Verses written on the Severity of Winter

While the fierce winter rages all around, And the hard earth's with frosty fetters bound; While clothes its surface a thin garb of snow, And rapid rivers now no longer flow: Tho' keen the piercing cold, the vital flood, The rich can warm with raiment, fire and food; But whence the poor enable to sustain Oppressive want, and hunger's urgent pain? How is it, naked, hungry—they can bear, In their defenceless state, the piercing air? Whence shall their wants the just supply receive? Ought man refuse, when God empow'rs to give? None can—but those in whom compassion fails; In whom nor love of God nor man prevails; In whom all serious sense of duty's lost, Colder their hearts than snow, and harder than the frost.