Winter Thoughts

Winter Thoughts

Now autumn moves with chilling breath,

And all her winds prevail,

And you sweet flower whose hue is death

Stands trembling in the gale;

Leaf after leaf all withered shed,

And scattered on the ground,

And how the flower, the stem is dead

Nor like nor form is found.

Then sigh ye winds - I cannot sigh -

That bore it from my view;

There yet shall dawn a fairer sky,

And this sweet plant renew;

Up starting from that lonely bed,

The wintry winds away,

With flower, and leaf, and petals spread,

As fair as yesterday.

Then blow ye winds, ye winter winds,

Make bare each bush and tree;

Nor let one spire that summer finds,

Be left alone for me;

And I'll look down that summer track,

To think when thou art fled,

How spring shall come with glory back,

Reviving all the dead.

So like the leaf and flower that falls,

This palace of the mind -

When God appoints shall yield her walls,

To leave no wreck behind;

Yet like that seed the winds have strewn

And covered in its fall,

From earth to earth and dust gone down,

The spring time shall recall.

Then hasten death thy shafts to wing,

The young and old to slay,

Nor let one joy that these might bring,

Go with us through the day;

On, on, and on till all shall fall,

Nor we ourselves remain,

And thou like winter conquering all

Shall rest on hill and plain.

Then from the land and from the sea,

Where'er the dying fall,

Or dead shall rest though centuries be,

And time forgotten all;

From ocean's caves, from desert's sands,

From mountain top or plain.

From savage homes, or Christian lands,

The dead shall live again.

J.M.L

3:2, p. 4

1839.01.19

From the Presbyterian