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Title: The Wintry Days
Author: James Avis Bartley [
More Titles by Bartley]
The wintry days have come once more,
The birds are still, the sweet flowers dead,
And faint winds sigh a wailing song
O'er leaves heaped high within their bed.
The neighboring stream that lately leapt,
And laughed, and played adown the glen,
Is now as hushed and mute as though
It ne'er would leap and smile again.
A mournful silence fills the sky,
And falls upon the gazer's soul,
And down the sympathizing cheek,
The watery teardrops silent roll.
The beauty of the peaks and plains,
The loveliness of earth and sky,
Have passed away, and, passing, said,
"Ye mortals frail! ye too must die."
So has the beauty of my hopes
Withered beneath woe's wintry touch,--
My heart has yielded to despair,
Though lingering long and weeping much.
But oh! bright Hope, mid bleak Despair,
Sprang, cheerly speaking to my heart,
Sweet, smiling spring shall yet return,
And joyless winter must depart.
And Mercy throned beyond the sun,
Whose breath thy living soul hath given,
Will lead thee to a deathless spring
Within the glorious gates of heaven.
Ah! deeply do I bless that word!
It drives my gloomy fears away;--
I kneel upon the dreary snow,
And bid my God be praised for aye.
[The end]
James Avis Bartley's poem: Wintry Days
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