Poor stricken maid! thy best affections, Thy hopes, thy wishes centred all in earth-- Earth has repaid thee with a broken heart! Love to thy God had known no rash excess, For in his service there is joy and peace; A light, which on thy troubled mind had shed Its holy influence, and those tearful eyes Had then been raised in gratitude to heaven, Nor chased delusive phantoms o'er the deep!
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.
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.
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!