ditions of the poor and suffering; to the hapless state of bird and beast in winter; the description of the peasant perishing in the snow; the Siberian exile, or the Arab pilgrims, all are marked with that humanity and true feeling which show that the poet's virtues "formed the magic of his song." The genuine impulses under which he wrote, he has expressed in one noble stanza in the "Castle of Indolence:"
I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace, You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve: Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave; Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.
When first the soul of love is sent abroad, Warm through the vital air, and on the heart Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin In gallant thought to plume the painted wing, And try again the long-forgotten strain, At first faint-warbled. But no sooner grows The soft infusion prevalent and wide, Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows In music unconfined. Up-springs the lark, Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn; Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture, o'er the heads Of the coy quiristers that lodge within, Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush
And wood-lark, o'er the kind-contending throng Superior heard, run through the sweetest length Of notes; when listening Philomela deigns To let them joy, and purposes, in thought Elate, to make her night excel their day. The black-bird whistles from the thorny brake; The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove: Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze Pour'd out profusely, silent. Join'd to these Innumerous songsters, in the freshening shade Of new-sprung leaves, their modulations mix Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw, And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone, Aid the full concert: while the stock-dove breathes A melancholy murmur through the whole. 'Tis love creates their melody, and all
This waste of music is the voice of love; That e'en to birds, and beasts, the tender arts
Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind
Around th' adjoining brook, that purls along The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock, Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool, Now starting to a sudden stream, and now Gently diffused into a limpid plain;
A various group the herds and flocks compose; Rural confusion! on the grassy bank Some ruminating lie; while others stand Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip The circling surface. In the middle droops
The strong laborious ox, of honest front,
Which incomposed he shakes; and from his sides The troublous insects lashes with his tail, Returning still. Amid his subjects safe, Slumbers the monarch-swain; his careless arm Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustain'd; Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands fill'd; There, listening every noise, his watchful dog.
'Tis listening fear and dumb amazement all; When to the startled eye the sudden glance Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud; · And following slower, in explosion vast, The Thunder raises his tremendous voice.- At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven, t The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes, - And rolls its awful burden on the wind, The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more The noise astounds: till over head a sheet Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts, - And opens wider; shuts and opens still. Expansive, wrapping aether in a blaze. Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar, Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal Crush'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.
Confess'd from yonder slow-extinguish'd clouds, All ether softening, sober evening takes Her wonted station in the middle air; A thousand shadows at her beck. First this She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still, In circle following circle, gathers round, To close the face of things. A fresher gale
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn; While the quail clamors for his running mate. Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze, A whitening shower of vegetable down Amusive floats. The kind impartial care Of nature naught disdains: thoughtful to feed Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year, From field to field the feather'd seeds she wings. His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies merry-hearted; and by turns relieves The ruddy milkmaid of her brimming pail; The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart- Unknowing what the joy-mix'd anguish means- Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. Onward they pass o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng, In various game and revelry, to pass The summer-night, as village stories tell. But far about they wander from the grave Of him whom his ungentle fortune urged Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower Is also shunn'd; whose mournful chambers hold- So night-struck Fancy dreams--the yelling ghost.
Say then, where lurk the vast eternal springs, That, like creating Nature, lie conceal'd From mortal eye, yet with their lavish stores Refresh the globe, and all its joyous tribes? O, thou pervading Genius, given to man, To trace the secrets of the dark abyss, O, lay the mountains bare! and wide display Their hidden structures to th' astonish'd view! Strip from the branching Alps their piny load; The huge encumbrance of horrific woods From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretch'd Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds! Give opening Hamus to my searching eye, And high Olympus pouring many a stream! O, from the sounding summits of the north, The Dofrine Hills, through Scandinavia roll'd, The farthest Lapland and the frozen main; From lofty Caucasus, far-seen by those Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil; From cold Riphæan Rocks, which the wild Russ Believes the stony girdle of the world;
And all the dreadful mountains, wrapt a storm, Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods; O, sweep th' eternal snows! Hung o'er the deep,
That ever works beneath his sounding base, Bid Atlas, propping heaven, as poets feign, His subterranean wonders spread! unveil The miny caverns, blazing on the day, Of Abyssinia's cloud-compelling cliffs, And of the bending Mountains of the Moon! O'ertopping all these giant sons of earth, Let the dire Andes, from the radiant line Stretch'd to the stormy seas that thunder round The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold! Amazing scene! Behold! the glooms disclose: I see the rivers in their infant beds!
Deep, deep I hear them, laboring to get free!
A MAN PERISHING IN THE SNOWS OF WINTER.
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 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 vigor 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. 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 unknown, 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 snow, a stiffen'd corse- Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
THE VARIOUS SUFFERINGS IN WINTER.
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 dungeon 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 pierced by wintry winds, How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty. How many shake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind, Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse; Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life, They furnish matter for the tragic muse. Evin 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 retired 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; And social tear would rise, the social sigh; And into clear perfection, gradual bliss, Refining still, the social passions work.
MORAL OF THE SEASONS.
'Tis done! Dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
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