Why Mockest Nature?

Fair nature, even thou dost mock?

Since they have laid her here away
Although midwinters season 's on

Autumnal beauteous is the dav.

The Danube's surface shows no ice.

Saint Gellert mountain shows no snow...
That to my body's and mind's eyes

The contrasts more glaringly show.

Why rise ye not to angry wars,
Ye lazy elements why sleep?

North wind — fierce eagle of the air,
Why dost not o'er the country sweep?

Why dost thou not the clouds pursue,
And make their snow spread o'er the ground,
As do the birds their feathers drop
Whom the pursuing hunters wound.

My keenest pleasure I would find
If I fair nature could behold

Changed as my heart: from Persia fair
Into Siberia, icy, cold.

Ah! if these mellow sunlit days
Are none of nature's mockeries.

But kindly, she the winter banned,

My dead love out there should not freeze!