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With the cold, cold dew they shiver.
Oh, woe is me, for the suffering tree,
And the little green leaves that shiver and dream
In the icy moonbeam.
Oh, woe is me!
I would I were clad with leaves so green,
And grew like this elm, a fair forest queen;
Could shoot up ten fingers like branches tall,
Till the cold—cold dews would on me fall;
For to shiver is sweet when winds blow keen,
Or hoar frost powders the dreary scene.
And oh! I would like that my flesh could creep
With cold, as it was wont to do;
And that my heart, like a flower went to sleep,
When Winter his icy trumpet blew,
And shook o'er the wolds and moorland fells,
His crisping beard of bright icicles,
While his breath, as it swept adown the strath,
Smote with death the burn as it brawled on its path,
Stilled its tongue, and laid it forth
In a lily-white smock from the freezing north.
But woe, deep woe,
It is not so.
