Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/271

Rh Poor wretches that in total darkness lye, With minds more dark then is the dark'ned Sky. Beaf, Brawn, and Pork are now in great request, And solid meats our stomacks can digest. This time warm cloaths, full diet, and good fires, Our pinched flesh, and hungry marres requires; Old cold, dry Age, and Earth Autumn resembles, And Melancholy which most of all dissembles. I must be short, and shorts the short'ned day, What winter hath to tell, now let him say.

WINTER. Cold, moist, young flegmy winter now doth lye In swaddling Clouts, like new born Infancy Bound up with frosts, and furr'd with hail & snows, And like an Infant, still it taller grows; December is my first, and now the Sun To th' Southward Tropick, his swift race doth run: This moneth he's hous'd in horned Capricorn, From thence he 'gins to length the shortned morn, Through Christendome with great Feastivity, Now's held, (but ghest) for blest Nativity, Cold frozen January next comes in, Chilling the blood and shrinking up the skin; In Aquarius now keeps the long wisht Sun, And Northward his unwearied Course doth run: The day much longer then it was before, The cold not lessened, but augmented more. Now Toes and Ears, and Fingers often freeze, And Travellers their noses sometimes leese.

Moist snowie Feburary is my last, I care not how the winter time doth haste, In Pisces now the golden Sun doth shine, And Northward still approaches to the Line, The rivers 'gin to ope, the snows to melt, And some warm glances from his face are felt; Which is increased by the lengthen'd day, Until by's heat, he drives all cold away, And thus the year in Circle runneth round: Where first it did begin, in th' end its found.