Wrapt in dark glooms. First, joyless rains obscure,
Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul;
Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods
That rattling wave below. 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 dimpled pool.
The cattle from the untasted fields return,
Or ruminate in the contiguous shade.
Thither, the household, feathery people crowd;
The crested cock, with all his female train,
Pensive and dripping; while the cottage-hind
Hangs o'er the enlivening blaze, and taleful, there
Recounts his simple frolic: much he talks,
And loud he laughs; nor reeks the storm that blows Without; and rattles on his humble roof.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round;
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome Winter Evening in.
How calm is my recess ! and how the frost
Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear
The silence and the warmth enjoy'd within.
I saw the woods and fields, at close of day,
A variegated show; the meadows green,
Though faded; and the lands, where lately waved
The golden harvest, of a mellow brown,
Upturn'd so lately by the forceful share.
I saw, far off, the weedy fallows smile
With verdure, not unprofitable, graz'd
By flocks fast feeding, and selecting, each,
His favorite herb; while all the leafless grove
That skirts the horizon, wore a sable hue,
Scarce notic'd in the kindred dusk of eve.
To-morrow brings a change, a total change,
Which even now, though silently perform'd,
And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face
Of univeral nature, undergoes.
Fast falls a fleecy shower: the downy flakes
Descending, and with never-ceasing lapse,
Softly alighting upon all below,
Assimilate all objects. Earth receives
Gladly, the thickening mantle; and the green
And tender blade, that fear'd the chilling blast,
Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.
Ill fares the traveller now, and he that stalks
In ponderous boots, beside his reeking team.
The wain goes heavily, impeded sore,
By congregated loads, adhering close
To the clogg'd wheels; and in its sluggish pace,
Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow.
The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide;
While every breath, by respiration strong
Forc'd downwards, is consolidated soon
Upon their jutting chests. He, form'd to bear
The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night,
With half-shut eyes, and pucker'd cheeks, and
teeth
Presented bare against the storm, plods on.
One hand secures his hat, save when with both
He brandishes his pliant length of whip,
Resounding oft, and never heard in vain.
Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat;
Such claim compassion in a night like this,
And have a friend in every feeling heart.
Warm'd, while it lasts, by labour, all day long
They brave the season, and yet find at eve,
Ill clad, and fed but sparely, time to cool.
The frugal housewife trembles when she lights
Her scanty stock of brush-wood, blazing clear,
But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys.
The few small embers left, she nurses well;
And while her infant race, with outspread hands
And crowded knees, sit cowering o'er the sparks,
Retires, content to quake, so they be warm.
The taper soon extinguish'd, which I saw
Dangled along at the cold finger's end,
Just when the day declin'd; and the brown loaf
Lodg'd on the shelf, half eaten, without sauce
Of savoury cheese, or butter costlier still ;
Sleep seems their only refuge.
THE FARMER LOST IN THE SNOW.
As thus the snows descend, 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,
From 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 horror fills 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.
He checks his fearful steps, and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death.
In vain for him the 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.
'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb,
Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent, as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood.
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And tinging all with his own rosy hue,
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field;
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge.
The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
Screens them; and seem, half petrified, to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man,
Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,
And patient of the slow pac'd swain's delay.
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