To Dorothea.<br><br>Dear little maid with laughing eyes,<br>Wistful, wilful, winsome, wise,<br>Fain would I lightly poetise<br>In stanzas cheery;<br>But days are short and nights are long,<br>And shrill winds pipe a restless song,<br>Complaining of the wide world's wrong<br>In accents dreary.<br><br>Ah! welladay! the mist and rain<br>Drive rudely over hill and plain;<br>December hurries up amain<br>With drum and tabor;<br>And blown to left and blown to right,<br>Scared birds that cannot keep their flight<br>Drop, baffled and outwearied quite<br>By battling labour.<br><br>We cannot speed the blust'ring hours,<br>Or quell the angry Winter's powers,<br>Or bring the sunshine and the flowers<br>We love so dearly;<br>But we can sing and we can play,<br>And we can make the dullest day<br>As merry as the lark in May<br>That carolls clearly.