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IN the frosty season, when the sun | |
Was set, and, visible for many a mile, | |
The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, | |
I heeded not the summons: happy time | |
It was indeed for all of us; for me | 5 |
It was a time of rapture. Clear and loud | |
The village clock tolled six. I wheeld about, | |
Proud and exulting, like an untired horse | |
That cares not for its home. All shod with steel, | |
We hissd along the polishd ice in games | 10 |
Confederate, imitative of the chase | |
And woodland pleasures,the resounding horn, | |
The pack loud-bellowing, and the hunted hare. | |
So through the darkness and the cold we flew, | |
And not a voice was idle: with the din | 15 |
Meanwhile the precipices rang aloud; | |
The leafless trees and every icy crag | |
Tingled like iron; while the distant hills | |
Into the tumult sent an alien sound | |
Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, | 20 |
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west | |
The orange sky of evening died away. | |
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Not seldom from the uproar I retired | |
Into a silent bay, or sportively | |
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, | 25 |
To cut across the image of a star | |
That gleamd upon the ice; and oftentimes, | |
When we had given our bodies to the wind, | |
And all the shadowy banks on either side | |
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still | 30 |
The rapid line of motion, then at once | |
Have I, reclining back upon my heels, | |
Stoppd short; yet still the solitary cliffs | |
Wheeld by me, even as if the earth had rolld | |
With visible motion her diurnal round. | 35 |
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, | |
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watchd | |
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea. | |
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