward east and west
- In marble ridges stretched from hill to hill.
-
- Come once again, O southern wind,--once more
- Come with thy wet wings flapping at my pane;
- Ere snow-drifts pile their mounds about my door,
- One parting dream of summer bring again.
-
- Ah, no! I hear the windows rattle fast;
- I see the first flakes of gathering snow,
- That dance and whirl before the northern blast.
- No countermand the march of days can know.
-
- December drops the weak, relenting tear,
- By our fond summer sympathies ensnared;
- Nor from the perfect circle of the year
- Can even winter's crystal gems be spared.
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