An’ close thy e’e?
Yet amid all these indications of the severity of the season, there are pleasing circumstances which sometimes occur. In the prairies of our western world, the song of the prairie-thrush is heard occasionally ushering in the new year. This is the most early songster in that part of the world, which, sitting on the top of some high bending shrub, in showery weather, as he rides to and fro with the breezes, exerts his throat in loud, uninterrupted strains, which has gained for him the appellation of the storm-bird.
In this month the small wren of the prairie sings melodiously as it hops from reed to reed in search of food. If we examine the plants at this season of the year, we perceive the hand of the Creator, in his wise protection of what he intends for the happiness of his children. Those plants called herbaceous, which die down to the root every autumn, are safely concealed under ground, preparing their new shoots to burst forth when the earth is softened by spring. Shrubs and trees, which are exposed to the open air, he has closely wrapped in a covering sufficient to protect them from the most severe weather. The buds are protected in their hard-coated calyx to secure their forthcoming beauty from decay; if one of those buds be carefully opened, it is found to consist of young leaves rolled together, within which are even all the blossoms in miniature, which are afterward intended to delight our eyes, or probably to refresh by their fragrance our senses. As that great and celebrated naturalist, Cuvier, would often say to his pupils, “Show me a botanist who is a skeptic, and I will show you an idiot. An infidel naturalist is a rara avis I have never yet met with.”
This gloomy month is, however, not altogether without flowers, for now the Heleborus fœtidus, and various mosses blossom in our woods, and fructification goes on below a depth of snow. One of the most remarkable products of the season are the white berries of the mistletoe. This plant, which was almost worshiped by the Druids as a sacred emblem and decoration of their domestic hearths, during the festival of Christmas, is chiefly remarkable for the peculiarity of its growth—being always found adhering to and deriving its nourishment from the juice of some tree, and never attached to the earth. It flowers early in the year, but its berries do not make their appearance till December. They are the food of non-migrating birds of the most hardy kinds; the plant is principally found attached to the apple-tree, but sometimes, though rarely, on some others; it is least frequently found on the oak, on which its occurrence is considered a curiosity by botanists.
We have, however, in the month of January, occasionally, days which we, for the moment, regard as of exceeding beauty, because, perhaps, of the contrast between them and seasonable weather amidst which they occur. The sun shines bright and warm, the gnat is tempted forth from its secret dormitory, and we are apt to forget that the winter is not yet “past and gone.” The morrow recalls us to a full sense of our position in the scale of the seasons—the sky is black and threatening, or a pelting storm of snow and sleet so alters the fair face of nature, that we are glad once more to take refuge from her frowns amid the delights of the social hearth.
The amusements of sliding, skating, and other pastimes on the ice, give life to this dreary season; and during the continuance of our long frosts, armies of skaters of all ages may be seen almost equal to the skaters of Wilna, where the peasant girl frequently skates sixteen miles to market to dispose of her basket of eggs, which she carries on her head.
The opening and the close of the year each afford topics and occasion for mournful meditation. Who is he, on taking a view of the past, but would gladly recall many words and actions which at the moment of utterance were thought to be correct, or actions for which he would gladly make restitution? The following reflections are very appropriate:
“I stood between the meeting years,
The coming and the past;
And I asked of the future one—