! the heart's true voices sing
From the exulting reverent breast,
And lips proclaim, with adoration blessed,
Glad Alleluias to the King.

Prompt is our praise unto a jewelled queen
In all her courtly splendor set,
(Fair as those fairylands are seen
By childhood's other sight):
But if in pauper mien,
Too poor for stray regret
Where crowded streets affright
She stood in beggary,
Unknown, though faithful to her high degree,--
O, then her praise 'twere easy to forget.
Yet ever here,
For all of time's prompt fickleness--
From plenteous June and wide largess
Of full midsummer days,
To dwarf December pitiless
Amid the earth's uncomplimented ways--
Yea, constant through the changeful year,
This queenly Height commands our praise.
To stand in meek unflinching hardihood
When fortune blows its storm of fright,
And work to full effect that good
Resolved in open days of clearer sight--
O, this is worth!
That daily sees the soul
To braver liberties give birth,
That heeds not time's annoy,
And hears surrounding voices roll
Perennial circumstance of joy.
Then come not only when the springtime blows
The old familiar strangeness of its breath
Across the long-lain snows,
And chants her resurrected songs
About the tombs of death;
Nor yet when summer glows
In roseate throngs
And works her plenitude of deeds
By tangled dells and waving meads,
Come here in beauty's pilgrimage:
Nor when the autumn reads
Illuminate her page
With tints of magicry besprent
Of iridescent wonderment--
(As scrolls in old monastic towers,
Done in an earnest far-off age).
But choose to come in winter hours
To see how character can live,
How noble character will give
Through desolate distress
And cold neglect's duress,
The fulness of its powers
And win the soul its victor sign.
Yea, come when in a peasant gown,
Amid the ample banners of the pine,
And the resounding harpers of the vine,
Lone winter holds upon the Height
Her court in full renown.
Obedient her courtiers go,
Their gonfalons aloft and bright,
And scatter pearls of snow;
Her sturdy knighthood wear for crown
Prismatic sheen in young delight,
And wave the cedar oriflamme on high;
While windward heralds cry,
Across