When Winter's Closing Shadows Fall

When winter's closing shadows fall
Full early on the whitened wall,
When trimly glows the cottage fire
For home returning son and sire,
We'll gather round the brightening blaze
And sing for them our blithest lays.

When summer evenings cool and still
Cast golden gleams on tower and hill,
When dewy mists are curling thin,
The lowly trellised porch within.
While quiet twilight creeps along
We'll sit and sing some tender song.

The thrush beside the cottage door
His wildest warblings loves to pour,
The blackbird trills his notes of glee
From out the poor man's garden tree,
And the sweet night bird gives her strain
Where peasants wander down the lane.

Learn we of them, o'er lowly things
To shed the charm, sweet music brings
By every cottage hearth be heard,
The singing of some sweet home bird,
To pour on labour's charmèd ear,
The soothing strain he loves to hear.