The Reapers' Song by Susanna Moodie

    The harvest is nodding on valley and plain,
        To the scythe and the sickle its treasures must yield;
    Through sunshine and shower we have tended the grain;
        'Tis ripe to our hand!--to the field--to the field!
    If the sun on our labours too warmly should smile,
    Why a horn of good ale shall the long hours beguile.
    Then, a largess! a largess!--kind stranger, we pray,
    We have toiled through the heat of the long summer day!

    With his garland of poppies red August is here,
        And the forest is losing its first tender green;
    Pale Autumn will reap the last fruits of the year,
        And Winter's white mantle will cover the scene.
    To the field!--to the field! whilst the Summer is ours
    We will reap her ripe corn--we will cull her bright flowers.
    Then, a largess! a largess! kind stranger, we pray,
    For your sake we have toiled through the long summer day.

    Ere the first blush of morning is red in the skies,
        Ere the lark plumes his wing, or the dew drops are dry,
    Ere the sun walks abroad, must the harvestman rise,
        With stout heart, unwearied, the sickle to ply:
    He exults in his strength, when the ale-horn is crown'd,
    And the reapers' glad shouts swell the echoes around.
    Then, a largess! a largess!--kind stranger, we pray,
    For your sake we have toiled through the long summer day!

Winter. Calling Up His Legions. by Susanna Moodie

    WINTER.

    Awake--arise! all my stormy powers,
    The earth, the fair earth, again is ours!
    At my stern approach, pale Autumn flings down
    In the dust her broken and faded crown;
    At my glance the terrified mourner flies,
    And the earth is filled with her doleful cries.
    Awake!--for the season of flowers is o'er,--
    My white banner unfurl on each northern shore!
    Ye have slumbered long in my icy chain--
    Ye are free to travel the land and main.
    Spirits of frost! quit your mountains of snow--
    Will ye longer suffer the streams to flow?
    Up, up, and away from your rocky caves
    And herald me over the pathless waves!

        He ceased, and rose from his craggy throne
    And girt around him his icy zone;
    And his meteor-eye grew wildly bright
    As he threw his glance o'er those realms of night.
    He sent forth his voice with a mighty sound,
    And the snows of ages were scattered around;
    And the hollow murmurs that shook the sky
    Told to the monarch, his band was nigh.

    THE WIND FROST.

        I come o'er the hills of the frozen North,
    To call to the battle thy armies forth:
    I have swept the shores of the Baltic sea,
    And the billows have felt my mastery;
    They resisted my power, but strove in vain--
    I have curbed their might with my crystal chain.
    I roused the northwind in his stormy cave,
    Together we passed over land and wave;
    I sharpened his breath and gave him power
    To crush and destroy every herb and flower;
    He obeyed my voice, and is rending now
    The sallow leaves from the groaning bough;
    And he shouts aloud in his wild disdain,
    As he whirls them down to the frozen plain:
    Those beautiful leaves to which Spring gave birth
    Are scattered abroad on the face of the earth.
    I have visited many a creek and bay,
    And curdled the streams in my stormy way;
    I have chilled into hail the genial shower:--
    All this I have done to increase thy power.


    THE RIME FROST.

        I stood by the stream in the deep midnight.
    The moon through the fog shed a misty light;
    I arrested the vapours that floated by,
    And wove them in garlands and hung them on high;
    I bound the trees in a feathery zone,
    And turned the soft dews of heaven to stone;
    I spangled with gems every leaf and spray,
    As onward I passed on my noiseless way;
    And I came to thee when my work was done,
    To see how they shone in the morning sun!


    THE NORTH WIND.

        I have borne the clouds on my restless wings,
    And my sullen voice through the desert rings;
    I sent through the forest a rushing blast,
    And the foliage fled as I onward passed
    From the desolate regions of woe and death,
    In adamant bound by my freezing breath:
    From the crystal mountains where silence reigns,
    And nature sleeps on the sterile plains,
    I have brought the snow from thy mighty store
    To whiten and cover each northern shore.


    THE EAST WIND.

        I woke like a giant refreshed with sleep,
    And lifted the waves of the troubled deep;
    I clouded the heavens with vapours dark,
    And rolled the tide o'er the foundering bark,
    Then mocked in hoarse murmurs the hollow cry
    Of the drowning wretch in his agony:
    I have leagued with the North to assert thy right
    On the land and the wave both by day and by night!


    THE SNOW.

        I heard thy summons and hastened fast,
    And floated hither before the blast,
    To wave thy white banner o'er tower and town,
    O'er the level plain and the mountain brown.
    I have crowned the woods with a spotless wreath,
    And loaded the avalanche with death;
    I have wrapped the earth in a winding sheet,
    And Nature lies dead beneath my feet.


    CHORUS OF SPIRITS.

        All hail, mighty monarch! our tasks are o'er;
    Thy power is confessed on each northern shore;
    From the rock's stern brow to the rolling sea
    The spirits of earth have bowed to thee.
    In the cradle of Nature the young Spring lies
    With the slumber of death on her azure eyes;
    And we wander at will through the wide domain,
    Which in beauty and verdure shall flourish again,
    When she bursts from her shroud like a sun-beam forth
    'To chase us back to the frozen North!'

        With darkness and storms for thy panoply,
    Stern Winter, what power may contend with thee?
    Thy sceptre commands both the wind and the tide,
    And thy empire extends over regions wide;
    With thy star-gemmed crown and eagle wings,
    The strongest of nature's potent kings!
    But thy power for a season alone is lent,
    Thou art but a ministering spirit sent
    By the mighty Creator of thine and thee,
    Who fills with his presence immensity!

Winter by Susanna Moodie

    Majestic King of storms! around
        Thy wan and hoary brow
    A spotless diadem is bound
        Of everlasting snow:
    Time, which dissolves all earthly things,
    O'er thee hath vainly waved his wings!

    The sun, with his refulgent beams,
        Thaws not thy icy zone;
    Lord of ten thousand frozen streams,
        That sleep around thy throne,
    Whose crystal barriers may defy
    The genial warmth of summer's sky.

    What human foot shall dare intrude
        Beyond the howling waste,
    Or view the untrodden solitude,
        Where thy dark home is placed;
    In those far realms of death where light
    Shrieks from thy glance and all is night?

    The earth has felt thine iron tread,
        The streams have ceased to flow,
    The leaves beneath thy feet lie dead,
        And keen the north winds blow:
    Nature lies in her winding sheet
    Of dazzling snow, and blinding sleet.

    Thy voice has chained the troubled deep;
        Within thy mighty hand,
    The restless world of waters sleep
        On Greenland's barren strand.
    Thy stormy heralds, loud and shrill,
    Have bid the foaming waves lie still.

    Where lately many a gallant prow
        Spurned back the whitening spray,
    An icy desert glitters now,
        Beneath the moon's wan ray:
    Full many a fathom deep below
    The dark imprisoned waters flow.

    How gloriously above thee gleam
        The planetary train,
    And the pale moon with clearer beam
        Chequers the frost-bound plain;
    The sparkling diadem of night
    Circles thy brow with tenfold light.

    I love thee not--yet when I raise
        To heaven my wondering eyes,
    I feel transported at the blaze
        Of beauty in the skies,
    And laud the power that, e'en to thee,
    Hath given such pomp and majesty!

    I turn and shrink before the blast
        That sweeps the leafless tree,
    Careering on the tempest past,
        Thy snowy wreath I see;
    But Spring will come in beauty forth
    And chase thee to the frozen north!

The Spirit of the Spring by Susanna Moodie

    The spirit of the shower,
        Of the sunshine and the breeze,
    Of the dewy twilight hour,
    Of the bud and opening flower,
        My soul delighted sees.
    Stern winter's robe of gray,
        Beneath thy balmy sigh,
    Like mist-wreaths melt away,
    When the rosy laughing day
        Lifts up his golden eye.--

    Spirit of ethereal birth,
        Thy azure banner floats,
    In lucid folds, o'er air and earth,
    And budding woods pour forth their mirth
        In rapture-breathing notes.
    I see upon the fleecy cloud
        The spreading of thy wings;
    The hills and vales rejoice aloud,
    And Nature, starting from her shroud,
        To meet her bridegroom springs.

    Spirit of the rainbow zone,
        Of the fresh and breezy morn,--
    Spirit of climes where joy alone
    For ever hovers round thy throne,
        On wings of light upborne,
    Eternal youth is in thy train
        With rapture-beaming eyes,
    And Beauty, with her magic chain,
    And Hope, that laughs at present pain,
        Points up to cloudless skies.

    Spirit of love, of life, and light!
        Each year we hail thy birth--
    The day-star from the grave of night
    That set to rise in skies more bright,--
        To bless the sons of earth
    With leaf--and bud--and perfumed flower,
        Still deck the barren sod;
    In thee we trace a higher power,
    In thee we claim a brighter dower,
        The day-spring of our God!--