Classic Poem

The winds are out with loud increasing shout,
Where late before them walked the biting frost;
Whirling the leaves in their wild sport about,
And strewing twig and limb our path acrost;
But still the sun looks kindly on the year,
And days of summer warmth will linger yet;
And still the birds amid the fields we hear,
For the ripe grain and scattered seeds they get;
The shortening days grow slowly less and less,
And winter comes with many a warning on;
And still some day with kindly smile will bless,
Till the last hope's deceit is fledged and gone;
Before the deepening snows block up the way,
And the sweet fields are made of howling blasts the prey.