3.  Drooping, the laborer ox
   Stands covered o’er with snow, and then demands
   The fruit of all his toil.  The fowls of heaven,
   Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
   The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
   Which Providence assigns them.

4.  One alone,
   The Redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
   Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
   In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
   His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
   His annual visit.

5.  Half-afraid, he first
   Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
   On the warm hearth; then, hopping o’er the floor,
   Eyes all the smiling family askance,
   And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is;
   Till, more familiar grown, the table crumbs
   Attract his slender feet.

6.  The foodless wilds
   Pour forth their brown inhabitants.  The hare,
   Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
   By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs,
   And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
   Urged on by fearless want.  The bleating kind. 
   Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
   With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,
   Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow

7.  Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind,
   Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens
   With food at will; lodge them below the storm,
   And watch them strict; for from the bellowing east,
   In this dire season, oft the whirlwind’s wing
   Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains
   In one wide waft, and o’er the hapless flocks,
   Hid in the hollow of two neighboring hills,
   The billowy tempest ’whelms; till, upward urged,
   The valley to a shining mountain swells,
   Tipped with a wreath high-curling in the sky

Definitions.—­1.  Ma’zy, winding. 2.  Hoar, white or grayish white.  E-mits’, sends forth, throws out, 3.  Win’now-ing, separat-ing chaff from grain by means of wind.  Boon, a gift. 4.  Em—­broil’ing, throwing into disorder or contention. 5, A-skance’, side-ways. 6.  Wilds, woods, forests.  Be-set’, hemmed in on all sides so that escape is difficult. 7.  Dire, dreadful, terrible.  Waft, a current of wind.  Whelms’, covers completely.

Note.—­4.  Household gods.  An allusion to the belief of the ancient Romans in the Penates—­certain gods who were supposed to protect the household and all connected with it.  The idea here expressed is, that the Redbreast was secure from harm.

XLIX.  BEHIND TIME.

1.  A railroad train was rushing along at almost lightning speed.  A curve was just ahead, beyond which was a station where two trains usually met.  The conductor was late,—­so late that the period during which the up train was to wait had nearly elapsed; but he hoped yet to pass the curve safely.  Suddenly a locomotive dashed into sight right ahead.  In an instant there was a collision.  A shriek, a shock, and fifty souls were in eternity; and all because an engineer had been behind time.