How brightly beamed the pleasures then,
    When frigid fingers came to throw
    A wintry winding sheet of snow
  Around the silent homes of men! 
  But happiness found no alarm,
    For safe with cheer, secure with love,
    She gladly grew and sweetly throve
  Through winters on the olden farm.

  With merry bells and busy sleighs,
    That sung and flew o’er icy vales
    And climbed the hills as fleet as gales,
  Like singing phantoms died the days;
  Or then with coat and muffler warm
    Sweet children glided on the lake,
    Or chased the rabbit through the brake,
  In winters on the olden farm.

  How glad the joys at eventide
    When ’round the hearth-stone’s pleasant heat
    The simple song in music sweet
  From loving voices floated wide! 
  The mellowed apples gave a charm,
    While pop-corn white and cider bright
    With worlds of laughter lent delight
  To winters on the olden farm.

  Thrice happy nights and happy days,
    Sweet isles of pleasure in the past,
    May long your hallowed moments cast
  A sacred sunshine o’er my ways! 
  And where life leads me, gladly arm
    My soul with angel songs of bliss,
    With true embrace and holy kiss,
  O, winters on the olden farm!

“O, WEAK AND WEARY WORLD!”

    O weak and weary world
      Forever struggling on,
  When will thy toils in comfort be impearled,
    When will thy sorrows and thy cares be gone? 
  When shall the races, all ambition dead,
    Forsake the stony slope and rocky steep,
  And in contentment sweetly wed
    The joys that never sleep?

    O, weak and weary world,
      Long hast thou toiled in vain;
  The smoky fumes of woe are darkly curled
    With endless troubles and enduring pain;
  When will thy bosom, faint and helpless grown,
    Rest sweetly in the balmy bowers of ease? 
  Avoid the woes that constant groan
    And follow shapes that please?

    O, weak and weary world,
      Why search the hills and seas? 
  All Nature is in secrecy enfurled
    And thou canst never solve her mysteries;
  Thou canst not understand nor comprehend
    Her varied movements nor the intricate,
  The systems that so far extend,
    Creation wide and great.

    O, weak and weary world,
      Why more attempt advance? 
  Long have thy forces in confusion whirled
    In circles through the misty maze of chance;
  The nations rise and sink in sepulchres,
    Thy peoples perish in a common grave;
  Progression dies, perfection errs,
    Wrong rules the wood and wave.

    O, weak and weary world,
      Let thy ambition rest! 
  Long have defeat and gloomy ruin twirled
    In dark embrace the purest and the best;
  Destruction is thy portion, death thy part,
    Ashes thy glory, and thy splendor dust;
  Then ease the longings of thy breast;
    Serve pleasures well; and trust!