On strides the tyrant over the rushing rivers and broad lakes , which turn to rock beneath his footsteps . His dreary empire is established ; all around stretches the desolation of the pole . Yet not ungrateful be his New England children -LRB- for Winter is our sire , though a stern and rough one -RRB- -- not ungrateful even for the severities which have nourished our unyielding strength of character . And let us thank him , too , for the sleigh-rides cheered by the music of merry bells ; for the crackling and rustling hearth when the ruddy firelight gleams on hardy manhood and the blooming cheek of woman : for all the home-enjoyments and the kindred virtues which flourish in a frozen soil . Not that we grieve when , after some seven months of storm and bitter frost , Spring , in the guise of a flower-crowned virgin , is seen driving away the hoary despot , pelting him with violets by the handful and strewing green grass on the path behind him . Often ere he will give up his empire old Winter rushes fiercely buck and hurls a snowdrift at the shrinking form of Spring , yet step by step he is compelled to retreat northward , and spends the summer month within the Arctic circle . Such fantasies , intermixed among graver toils of mind , have made the winter 's day pass pleasantly . Meanwhile , the storm has raged without abatement , and now , as the brief afternoon declines , is tossing denser volumes to and fro about the atmosphere . On the window-sill there is a layer of snow reaching halfway up the lowest pane of glass . The garden is one unbroken bed . Along the street are two or three spots of uncovered earth where the gust has whirled away the snow , heaping it elsewhere to the fence-tops or piling huge banks against the doors of houses . A solitary passenger is seen , now striding mid-leg deep across a drift , now scudding over the bare ground , while his cloak is swollen with the wind . And now the jingling of bells -- a sluggish sound responsive to the horse 's toilsome progress through the unbroken drifts -- announces the passage of a sleigh with a boy clinging behind and ducking his head to escape detection by the driver . Next comes a sledge laden with wood for some unthrifty housekeeper whom winter has surprised at a cold hearth . But what dismal equipage now struggles along the uneven street ? A sable hearse bestrewn with snow is bearing a dead man through the storm to his frozen bed . Oh how dreary is a burial in winter , when the bosom of Mother Earth has no warmth for her poor child ! Evening -- the early eve of December -- begins to spread its deepening veil over the comfortless scene . The firelight gradually brightens and throws my flickering shadow upon the walls and ceiling of the chamber , but still the storm rages and rattles against the windows . Alas !
I shiver and think it time to be disconsolate , but , taking a farewell glance at dead Nature XXXXX her shroud , I perceive a flock of snowbirds skimming lightsomely through the tempest and flitting from drift to drift as sportively as swallows in the delightful prime of summer .
On against along among around behind in that through within