Impartiality - Free Audiobook

THE FROST SPIRIT

          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!