Excerpt from A Poem: Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, July 18, 1850 The American Legend. When, hoarse and loud, the winds of Winter blow, And moonlight glitters on the crisping snow, - When streams amid their sheltering sedges yield, And hide their fretting with a crystal shield, - When tags of ice the oak's rough beard adorn, And, sleety-haired, the willow sighs forlorn, While, bent with snow, like some grief-burdened brow White ere its season, snaps the hemlock-bough, - How warm and cheerful, through the dreary cold, Beams the lit window of a farm-house old! About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.