How brightly beamed the pleasures then,
When frigid fingers came to throw
A wintry winding sheet of snow
Around the silent homes of men!
But happiness found no alarm,
For safe with cheer, secure with love,
She gladly grew and sweetly throve
Through winters on the olden farm.
With merry bells and busy sleighs,
That sung and flew o'er icy vales
And climbed the hills as fleet as gales,
Like singing phantoms died the days;
Or then with coat and muffler warm
Sweet children glided on the lake,
Or chased the rabbit through the brake,
In winters on the olden farm.
How glad the joys at eventide
When 'round the hearth-stone's pleasant heat
The simple song in music sweet
From loving voices floated wide!
The mellowed apples gave a charm,
While pop-corn white and cider bright
With worlds of laughter lent delight
To winters on the olden farm.
Thrice happy nights and happy days,
Sweet isles of pleasure in the past,
May long your hallowed moments cast
A sacred sunshine o'er my ways!
And where life leads me, gladly arm
My soul with angel songs of bliss,
With true embrace and holy kiss,
O, winters on the olden farm!
"O, WEAK AND WEARY WORLD!"
O weak and weary world
Forever struggling on,
When will thy toils in comfort be impearled,
When will thy sorrows and thy cares be gone?
When shall the races, all ambition dead,
Forsake the stony slope and rocky steep,
And in contentment sweetly wed
The joys that never sleep?
O, weak and weary world,
Long hast thou toiled in vain;
The smoky fumes of woe are darkly curled
With endless troubles and enduring pain;
When will thy bosom, faint and helpless grown,
Rest sweetly in the balmy bowers of ease?
Avoid the woes that constant groan
And follow shapes that please?
O, weak and weary world,
Why search the hills and seas?
All Nature is in secrecy enfurled
And thou canst never solve her mysteries;
Thou canst not understand nor comprehend
Her varied movements nor the intricate,
The systems that so far extend,
Creation wide and great.
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