Under the winter moon they lay--
Frozen river, and frozen bay,
Stretching for miles and miles away.
An ocean of silver
With waves of gold,
By the prodigal moonlight,
Over it rolled,
As under their shackles of molten light,
The bay and river throbbed on that night.
Winter was old; a great round sun,
All day long, in the skies had hung,
Promising blossoms soon to come;
Till the heart of the waters
Had caught the light,
And was singing of freedom
Now, in the night,
Learning the song through its icy bars,
And chanting it up to the listening stars.
Skaters skimmed o'er the silver sea,
Idle argosies, winged with glee,
Heeding never the minstrelsy
That was heard in the water's
Impatient dips,
As they lapped the fetters
With hungry lips,
While hurrying onward, with muffled feet,
To pour their wrong in the heart of the deep.
Under the stretches of moonlight sweet,
Under the skaters' careless feet,
Under the icy, silvered sheet,
The river was singing
That old, old song
The world has been singing,
For ages long;
Defiantly asking in name of the right,
God's boundless freedom, God's loving light.
So, when the skaters all were gone,
Leaving the moonlight gleaming on,
I stayed yet by the shore alone;
For the tale it was telling,
Had power to hold
Like that by the "ancient
Mariner" told;
River and moonlight were holding me still,
And like the weird mariner, had their will.
What could I do but choose to stay,
Hearing all the waters might say,
Hearing the booming miles away
Of the great deep ocean,
That's always free,
As it sent its pulsations
Far up to me,
Through the vein-like river, that felt the swell
Of its mighty heart as it rose and fell?
By and by from toward the sea,
Twixt the golden splendor and me,
Broad winged mists floated lazily;
While a wind that was lonesome
And wet with brine,
Slowly moaned up the river,
Bending the pines;
And the moonlight's wonderful sheen of gold
Grew pale and wan in the mists' gray fold.
Then pealed louder the wind's great bells,
Higher the heart of the river swelled,
Grayer the mist over all things fell;
And up through the pauses
There came the roar
Of the surf as it trampled
Along the shore;
And the shackles trembled on river and bay,
Trembled and loosened for miles away.
Trembled and loosened more and more,
Shrieked and parted from shore to shore,
Until the free waters, with maddened roar,
O'er the chains that had bound them,
Sang the glad song,
The world will be singing
Some day ere long;
When it, like the river, unbound and free,
Shall bury its chains in the fathomless sea.
For now, under many an icy creed,
Murmurs the world its terrible needs,
Looking for grander days and deeds;
But great waves of progress
Boom on the shore;
The glad spring cometh,
The wide world o'er;
The wild surf may trample the sands for a night,
The mad winds ring loudly--morn bringeth light.
God's time is coming--winter is old--
Fetters of iron nor chains of gold,
No more than the ice, can forever hold;
For the heart of humanity
Sings in its might
Of a beautiful morning
God shall make light;
But only the faithful who watch for the day,
Shall see how grandly the ice gives way.
