Now let the weather do its worst,
With frost and sleet and blowing,
Rage like a beldam wild and curst,
And have its fill of snowing.
Now let the ice in savage vise
Grip meadow, brook, and branches,
Down from the north pour winter forth
In roaring avalanches.

The Year Outgrows the Spring
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The year outgrows the spring it thought so sweet
And clasps the summer with a new delight,
Yet wearied, leaves her languors and her heat
When cool-browed autumn dawns upon his sight.

Withered Leaves
by Peter Burn

I watch the leaves as they fade and fall
And form a heap by my garden wall.

I think of my loss in days “to be,”
My garden’s wealth but a leafless tree.

The Circling Year
by Ramona Graham

SPRING
The joys of living wreathe my face,
My heart keeps time to freshet’s race;
Of balmy airs I drink my fill—
Why, there’s a yellow daffodil!
Along the stream a soft green tinge
Gives hint of feathery willow fringe;
Methinks I heard a Robin’s “Cheer”—
I’m glad Spring’s here!

In Time’s Swing
by Lucy Larcom

Father Time, your footsteps go
Lightly as the falling snow.
In your swing I’m sitting, see!
Push me softly; one, two; three,
Twelve times only. Like a sheet,
Spread the snow beneath my feet.
Singing merrily, let me swing
Out of winter into spring.