In the Library, by a Coal-Fire

When all the years' imperial show
   In bud and leafless trunk is furled,
And sullen Winter's frost and snow
   Shut out the buzzing work day world,
We gather round a fiery core
That throbs with suns of long before :
The summers of primaeval time
Give this bright nook their tropic clime,
Till the old ardors glow and flame
Through all our tingling hearts the same.

In vain the lances of the frost
   Invade the sun-god's genial reign;
The mitraille of the storm is tossed
   Against the leagured wall in vain ;
For, deep and dark, the centuried glow
Was chilled in starless caves below :
At last in mellow air to bloom,
Through the soft twilight of our room,
Where, at our altar, with weird runes,
December's solstice weds old June's.

So, darkly traced in silent books,
   The tropic wisdom of the past,
The words that sang like dancing brooks,
   Or roared like forests in the blast,
Come from their dusky mines to pour
Their wealth for eager souls once more :
The fires of Homer, old and strong ;
The morning red of Chaucer's song,—
Brave thoughts, and high, heroic dreams,
Shed on our souls their primal gleams.

The “Wizard of the North" returns,
   Again his legend lore to tell;
We pluck the daisy bloom of Burns,—
   With sweet tears welcome “Little Nell,"
Borne by the lord of lyric prose—
The deathless by the dead;—and glows
No redder hearth seraphic fire
Than throbs in Barrett Browning's lyre;
For us the eldest graves are rent;
O'er us the Eden skies are bent!

Men die; the granite hills decay;
   Stars perish out of heaven, and gods
From mouldering altars fade away
   To mark dissolving periods;
But great Thoughts from their silent tombs,
Burn, and rekindle the dead blooms
Of wintry worlds! In them we live;
All else is cold or fugitive;
By them we light the inmost shrine,
And wait the coming year divine