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Title: The Frost Spirit
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier [
More Titles by Whittier]
He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes! You
may trace his footsteps now
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown
hill's withered brow.
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their
pleasant green came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken
them down to earth.
He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--from
the frozen Labrador,--
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white
bear wanders o'er,--
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless
forms below
In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues
grow!
He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--on the
rushing Northern blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful
breath went past.
With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires
of Hecla glow
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below.
He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--and
the quiet lake shall feel
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the
skater's heel;
And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang
to the leaning grass,
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful
silence pass.
He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--let us
meet him as we may,
And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil
power away;
And gather closer the circle round, when that fire-light
dances high,
And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding
wing goes by!
-THE END-
John Greenleaf Whittier's poem: The Frost Spirit
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