Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GREY-HAIRED DECEMBER, by ELIZA COOK


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GREY-HAIRED DECEMBER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hail to thee, hail to thee, summer day sun
Last Line: No nectar so rich as the wassail-bowl flip.
Subject(s): Winter


Hail to thee, hail to thee, summer day sun,
Brilliant and long is the course that you run
Lighting the rose on the straw-covered hut,
Storing the hedges with berry and nut;
Flash on in the strength of your glorious pride,
Scorching the green sod and gilding the tide,
But my welcome is neither so long nor so loud
As it is when you peep from a dark winter cloud
My warmest of healths is to grey-haired December,
With his holly-twined brow and his carrolling lip;
There's no fire half so bright as the yule faggot's ember,
No nectar so rich as the wassail-bowl flip.

The winter wind breaks from its ice belted caves,
Roaring its way o'er the answering waves;
Onward it goes with a hurricane haste
Searching the valley and sweeping the waste;
Whistling adown the wide chimney it comes,
And away through the keyhole it merrily hums,
With a freshness of breath and a wildness of tune
That you never can meet in the zephyrs of June.
Here's a health, then, a health to old grey-haired December, &c.

The moonlight of summer is fair on the flower,
On the leaf-shadowed thicket -- the blossomed-wreathed bower;
Hallowed and tender it falls on the grove,
As a woman's soft eye on the shrine of its love.
But see the pale beams on the snow-crested mountain,
On the rime-feathered branch and the crystal-locked fountain;
Oh! the fairest of rays are the gleamings that fall
On the frost chequered panes of the log lighted hall.
Here's a health, then, a health to old grey-haired December, &c.

Curious agents of destiny tell
Why do I love the rude storm blast so well?
Why does my soul find a laughing delight
In the gloom shade of day and the tempest of night?
The thunder may boom, and the lightning may fly,
But it gladdens mine ear and gives light to mine eye.
Let the elements clash in the fiercest array,
Here's a heart that can struggle as madly as they.
A health, then, a health to old grey-haired December, &c.

The flash may be swift, and the cloud may be dense,
Here's an impulse as ready, a soul as intense;
Though the wailing gust rushes with desolate sweep,
Here's a bosom whose sighs are as fearfully deep;
Let the demons of tempest be wild as they will,
Here's a spirit more wild and more passionate still;
And though lonely the storm-ridden spot may appear
This spirit is often as lone and as sere.
A health, then, a health to old grey-haired December,
With his holly-crowned brow and his carrolling lip;
There's no fire half so bright as the yule faggot's ember,
No nectar so rich as the wassail-bowl flip.





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