Classic Poem

When winter's closing shadows fall
Full early on the whiten'd wall,
When trimly glows the cottage fire
For home returning son and sire,
We'll gather round the brightening blaze
And sing for them our blithest lays.

When summer evenings cool and still
Cast golden gleams on tower and hill,
When dewy mists are curling thin
The lowly trellis'd porch within,
While quiet twilight creeps along,
We'll sit and sing some tender song.

The thrush beside the cottage door
His wildest warblings loves to pour,
The blackbird trills his notes of glee
From out the poor man's garden tree,
And the sweet night bird gives her strain
Where peasants wander down the lane.

Learn we of them, o'er lowly things
To shed the charm sweet music brings;
By every cottage hearth be heard
The singing of some sweet home bird,
To pour on labour's charmed ear
The soothing strain he loves to hear.

Come and sing a merry measure
With our voices all in time,
And our notes together blending
Like the bells in a sweet chime.

Lo, around us all is thrilling
With a deep melodious tone,
And each chord in earth and heaven
Hath a music of its own.

All the green leaves in the woodland
With a life of sound are stirr'd,
And far up in the blue ether
Sings the heaven-loving bird.

E'en the wild winds through the mountains
Make strange music as they go,
And the waters moving swiftly
Bear a cadence in their flow.

Thus our Mother Nature teacheth,
With her many voices strong,
For she moveth to a measure
And her every pulse is song.

Come and join in the full chorus
With a glad and grateful sound,
Let not man alone be silent
When all else is singing round.