When the frost is in the ground, with its sharp silver pick,
It is digging and prospecting all around;
There are millions of brisk workers, ever eager, ever quick,
Ever toiling when the frost is in the ground.

How they undermine the pebbles, how they break the hardest clod,
And explode their dynamite without a sound!
How they pulverize the path where a thousand feet have trod;
Oh, what mining when the frost is in the ground!

When the April showers fall, and the earth is fair in May,
And the harvests in their plenitude abound,
Let us all be glad that the cold has had its way,
And be grateful that the frost was in the ground.
 
By Amos Russell Wells.