Oh, the rich, dark maple sugar! how it tells me of the woods, Of bland south winds and melting snows, and budding solitudes! Oh, the melting maple sugar! as I taste its luscious sweets, Remembrance in my raptured ear her witching song repeats; Once more my heart is young and pure! once more my footsteps stray Amid the scenes, the lovely scenes, of childhood’s opening day. A frosty night! the searching air made hearth-fires a delight, Stern Winter seemed as if again to rally in his might; But, oh, how pure and beautiful the morning has arisen! What glorious floods of sunshine! off! the dwelling is a prison! Off, off! run, leap, and drink the air! off! leave man’s roofs behind! Nature has more of pleasure now than haunts of human kind. How free the blood is bounding! how soft the sunny glow! And, hearken! fairy tones are ringing underneath the snow! Slump, slump! the gauzy masses glide from hemlock, fence and rock, And yon low, marshy meadow seems as spotted with a flock; Drip, drip, the icicle sends its tears from its sparkling tip, and still With tinkle, tinkle, beneath the snow rings many a viewless rill. We cross the upland pasture, robed with a brown and sodden pall, The maple ridge heaves up before—a sloping Titan wall! The maple ridge! how gloriously, in summer it pitches tent: Beneath, what a mossy floor is spread! above, what a roof is bent! What lofty pillars of fluted bark! what magical changeful tints As the leaves turn over and back again to the breeze’s flying prints. Up, up, the beaten path I climb, with bosom of blithesome cheer, For the song, oft varied with whistle shrill of the woodsman Keene, I hear; The bold and hardy woodsman, whose rifle is certain death, Whose axe, when it rings in the wilderness, makes its glory depart like breath, Whose cabin is built in the neighboring dell, whose dress is the skin of the doe, And who tells long tales of his hunting deeds by the hearth-fire’s cheerful glow. The summit I gain—what soaring trunks—what spreading balloon-like tops! And see! from the barks of each, the sap, slow welling and limpid, drops; A thicket I turn—the gleam of a fire strikes sudden upon my view, And in the midst of the ruddy blaze two kettles of sooty hue, Whilst bending above, with his sinewy frame, and wielding with ready skill His ladle amidst the amber depths, proud king of the scene is Will. The boiling, bubbling liquid! it thickens each moment there, He stirs it to a whirlpool now, now draws thin threads in air; From kettle to kettle he ladles it to granulate rich and slow, Then fashions the mass in a hundred shapes, congealing them in the snow, While the blue-bird strikes a sudden joy through the branches gaunt and dumb, As he seems to ask in his merry strain if the violet yet has come.