Men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely*** 



BACON. 



JANUARY 



Ere Winter goes, ere yet the skies 



Keep steadfast blue ; ere the last snows 

 Faint in the sun and frost-flower dies ; 

 Ere Winter goes, 



Come ! there's a magic Nature shows 



In naked woods, where wild wind flies 

 To meet Spring's gentler breath that blows. 



The leaf to branch, bids violet eyes 



Unclose. A golden flower glows, 

 Meek celandine of star device, 



Ere Winter goes ! 



' I V O know the true and many beautiful meanings of 

 Spring, to taste the varied sweets of its delights, to 

 view the many charms it brings with it, it is essential to 

 know the nakedness of woods, the barren and lonely lands 

 that recede from either side of the leafless hedges of the 

 Winter-quiet lane. It is not sufficient to see with admiring, 

 sorrowful eyes the passing away of the Autumn leaves in 

 multitudinous showers, or to watch the leaf-fires flicker and 

 fail on tree and hedge, or when in the year's later hours the 

 last of them are scattered far from their place of birth and 

 home-bough. It is not enough to watch the first grey rains 

 of Winter, or to pass through one white sweeping mist 

 coming suddenly from its hiding-place to linger about the 

 river in dismal solemnity. All this is beautiful enough ; but 

 the simple passing away of the leaves, the first white mists 

 about the naked, shadowless branches are not sufficient to 



