SNOW STORMS AND TEMPESTS. 337 



For the winds are let loose, and the sound is gone forth 



To awaken the troops of the frozen North ! 



And the lightning, and hailstone, and hurricane fly, 



At a wave of his arm through the dark rolling sky ; 



And his footsteps are trampling the fog and the cloud, 



That envelope the earth in a funeral shroud; 



And the sheep and the shepherd lie buried below 



The wide-spreading folds of his mantle of snow : 



And the breath of his nostrils encumbers the wood ; 



And his fetters of crystal arrest the flood ; 



And he binds in its fall the cataract, 



And makes level the gulfs of the mountain tract ; 



Till his work is complete, and a dread repose 



Broods over a boundless waste of snows ; 



And the wild winds bewail in whispers drear 



The decay and death of the by-gone year. 



