Charles S. Raddin. WINTER SONG. Sing ho! for the hilltop bold and bare, Where the bracing breezes blow! There’s a frosty edge on the wintry air, Exhilaration keen and rare That sets the heart aglow. Over the crest the snow lies deep, Over the brow of the hill. Down below the woodlands sleep, Blanketed well on the sloping steep ’Neath a snow sheet white and chill. Sing ho, sing ho, for the galloping gale That sweeps the summit clear, And drives the mass of icy shale Into the pines, whose eery wail Fills timid souls with fear! There’s that in the winter’s whistling wind That stirs dead hearts to life, And energy and health you’ll find In the breath of the breeze that’s rough yet kind, That’s keen as a surgeon’s knife. —Frank Farrington. BUDS OF PROMISE. COLD WEATHER NOTES FROM NATURE. It has become a conventional habit with us to look upon the winter season as unproductive of artistic interest so far as Nature’s decorations are concerned. And we note it as a period of rest from the exhaustion of seed time and harvest. But to the initiated and observant, it is now that the change worketh fast, and barely has the network of fretted branches, looming up so purple against an autumnal sky, become a realization, before the winter progress of the budding forest has changed the dreamy violet to a rich ruddy brown, in promise of a future fulfillment of a rich verdure of living greens.