SIR WINTER.
Sir Winter is coining across the wide sea, With his turbulent vessels, so bold and so free : He has called for his banner, his sword, and his spear ; And Day shrinks before him with trembling and fear.
From the shores of the North, where the icebergs abound, And the snow-wreath for ever encumbers the ground, Lo, be comes! borne along by the fetterleas wind, Desolation before him and darkness behind !
See his scouts on the wing ! at the glance of his eye, They swarm on the ocean, they darken the sky! Earth rests from her toil, and, with sorrow and dread, Sees her children torn from her, all withering and dead.
Sir Winter is landed, his keel's on the shore,
And he sweeps through the land like the Norseman of yore : No need of a trumpet to herald his might, For where is the champion to question his right ?
But soft—in the valley a horseman I see: He threads the dim forest, now crosses the lea ; Now breasts the broad river that foams by the mill, Now spurs his fleet courser o'er furrow and hill.
'Tis he, 'tis Sir Winter, the friend of my youth, The mirror of knighthood, the champion of truth: No need of a parley ; no spoiler is he, But a warrior, a chief, ever dauntless and free.
Then down with the drawbridge, Sir Warden, and call All my faithful retainers from turret and hall: Ere we part, there is no one, Sir Winter shall see, To the home of my fathers more welcome than he.
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