Winter and Discontent

With gold, red, blue, the world was gay;
The woodland stood in green array,
And little birds sang many a lay
Where croaks the hoodie-crow to-day.
And are its colours different? Yea!
Now is it grown all pale and gray;
Wherefore folk frown in sore dismay.

I sat upon a verdant lea,
And there, betwixt a lake and me,
Sprang flowers and clover fair to see.
'Tis long since those delights did flee,
For snow and frost now lie where we
Once gathered wreaths from off the tree
That robs the birds of all their glee.

"Snow, snow away!" the foolish cry.
"Alas, alack!" poor people sigh,
And heavy as lead thereat am I.
Three winter-cares upon me lie,
Yet these and more I could defy
And soon would bid them all good-bye,
If only summertide were nigh.

I'd sooner eat crabs raw, I trow,
Than pass my days much longer so!
O Summer, mirth on us bestow!
You deck the country high and low;
I'd play then with the flowers that blow;
Up to the sun my heart I'd throw,
Which now is pent in winter-woe.

A sloven I've grown, as Esau grew;
My rough hair's tangled through and through.
O sweet Summer, where are you?
Planted fields I fain would view
Rather than live, as now I do,
Cramped and confined, I tell you true, —
I'd turn me monk at Toberlu!