Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/281

 A WINTER ODE. 273

��A WINTEB ODE.

��BY WILL E. WALKER.

One wintry day in '78,

A youth, with flaming zeal elate,

From Massachusetts northward came

To gain immortal name and fame.

He heard Old Proh., the prophet, say

That dreadful weather, right away,

Would bring distress to cheek and nose,

Dismaying hearts and freezing toes.

And mostly of New Hampshire folk

This learned man in sorrow spoke ;

Those people would be frozen through,

And what was coming not one knew.

Oh, then uprose this noble youth

And said : " I'll bear the dreadful truth

To those thus doomed to bitter loss,

Nor stop until e'en far Coos

Has heard my warning note of woe,

And all to winter quarters go."

Oh, there was hurrying far and near,

As panic-struck with sudden fear

Tbe people heard his warning cry,

And saw his coat-tails onward fly.

But he had calculated wrong

About the tough old folk that throng

This Granite State, for they had dwelt

In colder air than he e'er felt.

So, ere one-half his race was run,

His teeth out-chatterd, one by one,

His voice grew faint, his nose grew cold,

And downward sank his spirits bold ;

But on he pressed, until at last

His Rubicon was nearly passed,

When there appeared a shocking sight,

That filled this toothless, speechless wight

With freezing fear, and rendered him

All statue-like in face'and limb ;

For spirits tell our anxious hero

That here 'tis fifty below zero.

That finished him, and there he stands,

A warning to all other lands

Which think to scare our honest folk

With any below zero joke.

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