Now that I’m here, I think with reason
  That winter is the fairest season
  How smooth the daily current flows
  To ev’ry week’s beloved close! 
  —­Just about nine on Friday night,
  Sole by the lamp’s reposeful light
  My master with a mind perplexed
  Sets out to choose his Sunday text. 
  Before the stove a while he stands,
  Walks to and fro with twisted hands,
  And vainly struggles to determine
  The theme on which to thread his sermon. 
  Now and again amid his doubt
  He lifts the window and looks out. 
  —­Oh cooling surge of starlit air,
  Pour on my brow your tide so rare! 
  I see where Verrenberg doth glimmer,
  And Shepherds’ Knoll with snows a-shimmer. 
  He sits him down to write at last,
  Dips pen and makes the A and O,
  Which o’er his “Preface” always go. 
  I meanwhile from my post on high
  Ne’er from my master turn an eye,
  Look at him now, with far-off gaze
  Pondering, testing every phrase;
  The snuffer once he seizes quick
  And cleans of soot the flaming wick;
  Then oft in deep abstraction, he
  Murmurs a sentence audibly,
  Which I with outstretched bill peck up
  And fill with lore my eager crop. 
  So do we come by smooth gradation
  To where begins the “Application.” 
  “Eleven!” comes the watchman’s shout. 
  My master hears and turns about. 
  “Bedtime!” He rises, takes the light,
  Nor ever hears my shrill “good-night!”
  Alone in darkness then I’d be;
  That has no terrors, though, for me. 
  Behind the wainscot sharply picking
  I hear a while the death-clock ticking,
  I hear the marten vainly scoop
  The earth around the chicken-coop. 
  Along the eaves the night-wind brushes,
  And through far trees the tempest rushes—­

  Bird Wood’s the name that forest bears,
  Where rude old Winter raves and tears. 
  Now splits a beech with such a crack
  That all the valleys echo it back. 
  —­My goodness! when these sounds I hear
  I’m glad a pious stove’s so near,
  Which warms you so the long hours through
  That night seems fraught with blessings too. 
  —­Just now I well might feel afraid,
  When thieves and murderers ply their trade;
  ’Tis lucky, faith, for those who are
  Secured from harm by bolt and bar. 
  How could I call so men would hear me
  If some one raised a ladder near me? 
  When thoughts like this attack my brain
  The sweat runs down my back like rain. 
  At two, thank God! again at three,
  A cock-crow rises clear and free,
  And with the morning bell at five
  My whole heart, now once more alive,
  High in my breast with rapture springs,
  When finally the watchman sings
  “Arise, good friends, for Jesus’ sake,
  For bright and fair the day doth break.”