He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes
     You may trace his footsteps now
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the
     brown hill's withered brow.
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees
     where their pleasant green came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes,
     have shaken them down to earth.

He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!
     from the frozen Labrador,
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which
     the white bear wanders o'er,
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the
     luckless forms below
In the sunless cold of the lingering night into
     marble statues grow

He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes
     on the rushing Northern blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his
     fearful breath went past.
With an unscorched wing he has hurried on,
     where the fires of Hecla glow
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient
     ice below.

He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes
     and the quiet lake shall feel
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to
     the skater's heel;
And the streams which danced on the broken
     rocks, or sang to the leaning grass,
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in
     mournful silence pass.
He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!
     Let us meet him as we may,
And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil
     power away;
And gather closer the circle round, when that
     fire-light dances high,
And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as
     his sounding wing goes by!

1830.