Page images
PDF
EPUB

When Summer reddens, and when Autumn beams; | Disclos'd, and kindled, by refining frost,

Or in the wintery glebe whatever lies
Conceal'd, and fattens with the richest sap:
These are not wanting; nor the milky drove,
Luxuriant, spread o'er all the lowing vale;
Nor bleating mountains; nor the chide of streams,
And hum of bees, inviting sleep sincere
Into the guiltless breast, beneath the shade,
Or thrown at large amid the fragrant hay;
Nor aught besides of prospect, grove, or song,
Dim grottoes, gleaming lakes, and fountains clear.
Here too dwells simple truth; plain innocence;
Unsullied beauty; sound unbroken youth,
Patient of labour, with a little pleas'd;
Health ever blooming; unambitious toil;
Calm contemplation, and poetic ease.

Let others brave the flood in quest of gain,
And beat, for joyless months, the gloomy wave.
Let such as deem it glory to destroy,
Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek;
Unpierc'd, exulting in the widow's wail,
The virgin's shriek, and infant's trembling cry.
Let some, far distant from their native soil,
Urg'd or by want or harden'd avarice,
Find other lands beneath another Sun.
Let this through cities work his eager way,
By regal outrage and establish'd guile,
The social sense extinct; and that ferment
Mad into tumult the seditious herd,
Or melt them down to slavery. Let these
Insnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting discord, and perplexing right,
An iron race! and those of fairer front,
But equal inhumanity, in courts,
Delusive pomp, and dark cabals delight;
Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying smile,
And tread the weary labyrinth of state.
While he, from all the stormy passions free
That restless men involve, hears, and but hears,
At distance safe, the human tempest roar,
Wrapt close in conscious peace. The fall of kings,
The rage of nations, and the crush of states,
Move not the man, who, from the world escap'd,
In still retreats, and flowery solitudes,
To Nature's voice attends, from month to month,
And day to day, through the revolving year ;
Admiring sees her in her every shape;
Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart;
Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more,
He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting

gems,

Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale
Into his freshen'd soul, her genial hours
He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening blossom breathes in vain.
In Summer he, beneath the living shade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,
Or Hemus cool, reads what the Muse, of these,
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers sung;
Or what she dictates writes: and oft, an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world,
And tempts the sickled swain into the field,
Seiz'd by the general joy, his heart distends
With gentle throws; and through the tepid gleams
Deep musing, then he best exerts his song.
E'en Winter, wild to him, is full of bliss.
The mighty tempest, and the hoary waste,
Abrupt, and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,
Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies,

Pours every lustre on th' exalted eye.

A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure,
And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing,
O'er land and sea imagination roams;

Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his powers;
Or in his breast heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels;
The modest eye, whose beams on his alone
Ecstatic shine; the little strong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond paternal soul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns;
For happiness and true philosophy

Are of the social still, and siniling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in guilt,
And guilty cities, never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man!
Oh, Nature! all-sufficient! over all!
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to Heaven; thy rolling wonder there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely scatter'd o'er the blue immense,
Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws,
Give me to scan; through the disclosing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral strata there;
Thrust, blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that the rising system, more complex,
Of animals; and higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing passions endless shift;
These ever open to my ravish'd eye;

A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition; under closing shades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreame. From thee begin,
Dwell all on thee, with thee conclude my song
And let me never, never stray from thee!

WINTER. 1726.

ARGUMENT.

The subject proposed. Address to the earl of
Wilmington. First approach of Winter. Ac-
cording to the natural course of the Season, va-
rious storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow.
The driving of the snows: a man perishing
among them; whence reflections on the wants
and miscrics of human life. The wolves des-
cending from the Alps and Apennines. A winter
evening described: as spent by philosophers;
by the country people; in the city. Frost.--
A view of Winter within the polar circle.
thaw. The whole concluding with moral re-
flections on a future state.

A

[blocks in formation]

These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought,
And Heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!
Congenial horrours, hail! with frequent foot,
Pleas'd have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nurs'd by careless solitude I liv'd,
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy,
Pleas'd have I wander'd through your rough
domain;

Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;
Or seen the deep fermenting tempest brew'd
In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the south
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and
To thee, the patron of her first essay, [smil'd.
The Muse, O Wilmington! renews her song.
Since has she rounded the revolving year:
Skimm'd the gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne,
Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rise;
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale;
And now among the Wintery clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling storm, she tries to soar;
To swell her note with all the rushing winds;
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods ;
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy! could she fill thy judging ear
With bold description, and with manly thought.
Nor art thou skill'd in aweful schemes alone,
And how to make a mighty people thrive:
But equal goodness, sound integrity,
A firm unshaken uncorrupted soul
Amid a sliding age, and burning strong,
Not vainly blazing for thy country's weal,
A steady spirit regularly free;

These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse
Record what envy dares not flattery call.

Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
And tierce Aquarius stains th' inverted year;
Hung o'er the farthest verge of Heaven, the Sun
Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day.
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Through the thick air; as, cloth'd in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And, soon-descending, to the long dark night,
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.
Nor is the night unwish'd; while vital heat,
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake.
Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast,
Deep-ting'd and damp, and congregated clouds,
And all the vapoury turbulence of Heaven,
Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls,
A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,
Through Nature shedding influence malign,
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.
The soul of man dies in him, loathing life,
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop; and o'er the furrow'd land,
Fresh from the plough, the dun discolour'd flocks,
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm;
And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,

And fractur'd mountains wild, the brawling brook And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan, Resounding long in listening Fancy's ear.

Then comes the father of the tempest forth,

Wrapt in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure | Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul; Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods, That grumbling wave below. Th' unsightly plain Lies a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still Combine, and deepening into night shut up The day's fair face. The wanderers of Heaven, Each to his home, retire; save those that love To take their pastime in the troubled air, Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool. The cattle from th' untasted fields return, And ask, with meaning lowe, their wonted stalls, Or ruminate in the contiguous shade. Thither the houshold feathery people crowd, The crested cock, with all his female train, Pensive, and dripping; while the cottage-bind Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful there Recounts his simple frolic: much he talks, And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows

Without, and rattles on his humble roof.

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swell'd, And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'erspread, At last the rous'd up river pours along: Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes, From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild, Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far; Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads, Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrain'd Between two meeting hills, it bursts away, Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream; There gathering triple force, rapid, and deep, It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.

Nature great parent! whose unceasing hand Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year, How mighty, how majestic, are thy works! With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul! That sees astonish'd! and astonish'd sings! Ye too, ye winds! that now begin to blow, With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you. Where are your stores, ye powerful beings! say, Where your aërial magazines reserv'd, To swell the brooding terrours of the storm? In what far distant region of the sky, Hush'd in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm?

When from the pallid sky the Sun descends, With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb Uncertain wanders, stain'd; red fiery streaks Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet Which master to obey: while rising slow, Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the Moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. Seen through the turbid fluctuating air, The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray; Or frequent seen to shoot athwart the gloom, And long behind them trail the whitening blaze. Snatch'd in short eddies, plays the wither'd leaf; And on the flood the dancing feather floats. With broaden'd nostrils to the sky up-turn'd, The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale. Ev'n as the matron, at her nightly task, With pensive labour draws the flaxen thread, The wasted taper and the crackling flame Foretell the blast. But chief the plumy race, The tenants of the sky, its changes speak. Retiring from the downs, where all day long They pick'd their scanty fare, a blackening train

[blocks in formation]

Loud shrieks the soaring hern; and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide

Where now, ye lying vanities of life!
Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train!
Where are you now? and what is your amount?
Vexation, disappointment, and remorse.
Sad, sickening thought! and yet deluded man,
A scene of crude disjointed visions past,
And broken slumbers, rises still resolv'd,
With new-flush'd hopes, to run the giddy round.
Father of light and life! thou good Supreme!

And blind commotion heaves; while from the O, teach me what is good! teach me Thyscif! shore,

Eat into caverns by the restless wave,

And forest-rustling mountains, comes a voice,
That solemn sounding bids the world prepare.
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And burls the whole precipitated air,
Down, in a torrent. On the passive main
Descends th' ethereal force, and with strong gust
Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep.
Through the black night that sits immense around,
Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn:
Meantime the mountain-billows to the clouds
In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge,
Burst into chaos with tremendous roar,
And anchor'd navies from their stations drive,
Wild as the winds across the howling waste
Of mighty waters: now th' inflated wave
Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot
Into the secret chambers of the deep,
The wintery Baltic thundering o'er their head.
Emerging thence again, before the breath
Of full-exerted Heaven they wing their course,
And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock,
Or shoal insidious break not their career,
And in loose fragments fling them floating round.
Nor less at land the loosen'd tempest reigns.
The mountain thunders; and its sturdy sons
Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade.
Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast,
The dark way-faring stranger breathless toils,
And, often falling, climbs against the blast.
Low waves the rooted forest, vex'd, and sheds
What of its tarnish'd honos yet remain;
Dash'd down, and scatter'd, by the tearing wind's
Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.

Thus struggling through the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof,
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast.
Then too, they say, through all the burden'd air,
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant
That, utter'd by the demon of the night, [sighs,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.

Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds com-
With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky. [mixt
All Nature reels: till Nature's King, who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of the carcering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm;
Then strait air, sea, and earth, are hush'd at once.
As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds,
Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom.
Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep,
Let me associate with the serious Night,
And Contemplation her sedate compeer;
Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day,
And lay the meddling senses all aside.

Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit! and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!

The keener tempests rise: and fuming dun
From all the livid east, or piercing north,
Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb
A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congeal'd.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;

| And the sky saddens with the gather'd storm.
Through the hush'd air the whitening shower
descends,

At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day,
With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low, the woods
Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid Sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox
Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of Heaven,
Tam'd by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The red-breast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky,
In joyless fields, and thorny thickets, leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid he first

Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance.

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is:
Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though, timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urg'd on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak Heaven, and next the glistening

Earth

With looks of dumb despair; then, sad-dispers'd,
Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of snow.

Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be
Baffle the raging year, and fill their penns [kind;
With food at will; lodge them below the storin,
And watch them strict: for from the bellowing East,
In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing
Sweeps up the burthen of whole wintery plains
At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks,
Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills,
The billowy tempest whelms; till, upward urg'd,
The valley to a shining mountain swells,
Tipt with a wreath high-curling in the sky.

As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce,

All Winter drives along the darken'd air;
In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain:
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
Fron hill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts
of home

Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horrour, tills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track, and blest abode of man;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent beyond the power of frost ;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,

Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land, un-
known,

What water of the still unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils,
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish Nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
Ah, little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround;
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;

Ah, little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death
And all the sad variety of pain.
How many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame. How many bleed,
By shameful variance betwixt man and man.
How many pine in want, and dungeou glooms;
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery. Sore pierc'd by wintery winds,
How many shrink into the sordid nut
Of cheerless poverty. How many shake
With all the fiercer tertures of the mind,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse ;
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life,
They furnish matter for the tragic Muse.
Ev'n in the vale, where Wisdom loves to dwell
With Friendship, Peace, and Contemplation join'd,

How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop
In deep retir'd distress. How many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appall'd,
And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think;
| The conscious heart of Charity would warm,
And her wide wish Benevolence dilate;
The social tear would rise, the social sigh;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Retining still, the social passions work.

And here can I forget the generous band',
Who, touch'd with human woe, redressive search'd
Into the horrours of the gloomy jail?

Unpitied, and unheard, where misery moans;
Where sickness piues; where thirst and hunger
And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice. [burn,
While in the land of liberty, the land
Whose every street and public meeting glow
With open freedom, little tyrants rag'd;
Snatch'd the lean morsel from the starving mouth;
Tore from cold wintery limbs the tatter'd weed;
Ev'n robb'd them of the last of comforts, sleep;
The free-born Briton to the dungeon chain'd,
Or, as the lust of cruelty prevail'd,

At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious stripes :
And crush'd out lives, by secret barbarous ways,
That for their country would have toil'd, or bled.
O, great design! if executed well,
With patient care, and wisdom-temper'd zeal.
Ye sons of mercy! yet resume the search;
Drag forth the legal monsters into light,
Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod,
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much still untouch'd remains; in this rank age,
Much is the patriot's weeding hand requir'd.
The toils of law, (what dark insidious men
Have cumberous added to perplex the truth,
And lengthen simple justice into trade)
How glorious were the day! that saw these broke,
And every man within the reach of right.

By wintery famine rous'd, from all the tract
Of horrid mountains which the shining Alps,
And wavy Appennine, and Pyrences,
Branch out stupendous into distant lands;
Cruel as Death, and hungry as the Grave!
Burning for blood! bony, and gaunt, and grim!
Assembling wolves in raging troops descend;
And, pouring o'er the country, bear along,
Keen as the north wind sweeps the glossy snow.
All is their prize. They fasten on the steed,
Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.
Nor can the bull his awful front defend,
Or shake the murdering savages away.
Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fly,
And tear the screaming infant from her breast.
The godlike face of man avails him nought.
E'vn Beauty, force divine! at whose bright glance
The generous lion stands in soften'd gaze,
Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguish'd prey.
But if, appriz'd of the severe attack,
The country be shut up, lur'd by the scent,
On church-yards drear (inhuman to relate !)
The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig
The shrouded body from the grave; o'er which,

1 The Jail Committee, in the year 1729.

Mix'd with foul shades, and frighted ghosts, they howl.

Among those hilly regions, where embrac'd In peaceful vales the happy Grisons dwell, Oft, rushing sudden from the loaded cliffs, Mountains of snow their gathering terrours roll. From steep to steep, loud-thundering down they

come,

A wintery waste in dire commotion all;

And herds, and flocks, and travellers, and swains,
And sometimes whole brigades of marching troops,
Or hamlets sleeping in the dead of night,
Are deep beneath the smothering ruin whelm'd.

Now all amid the rigours of the year,
In the wild depth of Winter, while without
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat,
Between the groaning forest and the shore
Beat by the boundless multitude of waves,
A rural, shelter'd, solitary scene;
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join,
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead;
Sages of ancient time, as gods rever'd,
As gods beneficent, who blest mankind
With arts, with arms, and humaniz'd a world.
Rous'd at th' inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-liv'd volume; and, deep musing, hail
The sacred shades, that slowly-rising pass
Before my wondering eyes. First Socrates,
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants single stood,
Invincible! calm reason's holy law,
That voice of God within th' attentive mind,
Obeying, fearless, or in life, or death:
Great moral teacher! wisest of mankind!
Solon the next, who built his common-weal
On equity's wide base; by tender laws
A lively people curbing, yet undamp'd,
Preserving still that quick peculiar fire,
Whence in the laurel'd field of finer arts,
And of bold freedom, they unequal'd shone,
The pride of smiling Greece, and human-kind.
Lycurgus then, who bow'd beneath the force
Of strictest discipline, severely wise,
All human passions. Following him, I see,
As at Thermopylæ he glorious fell,
The firm devoted chief, who prov'd by deeds
The hardest lesson which the other taught.
Then Aristides lifts his honest front;
Spotless of heart, to whom th' unflattering voice
Of freedom gave the noblest name of just;
In pure majestic poverty rever'd;
Who, ev'n his glory to his country's weal
Submitting, swell'd a haughty rival's fame.
Rear'd by his care, of softer ray appears
Cimon, sweet-soul'd; whose genius, rising strong,
Shook off the load of young debauch; abroad
The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend
Of every worth and every splendid art;
Modest and simple in the pomp of wealth.
Then the last worthies of declining Greece,
Late call'd to glory, in unequal times,
Pensive, appear. The fair Corinthian boast,
Timoleon, happy temper! mild, and firm,
Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled.
And, equal to the best, the Theban pair',
Whose virtues, in kersie concord join'd,

1 Leonidas. 2 Themistocles.
Pelopidas and Epaminondas.

VOL XIL

Their country rais'd to freedom, empire, fame.
He too, with whom Athenian honour sunk;
And left a mass of sordid lees behind,
Phocion the good; in public life severe,
To virtue still inexorably firm;

But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,
Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth'd his brow,
Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind.
And he, the last of old Lycurgus' sons,
The generous victim to that vain attempt,
To save a rotten state, Agis, who saw
Ev'n Sparta's self to servile avarice sunk.
The two Achaïan heroes close the train:
Aratus, who a while relum'd the soul
Of fondly lingering liberty in Greece:
And he her darling, as her latest hope,
The gallant Philopomen; who to arms
Turn'd the luxurious pomp he could not cure;
Or toiling in his farm a simple swain;
Or bold and skilful, thundering in the field.

Of rougher front, a mighty people come !
A race of heroes! in those virtuous times,
Which knew no stain, save that with partial flame
Their dearest country they too fondly lov'd:
Her better founder first, the light of Rome,
Numa, who soften'd her rapacious sons :
Servius the king, who laid the solid base
On which o'er Earth the vast republic spread.
Then the great consuls venerable rise.
The public father who the private quell'd,
As on the dread tribunal sternly sad.
He, whom his thankless country could not lose,
Camillus, only vengeful to his foes.
Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold;
And Cincinnatus, aweful from the plough.
Thy willing victim2, Carthage, bursting loose
From all that pleading Nature could oppose,
From a whole city's tears, by rigid faith
Imperious call'd, and honour's dire command
Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave,
Who soon the race of spotless glory ran,
And warm in youth, to the poetic shade
With Friendship and Philosophy retir'd.
Tully, whose powerful eloquence a while
Restrain'd the rapid fate of rushing Rome.
Unconquer'd Cato, virtuous in extrême.
And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart,
Whose steady arm, by aweful virtue urg'd,
Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend.
Thousands besides the tribute of a verse
Demand; but who can count the stars of Heavon❤
Who sing their influence on this lower world?

Behold, who yonder comes! in sober state,
Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun :
'Tis Phoebus self, or cise the Mantuan Swain!
Great Homer too appears, of daring wing,
Parent of song! and equal by his side,

The British Muse; join'd hand in hand they walk,
Darkling, full up the middle steep to Fame.
Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touch
Pathetic drew th' impassion'd heart, and charin'd
Transported Athens with the moral scene:
Nor those who, tuneful, wak'd th' enchanting lyre.
First of your kind! society divine;

Still visit thus my nights, for you reserv'd,
And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours,
Silence, thon lonely power! the door be thine
See on the hallow'd hour that none intrude,

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »