Songs under the Ice

ONCE the shining King of the winter frost

From the North came down, and the valley crossed,Stealthily creeping;And he laughed with pride as he came to seeHow the wildwood rose and the great oak treeAlike were sleeping.

Over empty nests in the maples hung,Where the summer birds their songs had sung,Noisy and jolly;Over stubble-fields, where the plover's callHad piped, in tune with the waterfall,Notes melancholy.

Then the fir tree buttoned its dark-green coat,With the brown cones, close to its dusky throat,Grim and dreary;While the sober pine, as the sunshine paled,To the patient side of the mountain wailedIts Miserere.

So the King was proud, till he came to lookAt the saucy face of a laughing brook,Shining so merry,Gay, as when the leaves through the summer daysDrifted to and fro, bearing errant faysAcross their ferry.

Then he frowned and stormedj as he bid her stay;But she louder sang, as she kept her way,Merry and sparkling,Singing bars of sunshine and rests of shade,Of the Northern brave nor the spear afraid,Shining and darkling.

He worked all the night by the starry gleams;He laid a raft, made of crystal beams,Over rift and eddy;And he planked it over with drifts of snow,And he nailed it fast to the weeds below,Staunch and steady.

But the rebel brook sang the same old tune,And blinked, through a flaw in the midst, at themoon,Slyly once or twice:"You may chain me under and keep me fast,But you ll hear a song as I hurry pastUnderneath the ice."

There are hidden lives in this world unseen;You may never see through their polished sheen,Nor their fetters know;

But the soul chants on what it needs must say,In its rhythm rude, in its freeborn way,Underneath the snow.