S i A S © N S
JAMES THOMSON.
NSW. YORK:
:>. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
200 Broadway,
aid Geo.S. Apphtoji, UbChciinu-st.Pliil^delohia.
new-york:
HENRY LUDWIG, Printer,
72, Vesejrstreet.
M»-6.Fv.).<iRV:
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.
James Thorns 'n, the son of a minister! well esteemed foe
bis piety anJ diligrence, was born September 7, 1700, at EJ-
nam,' in the shire of Roxburg'h, of which his father was pas-
tor. ? His mother, whose name was Hume,* inheriteJ as co-
heiress a portion of a small estate. The revenue of a parish
'n -^ jtland is seldom la'T^ei and it was probably in com-
.dtioAjf the fflteculty with which Mr. Thomson sup-
e(^is family, liaving- nine children, that Mr. Ricarton,
t'i'-hbouring' minister, discovering' in James uncommon
mises of future excellence, undertook to superintend his
' ation and proviilehim books.
e was taught the common rudiments of learning at the
/ ool of Jedhurg'h, a place which he deliofhts to recollect ill
his poem of ' Autumn ;' bu^was not considered by his master
as superior to common b^PB^hous'h in those early days he
amused his patron and his friends with poetical compositions ;
with which, however, he so little pleased himself, that ou
every new year's day he threw into the fire all the productions
of the foregoino' year.
From thil^CTDol h« was removed to Edinburgh, where he
he haiT not' resided two years when his failfier died, and left all
his children to the care cfTTfTeir mother, who raised upon her
little estate what money a moTlg-a^'e could afford, and, remov-
ing- with her family to Edinbtlrgh, lived to see her son rising
into eminence. ""
• This t.ppearsto be an error, as his mother's name was
I Beatrix Trotter. His grandmother's name was Hume.
Q ^
IV LIFEOFTHOMSON.
The desiofn of Thomson's friends was to breed him a min-
ister. He lived at Edinburgh, as at school, without distinc-
tion or expectation, till, at the usual time, he performed a
probationary exercise by explaining a psalm. His diction
was so poetically splendid, that Mr. Hamilton, the Professor
of Divinity, reproved him for speakinj^ language unintelliorible
to a popular audience : and he censured one ofhis expressisns
as indecent, if not profane.
This rebuke is reported to have repressed his thoughts of an
ecclesiastical character, and he probably cultivated with new
diligence his blossoms of poetry, which, however, were in some
danger of a blast; for, submitting his productions to some
who thought themselves qualified to criticise, he heard of no-
thing but faults; but finding other judges more favourable,
he did not suffer himself to sink into despondence.
He easily discovered that, the only stage on which a poet
could appear with any hope of advantage was London; a
place too wide for the operation of petty competition and pri-
vate malignity, where merit might soon become conspicuous,
and would find friends as soon as it became reputable to be-
friend it. A lady who was acquainted with his mother ad-
vised him to the journey, and promised some countenance or
assistance, which at last he never received ; however, he jus-
tified his adventure by her encouragement, and came to seek
in London patronage and fame.
At his arrival he found his way to Mr. Mallet, then tutor to
the sons of the Duke of Montrose. He had recommendations
to several persons of consequence, which he had tied up care-
fully in his handkerchief; but as he passed along the streets,
with the gaping curiosity of a new-comer, his attention was
upon every thing rather than his pocket, and his magazine of
credentials was stolen from him.
His first want was a pair of shoes. For the supply of all
his necessities, his whole fund was his Winter, which for a
time could find no purchaser; till, at last, Mr. Millar was
o
LIFE OFTHOM SON. V
persuaded to buy it at a low price ; and this low price he had
for some lime reason toreg-ret; but, by accident, Mr. What-
ley, a man not wholly unknown among authors, happening to
turn his eye upon it, was so delighted, that he ran from place
to place celebrating ils excellence. Thomson olnained like-
wise the notice of Aaron Hill, whom, being friendless and
indigent, and glad of kindness, he courted with every expres-
sion of servile adulation.
Winter was dedicaieJ to Sir Spencer Compton, but at-
tracted no regard from him lo the author, till Aaron Hill
awakened his attention by some verses addressed to Thomson,
and published in one of the newspapers, which censured the
great for the neglect of ingenious men. Thomson then re-
ceived a present of twenty guineas, of which he gives this ac-
count to Mr. Hill :
' I hinted to you in my last, that on Saturday morning I wsw
with Sir Spencer Compton. A certain gentleman, without
my desire, spoke to him concerning me: his answer was that
I had never come near him. Then the gentleman put the ques-
tion, If he desired that I should wait on him ? He returned, he
,did. On this, the gentleman gave me an introductory letter
to him. He received me in what they commonly call a civil
manner; asked me some common-place questions, and made
me a present of twenty guineas. I am very ready to own that
the present was larger than my performance deserved ; and
shall ascribe it to his generosity, or any other cause, rather
than the merit of the address.'
The poem, which, being of a new kind, few would venture
at first to like, by degrees gained upon the public ; and one
edition was very speedily succeeded by another.
Thomson's credit was now high, and every day brought
him new friends; among others Dr. Rundle, a man afterward
unfortunately famous, sought his acquaintance, and found his
qualities such, that he recommended him to the Lord Chan-
cellor Talbot.
O-
o-
VI LIFEOPTHOMSON.
Winter was accompanied, in many edition;, not only with
a preface and deilication, but with poetical praises, by Mr.
Hill, Mr. Mallet (then Malloch) and Mira, the fictitious name
of a lady once too well known. Why the dedications to
Winter and the other Seasons, contrarily to custom, are left
out in the collected works the reader may inquire.
The next year (1727) he distinguished himself by three
publications: of 'Summer,' in pursuance of his plan, of
' A Poem on the death of Sir Isaac Newton,' which he was
enabled to perform as an exact philosopher by the instruction
of Mr. Gra . ; and of ' Britannia,' a kind of poetical invective
against the ministry, whom the nation then thousrht not for-
ward enoug-h in resenting- ihe depredations of the Spaniards.
By this piece he declared himself an adherent to the opposi-
tion, and had therefore no favour to expect from the Court.
Thomson having- been some time entertained in the family
of the Lord Biiuiiiig-, was desirous of testifying his gratitude
by making him the patron of his 'Summer;' hut the same
kindness which had first disposed Lord Binning to encourage
him determined him to refuse the dedication, which was by
his advice addressed to Mr. Dodingion, a man who had more
power to advance the reputation and fortune of a poi--.
' Spring' was published next year, with a dedication to the
Countess of Hertford; whose practice it was to invite every
summer some poet into the country to hear her verses and as-
sist her studies. This honour was one summer conferred on
Thomson, who took more delight in carousing with Lord
Hertford and his friends than assistmcf her ladyship's poeti-
cal operations, and therefore never received anothersummons.
' Autumn,' the season to which the ' Spring' and ' Summer'
are preparatory, still remained unsun?, and was delayed till
he published (1730) his works collected.
He produced, in 1727, the tragedy of 'Sophonisba,' whi^h
raised such expectation, that every rehearsal was dignified
with a splendid audience, collected to anticipate the delight
LIFE OF THOMSON. TU
that was preparing for the public. It was obserred, howerer,
that nobody was much affected, and that lh« «ompan7 rose as
from a moral lecture.
It had upon the stags no unusual degrse •f succei* Slight
accidents will operate upon the taste of pleasure. There is a
feeble line in the play
O Sophonisba, Sophoniiba, O !
This gave occasion to a waggish parody '
O Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, O •
which for a while was echoed throujh the town.
I have been told by Savage, that of the prologue to • So-
phonisba' the first part was written by Pope, who coultf not
be persuaded to finish it, and that the concluding lines were
added by Mallet.
Thomson was not long afterward by the influence of Du
Rundle, sent to travel wiih Mr. Charles Talbot, the eldest
son of the Chancellor. He was yet young enough to receive
new impressions, to have his opinions rectified, and his views
enlarged ; nor can he be supposed to have wanted that curi-
osity which is inseparable from an active and comprehensive
mind. He may therefore now be supposed to havs revelled
in all the joys of intellectual luxury ; he was every day feast-
ed with instructive novelties ; he lived splendidly without ex-
pense; and might expect when he returned home a certain
establishmenL
At this time a long course of opposition t» Sir Robert
Walpole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of
which no man felt the want, and with care for liberty which
was not in danger. Thomson, in his travels, on the Conti-
nent, found or fancied so many evils arising from the tyranny
of other governments, that he resolved to write a Tery long
poeiil, in five parts, upon Liberty.
While he was busy on the first book, Mr. Talbot died ; and
^ .
LIFE OF THOMSON
Thomson, who had been rewarded for his attendance by the
place of secretary of the Briefs, pays in the initial lines a de-
cent tribute to his memory.
Upon this great poem two years were spent, and the author
congratulated himself upon it as his noblest work; but an
author and his readers are not always of a mind. Liberty
called in vain upon her votaries to read her pra.ises and
reward her encomiast • her praises were condemned to har-
bour spiders and gather dust ; none of Thomson's perform-
ances were so little regarded.
The judgment of the public was not erroneous ; the recur-
rence of the same images must tire in time ; an enumeration
of examples to prove a position which nobody desired, as it
was from the beginning superfluous, must quickly grow dis-
gusting.
The poem of * Liberty' does not now appear m its original
state; but, when the author's works were collected after his
death, was shortened by Sir George Lyttelton, with a liberty
which, as it has a manifest tendency to lessen the confidence
of society, and to confound the characters of authors, by mak-
ing one write by the judgment of another, cannot be justified
by any supposed propriety of the alteration or kindness ot
the friend.— 1 wish to see it exhibited as its author left it.
Thomson now lived in ease and plenty, and seems for
awhile to have suspended his poetry ; but he was soon called
back toilabour by the death of the Chancellor, for his place
then became vacant ; and though the Lord Hardwicke delay-
ed for some time to give it away, Thomson's bashfnlness or
pr de, or some other motive perhaps not more laudable, with-
held him from soliciting; and the new Chancellor would not
give him what he would not ask.
He now relapsed to his former indigence , but the Prince of
Wales was at that time struggling for popularity, and by the
influence of Mr. Lyttelton professed himself the patron of
wit: to him Thomson was introduced, and being gaily in;er-
o
LIFEOFTHOMSON. Ut
rog-aled about the state of his affairs, said, ' that they were in
a more poetical posture ihan formerly;' and had a pension
allowed him of one hundred pounds a year
Being now obliged to write, he produced (1738*) the trage-
dy of ' Ag-amemnon,' which was much shortened in the repre-
sentation. It had the fate wliich most commonly anends
mythological stories, and was only endured but not favoured.
It struggled with such difficulty through the first night, that
Thomson, coming late io his friends with whom he was to
sup, excused his delay by telling ihem how ihe sweat of his
distress had so disordered his wig, that he could not come till
be had been refitted by a barber.
He so interested himself in his own drama, that, if I remem-
ber right, as he sat in the upper gallery, he accompanied the
players by audible recitation, till a friendly hint frighted him
to silence. Pope countenanced ' Agamemnon,' by coming to
it the first night, and was welcomed to the theatre by a gene-
ral clap; he had much regard for Tliomson, and once ex-
pressed it in a poetical epistle sent to Italy, of wliioli how-
ever he abated the value by translating some of the lines into
his epistle to Arbuthnol.
About this time the act was passed for licensing plays, of
which the first operation was the prohibition of ' Gnstavus
Vasa,' a tragedy of Mr. Brooke, whom the public recom-
pensed by a very liberal subscription ; the next was the refusal
of ' Edward and Eleonora,' offered by Tliomson. It is hard
to discover why either play should have been obstructed.
Thomson likewise endeavoured to repair his loss by a sub-
scription, of which I cannot now tell the success.
When the public murmured at the unkind treatment of
Thomson, one of the ministerial writers remarked, that 'he
had taken a Liberty which was not agreeable to Britannia in
any Season.^
* In this vear an edition of Milton's Areopagitica was pub-
lished by Millar, with a Preface by Thomson:
X LIFE OF THOMSON.
He was soon after employed, in conjunction with Mr.
Mallet, to write the mask of ' Alfred,' which was acted before
the Prince at Clifden-House.
His next worlt (1745) was 'Tancred and Sig-ismunda,' the
most successful of all his trag'edies, for it still keeps its turn
upon the stage. It may be doubled whether he was, either
by the bent of nature or habits of study much qualified for
trafi;edy. It does not appear that he had much sense of the
pathetic ; and his ditl'usive and descriptive style produced
declamation raiher than dialogue
His friend Mr. l.yiieUon was now in power, and conferred
upon him the office of Surveyor-general of the Leeward
Islands ; from which, when his deputy was paid, he received
about three hundred pounds a-year.
The last piece that he lived to publish was the ' Castle of
Indolence,' which was many years under his hand, but was
at last finished with great accuracy. The first canto opens
a scene of luzy luxury that fills the imagination.
He was now at ease, but whs not long to enjoy it; for, by
taking cold on the water between London and Kew, he caught
a disorder, which, with some careless exasperation, ended in
a fever that put an end to his life, August 27, 1748. He was
buried in the church of Richmond, without an inscription ;*
but a monument has since been erected to his memory in
Westminster-Abbey.
Thomson was of a stature above the middle size, and
•more fat than bard beseems,' of a dull countenance, and a
gross, unanimated, uninviting appearance; silent in mingled
company, but cheerful among select friends, and by his
friends very tenderly and warmly beloved.
He left behind him the tragedy of * Coriolanus,' which
was, by the zeal of his patron Sir George Lyttelton, brought
upon the stage for the benefit of his family, and recommended
*One has since been erected. See end of Life.
LIFEOFTHOMSON. XI
by a Prologue, which Q,uin, who had long lived with Thom-
son in fond intimacy, spoke in such a manner as shewed him
' to be,' on that occasion, ' no actor.' The commencement of
this benevolence is very honourable to Quin ; whoisreponed
to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his
genius, from an arrest by a very considerable present : and
its continuance is honourable to both, for friendship is
not always the sequel of obligation. By this tragedy a con-
siderable sum was raised, of which part discharged his debts,
and the rest was remitted to his sisters, whom, however
removed from them by place or condition, he regarded with
great tenderness, as will appear from the following letter,
which 1 communicate with much pleasure, as it gives me at
ojice an opportunity of recording the fiaiernal kindness of
Thomson, and retlecting on the friendly assistance of Mr.
Boswell, from whom I received 't.
'Hagley, in Worcestershire,
October the 4ib, 1747.
' My dear Sister,
' I thought you had known me better than to interpret my
silence into a decay of aflection, especially as your behaviour
has always been such as rather to increase than diminish it.
Don't imagine, because I am a bad correspondent, that I can
ever prove an unkind friend and brother. I must do myself
the justice to tell you, that my affections are naturally very
fixed and constant; and if I had ever reason of complaint
against you (of which by-the-bye I have not the least shadow,)
'lam conscious of so many defects in myself, as dispose me
not to be a little charitable and forgiving.
' It gives me the truest heartfelt satisfaction to hear you
have a good, kind husband, and ar* in easy, contented cir-
cumstaucei; but were they otherwise, that would only
awaken and heighten my tenderness towards you. As our
good and tender-hearted parents did not live to leceive any
material testimoDies of that highest human graiiiude 1
o-
XII LIFEOFTHOMSON.
owed them (than which nothing' could have given me equal
pleasure), the only return 1 can make them now is by kiiidneaa
to those they left behind them. Would to God poor Lizy had
lived long'er, to have been a farther witness of tlie truth of
what 1 say, and that 1 mijht have had the pleasure of seeins^
once more a sister who so truly deserved my esteem and love !
But she is happy, while we must toil a little lono'er here be-
low ; let us however do it cheerfully and gratefully, support-
ed by the pleasinpf hope of meetinj^ yet again on a safer shore,
where to recollect the storms and difficulties of life will not
perhaps be inconsistent with (hat blissful state. You did
right to call your dau^-hter by her name ; for you must needs
have had a particular tender friendship for one another, en-
deared as you were by nature, by having passed the affection-
ate years of your youth together, and by that great softener
and engager of hearts, mutual hardship. That it was in my
power to ease it a little, I account one of the most exquisite
pleasures of my life.— But enough of this melancholy though
not unpleasing strain.
' I esteem you for your sensible and disinterested advice to
Mr. Bell, as you will see by my letter to him. as 1 approve
entirely of his marrying again, you may readily ask me why I
don't marry at all. My circumstances have hitherto been so
variable and uncertain in this fluctuating world, as induce to
keep me from engaging in such a state; and now, though
they are more setMed, and of late (which you will be glad to
hear) considerably improved, I begin to think myself too far
advanced in life for such youthful undertakings, not to men-
tion some olher pretty reasons that are apt to startle the deli-
cacy of difficult old bachelors. I am, however, not a little sus-
picious that, was 1 to pay a visit to Scotland (which I have
some thoughts of doing soon), 1 might possibly be templed to
think of a thing not easily repaired if done amiss. 1 have
always been of opinion, that none make better wives than the
ladies of Scotland; and yet, who more forsaken than they,
) o
LIFE OF THOMSON. xiii
while the g-eiitlemen are coniinuallyrunnin^? abroad all the
world over ? Some of iheni, it is true, are wise enou»-h to re-
turn for a wife. You see I am beg^inning- to make interest al-
ready with the Scots ladies. But no more of this mfectious
«ubject.— Pray let me hear from you now and then; and
though I am not a regular correspondent, yet perhaps 1 may
mend in that respecu Remember me kindly to your husband,
and believe me to be
' Your most affectionate brother,
'JAxMES THOxMSON.'
Addressed to ' Mrs. Thomson in Lanark.'
The benevolence of Thomson was fervid, but not active ; he
would give on all occasions what assistance his purse could
supply ; but the offices of intervention or solicitation he could
not conquer his sluggishness sufficiently to perform. The af-
fairs of others, however, were not more neglected than his
own. He had often felt the inconveniences of idleness, but he
never cured it; and was so conscious of his own character,
that he talked of writing au eastern tale 'of the Man who
loved to be in Distress.'
Among his peculiarities was a very unskilful and inarticu-
late manner of pronouncing any lofty or solemn composition.
He was once reading to Dodington, who, being himself a read-
er eminently elegant, was so much provoked by his odd ut-
terance, that he snatched the paper from his hands, and told
him that he did not understand his own verses.
The biographer of Thomson has remarked, that an author's
life is best read in his works: his observation was not Well-
timed. Savage, who lived much with Thomson, once told
me, he heard a lady remarking, that she could gather from his
works three parts of his character, that he was a • great
lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent ;' but, said
Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was
perhaps never in cold water in his life ; and he indulges him-
xiv LIFEOFTHOMSON.
self in nil the luxury that comes within his reach. Yet Sa-
vage always spoke with the most eag'er praise of his social
qualities, his warmth and constancy of friendship, and his
adherence to his first acquaintance when the advancement of
his reputation had left them behind liim.
As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the hig'hest kind ;
his mode of thinkinoc, and of expressing' his thoughts is origi-
nal. His blank'verse is no more the blank vtrse of Milton, or
of any other poet, tlian the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes
of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of its
own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He
thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of
genius; he looks round on nature and on life with the eye
which nature bestows only on a poet ; the eye that distin-
guishes, in every thing presented to its view, whatever there
is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with
a mind that at once compiehends the vast and attends to the
minute. The reader of The Seasons wonders that he never
saw before what Thomson shows him, and that he never yet
has felt what Thomson impresses.
His is one of the works in which blank verse seems proper-
ly used. Thomson's wide expansion of general views, and
his enumeration of circumstantial varieties, would have been
obstructed and embarrassed by the frequent intersections of
the sense which are the necessary effects of rhyme.
His descriptions of extended scenes and general effects
bring before us the whole magnificence of nature, whether
pleasing or dreadful. Tlie gaiety of Spring, the splendour
of Summer, the tranquillity of Autumn, and the horror of
Winter, take in their turns possession of the mind. The poet
leads us through the appearances of things as they are suc-
cessively varied by the vicissitudes of the year, and imparts
to us so much of his own enthusiasm, that our thoughts ex-
pand with his imagery and kindle with his sentiments. Nor
is the naturalist without his part in the entertainment; for he
O
LIFEOFTHOMSON. XV
ii assisted to recollect and to combine, to arrangfe his disco-
Teries and to amplify the sphere of his coniempUtioii.
The grea t defect of The Seasons is want of method ; but for
this I know not that there was any remedy Of many ap-
I pearances subsisting all at once, no rule can be given why one
I should be mentioned before another ; yet the memory wants
the help of order, and the curiosity is not excited by suspense
j or expectation.
His diction is in the highest degree florid and luxuriant,
such as maybe said to be to his images and thoughts 'both
their lustre and their shade ;' such as ii%-est them with splen-
dour, through which perhaps they are not always easily di»-
j cerned. it is too exuberant, and sometimes maybe charged
J with filling the ear more than the mind.
These poems, with which 1 was acquainted at their first
j appearance, I have since found altered and enlarged by sub-
. sequent revisals, as the author supposed his judgment to grow
I mure exact, and as books or conversation extended his know-
j ledge and opened his prospects. They are, I think, improved
in general ; yet I know not whether they have not losi part of
what Temple calls their 'race;' a word which, applied to
wines in its primitive sense, means the flavourof ihe soil.
' Liberty,' when it first appeared, I tried to read, and soon
desisted. I have never tried again, and therefore will ijot
h.Tzard either praise or censure.
The highest praise which he has received ought not to be
suppressed : it is said by Lord Lyttelton, in the Prologue to
his posthumous play, that his works contained
No line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
LIFEOFTHOMSON.
At the west end of the north aisle of Richmond Chun
the following' : —
111 the earth below this tablet
are the remains of
JAMES THOMSON;
AUTHOR or THK BEAUTIFUL POEMS, ENTITLED T .
SBAS01J8, OASTLS! OP INDOLENCE, &6. &C.
Who died at Richmond, on the 27th day of August, and •
buDed here on the 29lh, old style, 1748.
The Earl of Buchan, unwillino: that so good a man
and sweet a poet should be without a memorial,
has denoted the place of his interment
for (he satisfaction of his admirers
in the year of our Lord 1792.
Father of light and life! Thou good Supreme!
O teach me what is good : teach me thyself 1
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice —
From ev'ry low pursuit ; and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss.
ffintei
®1F1^D[KIQ
ARGUMENT.
The iubject proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hert-
ford. The season is described as it affects the various parts
of nature, ascending from the lower to the higher ; with
digressions arising from the subject. Its influence ou
inanima'.B matter, on vegetables, on brute animals, and
lastly on man ; concludnig with a dissuasive from the wild
and irregular passion of lore, opposed to that of a pure and
happy kind.
SPRING-,
Come, gentle Spring', ethereal mildness, come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veiled in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.
O Hertford I fitted or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain
With innocence and meditation joined
In soft assemblage, listen to my song,
Which thy own season paints, when nature all
Is blooming and benevolent, like thee. 10
And see where surly Winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:
Ilis blasts obey, and quit the howling hill.
The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale ;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost.
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed,
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale mom, and bids his driving sleets 20
Deform the day delightless ; so that scarce
The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulfed,
To shake the sounding marsh : or from the shore
b SPRING.
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,
And sing their wild notes to thS listening- waste.
At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,
And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more,
The expansive atmosphere is cramp'd with cold ;
But, full of life and vivifying soul,
Lifts the light clouds sublirlie, and spreads them thin,
Fleecy, and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven. 31
Forth fly the tepid airs ; and unconfined.
Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays.
Joyous, the impatient husbandman perceives
Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers
Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used
plough
Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost.
There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark. 40
Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share
The master leans, removes th' obstructing clay,
Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.
While through the neighbouring fields the sower
stalks.
With measured step, and liberal throws the gi-ain
Into the faithful bosom of the ground,
The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.
Be gracious, heaven I for now laborious man
Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow ■
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend ! 50
O .
And temper all, thou world-reviving sun,
Into the perfect year ! Nor ye who live
In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride,
Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear :
Such themes as these the rural Maro sung-
To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height
Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined.
In ancient times, the sacred plough employed
The kings and awful fathers of mankind :
And some, with whom compared your insect-tribes
Are but the beings of a summer's day, 61
Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm
Of mighty war ; then, with unwearied hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seized
The plough, and greatly independent lived.
Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough ;
And o'er your hills, and long withdrawing vales,
Let Autumn spread his treasures to the sun,
Luxuriant and unbounded. As the sea,
Far through his azure turbulent domain, 70
Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores
Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports,
So with superior boon may your rich soil,
Exuberant, nature's better blessings pour
O'er every land, the naked nations clothe.
Arid be th' exhaustless granary of a world !
Nor only through the lenient air this change,
Delicious, breathes ; the penetrative sun.
His ""orce deep-darting to the dark retreat
8 SPRING.
Of veg-etation, sets the steaming- power 80
At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth,
In various hues ; but chiefly thee, gay green !
Thou smiling nature's universal robe !
United light and shade I where the sight dwells
With growing strength, and ever-new delight.
From the moist meadow to the withered hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens, to the cherished eye.
The hawthorn whitens ; and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, 90
Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed
In full luxuriance to the sighing gales,
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake,
And the birds sing concealed. At once arrayed
In all the colours of the flushing year,
By Nature's swift and secret-working hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance , while the promised fruit
Lies yet a little embryo unperceived
Within its crimson folds. Now from the town 99
Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling
drops
From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze
Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk ;
Or taste the smell of dairy ; or ascend
Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,
And see the country, far diffused around,
One boundless blusU, one white-empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms ; where the raptured eye
Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath 111
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.
If, brushed from Russian wilds, a cutting gale
Rise not, and scatter from his humid wings
The clammy mildew ; or, dry-blowing, breathe
Untimely frost ; before whose baleful blast
The full-blown Spring through all her fohage
shrinks.
Joyless, and dead, a wide-dejected waste.
For oft, engendered by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads, insect armies warp 120
Keen in the poisoned breeze ; and wasteful eat,
Through buds and bark, into the blackened core,
Their eager way. A feeble race 1 yet oft
The sacred sons of vengeance, on whose course
Corrosive Famine waits, and kills the year.
To check this plague, the skilful farmer chaflf
And blazing straw before his orchard bums ;
Till, all involved in smoke, the latent foe
From every cranny suffocated falls :
Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust 130
Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe :
Or, when the envenomed leaf begins to curl,
With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest ;
Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill,
The little trooping birds unwisely scares.
10 SPRING.
Be patient, swains ; these cruel-seeming winds
Blow not in vain. Far hence they keep repressed
Those deepening clouds on clouds, surcharged with
rain,
That o'er the vast Atlantic hither borne 139
In endless train, would quench the summer-blaze,
And, cheerless, drown the crude unripened year.
The north-east spends his rage ; he now shut up
Within his iron cave, th' effusive south
Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven
Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.
At first a dusty wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether ; but by swift degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapour sails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep
Sits on th' horizoni round a settled gloom : 150
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed.
Oppressing life ; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,
The wish of nature. Gradual sinks the breeze
Into a perfect calm, that not a breath
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many-twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. Th' uncurling floods, diffused
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all, 160
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and mute-imploring eye
The falling verdure. Hushed in short suspense,
O .
SPRING. U
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off,
And wait th' approaching sign to strike, at once,
Into the general choir. E'en mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand
The promised sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise, 170
And looking lively gratitude. At last
The clouds consign their treasures to the fields ;
And, softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow,
In large effusion, o'er the freshened world.
The stealing shower is scarce to patter heard
By such as wander through the forest walks,
Beneath th' umbrageous multitude of leaves.
But who can hold the shade, while Heaven descends
In universal bounty, shedding herbs, 180
And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap?
Swift Fancy fired anticipates their growth ;"
And, while the milky nutriment distils,
Beholds the kindling country colour round.
Thus all day long the full-distended clouds
Indulge their genial stores, and well-showered earth
Is deep enriched with vegetable life ;
Till, in tlie western sky, the downward sun
Looks out, eft'ulgent, from amid the flush
Of broken clouds, gay-shifting to his beam. 190
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes
Th' illumined mountain, through the forest streams,
12 SPRING.
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,
Far smoking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs
around.
Full swell the woods ; their every music wakes.
Mixed in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills.
And hollow lows responsive from the vales, 200
Whence blending all the sweetened zephyr springs.
Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Be.st riding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense ; and every hue unfolds
In fair proportion, running from the red
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism :
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclosed 210
From tlie white mingling maze. Not so the boy ;
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory ; but amazed
Beholds th' illusive arch before him %,
Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,
A softened shade, and saturated earth
Awaits the morning beam, to give to light.
Raised through ten tliousand different plastic tubes.
The balmy treasures of the former day. 220
SFBIN6. 13
Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild,
O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power
Of l)otanist to number up their tribes :
Whether he steals along the lonely dale,
In silent search ; or through the forest, rank
With what the dull incurious weeds account
Bursts his blind way ; or climbs the mountain rock,
Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow.
With such a liberal hand has Nature flung 229
Their seeds abroad, blown them about in winds,
Innumerous mixed them with the nursing mould,
The moistening current, and prolific rain.
But who their virtues can declare ? who pierce,
With vision pure, into these secret stores
Of health, and life, and joy 1 the food of man,
While yet he lived in innocence, and told
A length of golden years ; unfleshed in blood,
A stranger to the savage arts of life,
Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease ;
The lord, and not the tyrant, of the worid. 240
The first fresh dawn then wak'd the gladden'd
race
Of uncorrupted man, nor blush'd to see
Tlie sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam ;
For their light slumbers gently fumed away,
And up they rose as vigorous as the sun,
Or to the culture of the willing glebe,
Or to the cheerful tendance of the fluck.
14 SPRING.
Meantime the song went round ; and dance and
sport,
Wisdom and friendly talk, successive, stole
Their hours away ; while in the rosy vale 250
Love breathed his infant sighs, from angpiish free,
And full replete with bliss ; save the sweet pain,
That, inly thrilling, but exalts it more.
Nor yet injurious act, nor surly deed,
Was known among those happy sons of Heaven ;
For reason and benevolence were law.
Harmonious Nature too looked smiling on.
Clear shone the skies, cooled with eternal gales.
And balmy spirit all. The youthful sun 259
Shot his best rays, and still the gracious clouds
Dropped fatness down ; as o'er the swelling mead
The herds and flocks, commixing, played secure.
This when, emergent from the gloomy wood,
The glaring lion saw, his horrid heart
Was meekened, and he joined his sullen joy;
For music held the whole in perfect peace :
Soft sighed the flute ; the tender voice was heard.
Warbling the varied heart ; the woodlands round
Applied their choir ; and winds and waters flowed
In consonance. Such were those prime of days. 270
But now those white unblemish'd manners,
whence
The fabling poets took their golden age,
Are found no more amid these iron times.
These dregs of life I now the distempered mind
SPRINO. l5
Has lost that concord of harmonious powers
Which forms the soul of happiness ; and all
Is off the poise within: the passions all
Have burst their bounds ; and reason half extinct,
Or impotent, or else approving, sees
The foul disorder. Senseless and deformed, 280
Convulsive Anger storms at large ; or pale.
And silent, settles into fell revenge.
Base Envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reacih.
Desponding Fear, of feeble fancies full,
Weak and unmanly, looseas every power.
E'en Love itself is bitterness of soul,
A pensive anguish pining at the heart;
Or, sunk to sordid interest, feels no more
That noble wish, that never-cloyed desire, 230
Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone
To bless the dearer object of its flame.
Hope sickens with extravagance ; and Grief,
Of life impatient, into madness swells,
Or m dead silence wastes the weeping hours.
These, and a thousand mixed emotions more,
From ever-changing news of good and ill.
Formed infinitely various, vex the mind
With endless storm: whence, deeply rankling,.
grows
The partial thought, a listless unconcern, 300
Cold, and averting from our neighbour's good ;
Then dark Disgust, and Hatred, winding wiles.
10 SPRING.
Coward Deceit, and ruffian Violence :
At last, extinct each social feeling, fell
And joyless Inhumanity pervades
And petrifies the heart. Nature disturbed
Is deemed, vindictive, to have chang'd her cotirae.
Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came :
When the deep-cleft disparting- orb, that arched
The central waters round, impetuous rushed, 310
With universal burst, into the gulf, •
And o'er the high-piled hills of fractured earth
Wide dashed the waves, in undulation vast ;
Till, from the centre to the streaming clouds,
A shoreless ocean tumbled round the globe.
The seasons since have, with severer sway,
Oppressed a broken world : the Winter keen
Shook forth his waste of snows ; and Summer shot
His pestilential heats. Great Spring, before,
Greened all the year ; and fruits and blossoms
blushed, 320
In social sweetness, on the self-same bough.
Pure was the temperate air ; an even calm
Perpetual reigned, save what the zephyrs bland
Breathed o'er the blue expanse : for then nor storms
Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to rage ;
Sound slept the waters ; no sulphureous glooms
Swelled in the sky, and sent the lightning forth ;
While sickly damps and cold autumnal fogs
Hung not, relaxing, on the springs of life.
But now, of turbid elements the sport.
SPRING. 17
From clear to cloudy tossed, from hot to cold,
And dry to moist, with inward-eating change,
Our drooping days are dwindled down to nought,
Their period finished ere 'tis well begun.
And yet the wholesome herb neglected dies ;
Though with the pure exhilarating soul
Of nutriment and health, and vital powers,
Beyond the search of art, 'tis copious blest.
For, with hot ravine fired, ensanguined man 340
Is now become the lion of the plain,
And worse. The wolf, who from the nightly fold
Fierce drags the bleating prey, ne'er drunk her
milk.
Nor wore her warming fleece : nor has the steer.
At whose strong chest the deadly tiger hangs,
E'erplough'd for him. They too are temper'dhigh,
With hunger stung and wild necessity.
Nor lodges pity in their shaggy breast.
But man, whom Nature formed of milder clay,
With every kind emotion in his heart.
And taught alone to weep ; while from her lap 350
She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs.
And fruits, as numerous as the drops of rain.
Or beams that gave them birth : shall he, fair form
Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on heaven,
E'er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd.
And dip his tongue in gore 1 The beast of prey,
Blood-stain'd, deserves to bleed : but you, ye flocks
What have you done ? ye peaceful people, what,
I ■ ■ o
18 SPRING.
To merit death 1 you who have given us milk
In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat 360
Against the winter's cold ? And the plain ox,
That harmless, honest, guileless animal,
In what has he offended 1 he whose toil-,
Patient and eVef ready, clothes the land
With all the pomp of harvest ; shall he bleed,
And struggling groan beneath the cruel hands
E'en of the clown he feeds? and that, perhaps,
To swell the riot of th' autumnal feast.
Won by his labour 1 Thus the feeling heart
Would tenderly suggest : but 'tis enough, 370
In this late age, adventurous, to have touched
Light on the numbers of the Samian sage.
High Heaven forbids the bold presumptuous strain,
Whose wisest will has fixed us in a state
That must not yet to pure perfection rise.
Now when the first foul torrent of the brooks,
Swelled with the vernal rains, is ebbed away ;
And, whitening, down their mossy-tinctured stream
Descends the billowy foam : now is the time.
While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile, 380
To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly,
The rod fine-tapBring v/ith elastic spring,
Snatched from the hoary steed the floating line,
And all thy slender wat'ry stores prepare.
But let not on thy hook the tortured worm,
Convulsive, twist in agonising folds.
Which, by rapacious hunger swallowed deep,
0-
S PRING . 19
Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding- breast
Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining- wretch,
Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand. 390
When with his lively ray the potent sun
Has pierced the streams, and roused the finny race,
Then, issuing- cheerful, to thy sport repair ;
Chief should the western breezes curling play,
And light o'er ether bear the shadowy clouds.
High to their fount, this day, amid the hills,
And woodlands warbling round, trace up the brooks;
The next, pursue their rocky-channelled maze,
Down to the river, in whose ample wave
Their little naiads love to sport at large. 400
Just in the dubious point where with the pool
Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank
Reverted plays in undulating flow,
There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly ;
And, as you lead it round in artful curve,
With eye attentive mark the springing- game.
Straight as above the surface of the flood
They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap,
Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook : 410
Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank.
And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some,
With various hand proportioned to their force.
If yet too young, and easily deceived,
A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,
Him, piteous of his youth and the short space
■ o
20 SPRING. J
lie has enjoyed the vital light of heaven,
Soft disengage, and back into the stream
The speckled captive throw. But should you lure
From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots 420
Of pendent trees, the monarcli of the brook,
Behoves you then to ply your finest art.
Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly ;
And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.
At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun
Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death,
With sullen plunge. At once he darts along,
Deep struck, and runs out all the lengthened line ;
Then seeks the furthest ooze, the sheltering weed,
The caverned baiik, his old secure abode ; 431
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool,
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand,
That feels him still, yet to his furious course
Gives way, you, now retiring, following now
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage ;
Till floating broad upon his breathless side,
And to his fate abandoned, to the shore
You gaily drag your unresisting prize.
Thus pass the temperate hours ; but when the sun
Shakes from his noon-day throne the scattenng
clouds, 441
E'en shooting listless languor through the deeps.
Then seek the bank where flowering elders crowd,
Where scattered wild the hly of the vale
I SPRING. 91
Its balmy essence breathes, where cowslips hang
The dewy head, where purple violets lurk,
With all the lowly children of the shade :
Or lie reclined beneath yon spreading ash,
Hung o'er the steep ; whence, borne on liquid wing
The sounding culver shoots ; or where the hawk.
High, in the beetling cliff, his eyry builds. 451
There let the classic page thy fancy lead
Tlirough rural scenes, such as the Mantuan swain
Paints in the matchless harmony of song ;
Or catcli thyself the landscape, gliding swift
Athwart imagination's vivid eye ;
Or by the vocal woods and waters lulled,
And losf in lonely musing, in the dream,
Confused, of careless solitude, where mix
Ten thousand wandering images of things, 460
Soothe every gust of passion into peace ;
All but the swellings of the softened heart.
That waken, not disturb, the tranquil mind.
Bfihold yon breathing prospect bids the muse
Tlirow all her beauty forth. But who can paint
Like Nature ? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows 1 If fancy then 470
Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task.
Ah, what shall language do ? ah, where find words
Tinged with so many colours, and whose power,
k
32 SFRINQ.
To life approaching-, may perfume my lays
With that fine oil, those aromatic gales,
That inexhaustive flow continual round '.'
Yet, though successless, will the toil delight.
Come then, ye Wrgins and ye youths, whose hearts
Have felt the raptures of refining love ;
And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song I 460
Formed by the graces, loveliness itself !
Come with those downcast eyes, sedate and sweet,
Those looks demure, that deeply pierce the soul.
Where, with the light of thoughtful reason mix'd,
Shines lively fancy and the feeling heart :
Oh come I and, while the rosy-footed May
Steals blushing on, 'together let us tread
The morning-dews, and gather in their prime
Fresh-blooming flowers, to grace thy braided hair
And thy lov'd bosom that improves their sweets. 490
See, where the winding vale, its lavish stores,
Irriguous, spreads. See, how the lily drinks
The latent rill, scarce oozing through the grass,
Of growth luxuriant : or the humid bank,
In fair profusion, decks. Long let us walk,
"Wliere the breeze blows from yon extended field
Of blossomed beans. Arabia cannot boast
A fuller gale of joy than, liberal, thence
Breathes through the sense, and takes the ravished
soul.
Nor is the mead unworthy of thy foot, 500
Full of fresh verdure, and unnumber'd flowers.
SPRING. 23
The negligence of Nature, wide, and wild ;
Where, undisguised by mimic art, she spreads
Unbounded beauty to the roving eye.
Here their delicious task the fervent bees.
In swarming millions, tend : around, athwart
Through the soft air, the busy nations fly,
Cling to the bud, and, with inserted tube,
Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul ;
And oft, with bolder wing, they soaring dare 510
The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows,
And yellow load them with the luscious spoil.
At length the finished garden to the view
Its vistas opens, and its alleys green.
Snatched through the verdant maze, the hurried eye
Distracted wanders ; now the bowery walk
Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day
Falls on the lengthen'd gloom, protracted sweeps ;
Now meets the bending sky : the river now
Dimpling along, the breezy-ruflled lake, 520
The forest darkening round, the glittering spire,
Th' ethereal mountain, and the distant main.
But why so far excursive ? when at hand,
Along these blushing borders, ht.ght with dew,
And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers.
Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace.
Throws out the snow-drop, and the crocus first :
The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue,
And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes : 529
The yellow wall-flower, stained with iron brown ;
24 SPRING.
And lavish stock that scents the garden round :
From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed,
Anemonics ; auriculas, enriched
With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves ;
And full ranunculus, of glowing red.
Then comes the tulip-race, where beauty plays
Her idle freaks ; from family diffused
To family, as flies the father-dust,
The varied colours run ; and while they break
On the charm'd eye, th' exulting florist marks, 540
With secret pride, the wonders of his hand.
No gradual bloom is wanting ; from the bud,
First-born of Spring, to Summer's musky tribes :
Nor hyacinths, of purest virgin white,
Low-l)ent, and blushing inward ; nor jonquils,
Of potent fragrance ; nor Narcissus fair,
As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still ;
Nor broad carnations, nor gay-spotted pinks ;
Nor, shower'd from every bush, the damask-rose.
Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells, 550
With hues on hues expression cannot paint,
The breath of nature, and her endless bloom.
Hail, Source of Being I Universal Soul
Of heaven and earth ! Essential Presence, hail !
To thee I bend the knee ; to Thee my thoughts.
Continual, climb, who with a master-hand
Hast the great whole into perfection touched.
By Thee the various vegetative tribes,
' Wrapt in a filmy net, and clad with leaves,
O- — ■
SPUING 25
Draw the live ether, and imbibe the dew : 560
By Thee disposed into congenial soils
Stands each attractive plant, and sucks, and swells
The juicy tide, a twining: mass of tubes.
At Thf command the vernal sun awakes
The torpid sap, detruded to the root
By wintry winds, that now in fluent dance,
And lively fermentation, mounting-, spreads
All this innumerous-coloured scene of thing-s.
As rising' from the vegetable world
My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend, 570
My panting muse I and hark hovy loud the woods
Invite you forth in all your gayest trim.
Lend me your song, ye nightingales ! oh pour
The mazy-running soul of melody
Into my varied verse ! while I deduce,
From the first note the hollow cuckoo sings
The symphony of Spring, and touch a theme
Unknown to fame,^ — the passion of the groves,
Wiien first the soul of love is sent abroad,
Warm through the vital air and on the heart 580
Harmonious seizes, the gay troops begin.
In gallant thought, to plume the painted wing.
And try again the long-forgotten strain.
At first faiut-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 :
O
SPRING^
Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings
Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts
Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse 591
Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush
Bending with dewy-moisture o'er the heads
Of the coy choristers 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 hstening Philomela deigns
To let them joy, and purposes, in thought
Elate, to make her night excel their day. 600
The black-bird whistles from the thorny brake
The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove ;
Nor are the hnnets, o'er the flowering furze
Poured out profusely, silent. Joined 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. 61
'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
Try every winning way inventive love
Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates
Pour forth their little souls. First, wide around,
SPRING. 27
With distant awe, in airy rings they rove,
Endeavouring by a thousand tricks to catch
The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance 620
Of the regardless charmer. Should she seem
Softening the least approvance to bestow,
Their colours burnish, and, by hope inspired.
They brisk advance ; then, on a sudden struck,
Retire disordered ; then again approach ;
In fond rotation spread the spotted wing,
And shiver every feather with desire.
Connubial leagues agreed, to the deep woods
They haste away, all as their fancy leads.
Pleasure, or food, or secret safety prompts ; 630
That Nature's great command may be obeyed :
Nor all the sweet sensations they perceive
Indulged in vain. Some to the holly-hedge
Nestling repair, and to the thicket some ;
Some to the rude protection of the thorn
Commit their feeble offspring. The cleft tree
Offers its kind concealment to a few,
Their food its insects, and its moss their nests.
Others apart far in the grassy dale, 639
Or roughening waste, their humble texture weave.
But most in woodland solitudes delight,
In unfrequented glooms, or shaggy banks,
Steep, and divided by a babbling brook.
Whose murmurs soothe them uU the live-long day,
When by kind duty fix'd. Among the roots
Of liazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream,
28 SPRING.
They frame the first foundation of their domes ;
Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid,
And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought
But restless hurry through the busy air, 650
Beat by unnumbered wings. The swallow sweeps
The slimy pool, to build his hanging house
Intent. And often, from the careless back
Of herds and flocks, a thousand tugging bills
Pluck hair and wool ; and oft, when unobserv'd,
Steal from the barn a straw : till soft and warm,
Clean and complete, their habitation grows.
As thus the patient dam assiduous sits.
Not to be tempted from her tender task
Or by sharp hunger or by smooth delight, 660
Though the whole loosen'd Spring around her blows
Her sympathising lover takes his stand
High on th' opponent bank, and ceaseless sings
The tedious time away ; or else supplies
Her place a moment, while she sudden flits
To pick the scanty meal. Th' appointed time
With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young,
Warmed and expanded into perfect life,
Their brittle bondage break, and come to light,
A helpless family, demanding food 670
With constant clamour. O what passions then.
What melting sentiments of kindly care.
On the new parents seize ! away they fly '
Affectionate, and undesiring bear
The most delicious morsel to their young ;
SPRING. ay
Which equally distributed, again
The search begins. Even so a gentle pair,
By fortune sunk, but formed of generous mould,
And charmed with cares beyond the vulgar breast,
In some lone cot amid the distant woods, 660
Sustained alone by providential Heaven,
Oft, as they weeping eye their infant train,
Check their own appetites, and give them all.
Nor toil alone they scorn : exalting love,
By the great Father of the Spring inspired,
Gives instant courage to the fearful race,
And, to the simple, art. With stealthy wing.
Should some rude foot their woody haunts molest,
Amid a neighbouring bush they silent drop.
And whirring thence, as if alarmed, deceive 690
Th' unfeeling school-boy. Hence, around the head
Of wandering swain, the white-wing'd plover
wheels
Her sounding flight, and then directly on
In long excursion skims the level lawn,
To tempt him from her nest. The wild-duck, hence,
O'er the rough moss, and o'er the trackless waste
The heath-hen flutters, pious fraud I to lead
The hot-pursuing spaniel far astray.
Be not the muse ashamed here to bemoan
Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant man 700
Inhuman caught, and in the narrow cage
From liberty confined, and boundless air.
Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull,
;j_ ^ 1
Oif
30 SPRING.
Ragged, and all its brightening lustre lost ;
Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes,
Wliich, clear and vigorous, warbles from the beech.
Oh then, ye friends of love and love-taught song,
Spare the soft tribes, this barbarous art forbear.
If on your bosom innocence can win,
Music engage, or piety persuade. 710
But let not chief the nightingale lament
Her ruin'd care, too delicately framed
To brook the harsh confinement of the cage.
Oft when, returning with her loaded bill,
Th' astonished mother finds a vacant nest,
By the hard hand of unrelenting clowns
Robb'd, to the ground the vain provision falls ;
Her pinions ruffle, and, low-drooping, scarce
Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade ;
Where, all abandoned to despair, she sings 720
Her sorrows through the night ; and, on the bough,
Sole-sitting, still at every dying fall
Takes up again her lamentable strain
Of winding wo ; till, wide around, the woods
Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.
But now the feathered youth their former bounds,
Ardent, disdain ; and, weighing oft their wings,
Demand the free posseasion of the sky:
This one glad office more, and then dissolves
Parental love at once, now needless grown. 730
Unlavish Wisdom never works in vain.
'Tis on some evening, sunny, grateful, mild,
SPRING. 31
AVhen nought but b:tlm is breathing- through the
woods,
With yellow lustre bright, that the new tribes
Visit the spacious heavens, ami look abroad
On Nature's common, far as they can see,
Or wing, their range and pasture. O'er the boughs
Dancing about, still at the giddy verge
Their resolution fails ; their pinions still,
In loose libration stretched, to trust the void 740
Trembling refuse : till down before them fly
The parent guides, and chide, exhort, command,
Or push them off. The surging air receives
Its jilumy burden ; and their self-taught wings
Winnow the wa\nng element. On ground
Alighted, bolder up again they lead,
Further and further on, the lengthening flight ;
Till vanished every fear, and every power
Roused into life and action, light in air
Th' acquitted parents see their soaring race, 750
And once rejoicing never know them more.
High from the summit of a craggy cliff.
Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns
On utmost Kilda's* shore, whose lonely race
Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds,
The royal eagle draws his vigorous young,
Strong-pounced, and ardent with paternal fire.
Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own,
* The furthest of the western islands of Scotland.
3^ SPRING.
He drives them from his fort, the towering seat,
For ag'es, of his empire ; which, in peace, 760
Unstained he holds, while many a leag'ue to sea
He wings his course, and preys in distant isles.
Should I my steps turn to the rural seat,
Whose lofty elms, and venerable oaks.
Invite the rook, who high amid the boughs,
In early Spring, his airy city builds,
And ceaseless caws amusive ; there, well-pleased,
I might the various polity survey
Of the mixed household kind. The carefid hen
Calls all her chirping family abound, '('TO
Fed and defended by the fearless cock.
Whose breast with ardour flames, as on he walks,
Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond,
The finely-checker'd duck before her train
Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing swan
Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale ;
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet
Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier-isle,
Protective of his young. The turkey nigh,
Loud threat'ning, reddens ; while the peacock
spreads
His every-coloured glory to the sun, 781
And swims in radiant majesty along.
O'er the whole homely scene, the crtoingdove
Flies thick in amorous chace, and wanton rolls
The glancing eye, and turns the changeful neck.
While thus the gentle tenants of the shade
O-
SPRING. 33
Indulge their purer loves, the rougher world
Of brutes, below, rush furious into flame,
And fierce desire. Through all his lusty veins,
The bull, deep-scorched, the raging passion feels.
Of pasture sick, and negligent of food, 791
Scarce seen, he wades among the yellow broom,
"While o'er his ample sides the rambling spray
Luxuriant shoot ; or through the mazy wood
Dejected wanders, nor th' enticing bud
Crops, though it presses on his careless sense.
And oft, in jealous madd'ning fancy wrapt,
He seeks the fight ; and idly-butting feigns
His rival gored in every knotty trunk. 799
Him should he meet, the bellowing war begins :
Their eyes flash fury ; to the hoUow'd earth.
Whence the sand flies, they mutter bloody deeds,
And groaning deep, th' impetuous battle mix :
While the fair heifer, balmy-breathing, near,
Stands kindling up their rage. The trembling steed,
With this hot impulse seized in every nerve.
Nor heeds the rein, nor hears the sounding thong ;
Blows are not felt ; but tossing high his head,
And by the well known joy to distant plains
Attracted strong, all wild he bursts away ; 810
O'er rocks, and woods, and craggy mountains flies.
And neighing, on the aerial summit takes
Th' exciting gale ; then, steep-descending, cleaves
The headlong torrents foaming down the hills,
E'en where the madness of the straiten'd stream
34 SPRING.
Turns m black eddips round ; such is the force
With which his frantic heart and sinews swell.
Nor undelig-hted by the Iwnndless Spring-
Are the broad monsters of the foaming deep :
From the deep ooze and gelid cavern roused, 820
They flounce and tumble in unwieldy joy.
Dire were the strain, and dissonant, to sing
TKe cruel raptures of the savage kind ;
How by this flame, their native wrath sub]imcd>
They roam, amid the fury of their heart,
The far-resounding waste in fiercer bands,
And growl their horrid loves. But this the theme
I sing, enraptured, to the British fair,
Forbids, and leads me to the mountain-brow,
Where sits the shepherd on the grassy turf, 630
Inhaling, healthful, the descending sun.
Around him feeds his mauy-bleating flock.
Of various cadence ; ami his sportive lambs.
This way and that convolved, in friskful glee,
Their frolics play. And now the sprightly race
Invites them forth ; when swift, the signal given,
They start away, and sweep the massy mound
That runs around the hill ; the rampart once
Of iron war, in ancient barl)arous times,
When disunited Britain ever bled, 840
Lost in eternal broil : ere yet she grew
To this deep-laid indissoluble state,
Where wealthand commerce lift their golden heads ;
SPRING. 35
And o'er our labours, Liberty and Law,
Impartial, watch ; the wonder of a world !
What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say,
That, in a powerful language, felt, not heard.
Instructs the fowls of heaven, and through their
breast
These arts of love diffuses 1 WTiat, but God 1
Inspiring God I who boundless Spirit all, 850
And unremitting Energy, pervades.
Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole.
He ceaseless works alone ; and yet alone
Seems not to work, with such perfection framed
Is this complex stupendous scheme of things.
But though concealed, to every purer eye
Til' informing Author in his works appears.
Chief, lovely Spring, iu thee, and thy soft scenes,
The smiling God is seen ; while water, earth.
And air, attest his bounty, which exalts 860
The brute creation to this finer thought,
And annual melts their undesigning hearts
Profusely thus in tenderness and joy.
Still let my song a nobler note assume,
And sing th' infusive force of Spring on man ;
When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie
To raise his being, and serene his soul.
Can lie forl)ear to join the general smile
Of nature ? Can fierce passions vex his breast,
Wliile every gale is peace, and every grove 870
Is melody ? Hence ! from the bounteous walks
36 SPRING.
Of flowng Spring^, ye sonlid sons of earth,
Hard, and unfeeling of another's wo,
Or only lavish to yourselves, away !
But come, ye generous minis, in whose wide
thought,
Of all his works, creative Bounty bums
With warmest beam ; and on your open front
And liberal eye sits, from his dark retreat
Inviting modest Want. Nor till invoked
Can restless goodness wait ; your active search
Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplored ; 881
Like silent-working Heaven, surprising oft
The lonely heart with unexpected good.
For you the roving spirit of the wind
Blows Spring abroad ; for you the teeming clouds
Descend in gladsome plenty o'er the world ;
And the sun sheds his kindest rays for you.
Ye flower of Human race I In these green days,
Reviving Sickness lifts her languid head ;
Life flows afresh ; and young-eyed Health exalts
The whole creation round. Contentment walks
The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss 892
Spring o'er his. mind, beyond the power of kings
To purchase. Pure serenity apace
Induces thought and contemplation still.
By swift degrees the love of nature works.
And warms the bosom ; till at last sublimed
To rapture, and enthusiastic heat,
SPRING. 37
We feel the present Deity, and taste
The joy of God to see a happy world ! 900
These are the sacred feelings of thy heart,
Thy heart informed by reason's purer ray,
O Lyttelton, the friend I thy passions thus
And meditations vary, as at lar^e.
Courting the muse, through Hagley Park thou
stray's t ;
The British Tempe ! There along the dgile.
With woods o'er-hung, and shagg'd with mossy
rocks,
Whence on each hand the gushing waters play,
And down the rough cascade white-dashing fall,
Or gleam in lengthened vista through the trees,
You silent steal ; or sit beneath the shade 911
Of solemn oaks, that tuft the swelling mounts
Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand,
And pensive listen to the various voice
Of rural peace : the herds, the flocks, the birds.
The hollow-whispering breeze, the plaint of rills,
That, purling down amid the twisted roots
Which creep around, their dewy murmurs shake
On the soothed ear. From these abstracted oft,
You wander through the philosophic world, 920
Where in bright train continual wonders rise,
Or to the curious or the pious eye.
And oft, conducted by historic truth.
You tread the long extent of backward time,
Planning, with warm benevolence of mind,
38 SPRING.
And honest zeal unwarped by party-rage,
Britannia's weal ; how from the venal gulf
To raise her virtue, and her arts revive.
Or, turning thence thy view, these graver thoughts
The muses charm: while, with sure taste refiu'd,
You draw th' inspiring breath of ancient song, 931
Till nobly rises, emulous, thy own.
Perliaps thy loved Lucinda shares thy walk.
With soul to thine attuned. Then nature all
Wears to the lover's eye a look of love ;
And all the tumult of a guilty world, .
Tost by ungenerous passions, sinks away.
The tender heart is animated peace,
And as it pours its copious treasures forth
In varied converse, softening every theme, 940
You, frequent-pausing, turn, and from her eyes,
Where meekened sense, and amiable gi-ace,
And lively sweetness dwell, enraptured drink
That nameless spirit of ethereal joy
(Unutterable happiness ') which love
Alone bestows, and on a favour'd few.
Meantime you gain the height, from whose fair brow
The bursting prospect spreads immense around :
And snatch'd o'er. hill and dale, and wood and lawn,
And verdant field, and darkening heath between.
And villages embosomed soft in trees, 951
And spiry towns by surging columns mark'd
Of household smoke, your eye excursive roams:
Wide-stretching from the hall, in whose kind haunt
c,
SPUING. 39
The hospitable genius linijers still.
To where the broken kiiulsnaiie, liy degrees,
Ascending, roughens into rigid hills ;
O'er which the Cambrian mountains, like f\ir clouds
That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.
Flushed by the spirit of the genial year, 960
Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom
Shoots less and less, the live carnation round ;
Her lips i)lusli deeper sweets : she breathes of
youth ;
The shining moistiire swells into her eyes,
In brighter flow ; her wishing bosom heaves,
With palpitations wild ; kind tumults seize
Her veins, and all her yieldi7ig soul is love.
From the keen gaze her lover turns away,
Full of the dear ecstatic power, and sick
With sighing languishment. Ah then, ye fair I 970
Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts :
Dare not the infectious sigh ; the pleading look
Downcast, and low, in meek submission dressed,
But full of guile. Let not the fervent tongue,
Prompt to deceive, with adulation smooth.
Gain on your purposed will. Nor in the bower.
Where woodbines flaunt, and roses shed a couch,
While evening draws her crimson curtains round,
Trust your soft minutes with betraying man.
And let the aspiring youth beware of love, 980
Of the smooth glance beware ; for 'tis too late
When on his heart the torrent softness pours.
40 SPRING.
Then wisdom prostrate lies, and fading fame
Dissolves in air away , while the fond soul,
Wrapt in gay v-isions of unreal bliss.
Still paints th' illusive form ; the kindling grace ;
Th' enticing smile ; the modest-seeming eye,
Beneath whose beauteous beams, belying heaven,
Lurk searchless cunning, cruelty, and death ;
And still, false -warbling in his cheated ear, 990
Her siren voice, enchanting, draws him on-
To guileful shores, and meads of fatal joy.
E'en present, in the very lap of Love
Inglorious laid ; while music flows around.
Perfumes, and oils and wine, and wanton hours ;
Amid the ruses fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest : a quick -returning pang
Shoots through the conscious heart ; where honour
still,
And great design, against th' oppressive load
Of luxury, by fits, impatient heave. 1000
But, absent, what fantastic woes, aroused
Rage, in each thought, by restless musing fed,
ChiUthe warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life I
Neglected fortune flies ; and sHding swift,
Prone into ruin, fall his scorned affairs.
'Tis nought but gloom around : the darkened sun
Loses his light ; the rosy-bosom'd Spring
To weeping fancy pines ; and yon bright arch,
Contracted, bends into a dusky vault.
All nature fades extinct ; and she alone, 1010
o
I SPRING. 41
Heard, felt, and seen, possesses every thought,
Fills every sense, and pants in every vein.
Books are but formal dulness, tedious friends ;
And sad amid the social band he sits,
Lonely, and uuattentive. From his tongue
Th' unfinished period falls : while, bonie away
On swelling thought, his wafted spirit flies
To the vain bosom of his distant fair ;
And leaves the semblance of a lover, fixed
In melancholy site, with head dechned, 1020
And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts.
Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs
To glimmering shades, and sympathetic glooms ;
Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream
Romantic hangs ; there through the pensive dusk
Strays, in lieart-thhlling meditation lost,
Indulging all to love : or on the bank
Thrown, amid drooping lilies, swells the breeze
With sighs unceasing, and the brook with tears.
Thus in soft anguish he consumes the day, 1030
Nor quits his deep retirement, till the moon
Peeps through the chambers of the fleecy east,
Enlightened by degrees, and in her train
Leads on the gentle hours ; then forth he walks,
Beneath the trembling languish of her beam,
With softened soul, and woos the bird of eve
To mingle woes with his ; or, while the world
And aU the sons of Care lie hushed in sleep,
Associates with the midnight shadows drear ;
42 SPRING.
And, sighing' to the lonely taper, pnurs 1040
His idly-tortureJ heart into the pa^e.
Meant for the moving messeng-er of love ;
Where raptnre barns on rapture, ever)' line
With rising frenzy fired. But, if on bed
Delirious flun^, sleep from his pillow flies,
All night he tosses, nor the balmy power
In any posture finds ; till tlie grey niirn
Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch.
Exanimate by love : and then perhaps
Exhausted nature sinks awhile to rest, 1050
Still inteiTupted by distracted dreams,
That o'er the sick imagination rise.
And in black colours paint the mimic sc-ene.
Oft with th' enchantress of his soul he talks ;
Sometimes in crowds distressed ; or if rt;tired
To secret winding flower-enwoven l)owers,
Far from the dull impertinence of man.
Just as he, credulous, his endless cares
Begins to lose in blind oblivious 1 ive, 1059
Snatch'd from her yielding hand, he knows not how,
Through forest huge, and long untravelled heaths
With desolation brown, he wanders waste,
In night and tempest wrapped ; or shrinks aghast,
Back, from the bending precipice ; or wades
The turbid stream below, and strives to reach
The further shore ; where, saccourless and sad,
She with extended arms his aid implores ;
But strives in vain : borne bv th' outrageous flood
SPRING. 43
To distance down, he rides the ridgy wave,
Or whelmed beneath the boiling eddy sinks. 1070
These are the charming- ag-onies of love,
Whose misery delights. But through the heart
Should jealousy its venom once diffuse,
'Tis then delighted misery no more,
But agony unmixed, incessant gall.
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise. Ye fairy prospects, then,
Ye beds of roses, and ye bowers of joy,
Farewell I Ye gleamings of departed peace,
Shine out your last ? the yellow-tinging plague
Internal vision taints, and in a night 1081
Of livid gloom imagination wraps.
Ah then I instead of love-enlivened cheeks,
Of sunny features, and of ardent eyes
With flowing rapture bright, dark looks succeed,
Suffused and glaring with untender fire ;
A clouded aspect, and a burning cheek,
Where the whole poisoned soul, malignant, sits,
And frightens love away. Ten thousand fears
Invented wild, ten thousand frantic views 1090
Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms
For which he melts in f(mdness, eat him up
With fervent anguish and consuming rage.
In vain reproaches lend their idle aid,
Deceitful pride, and resolution frail.
Giving false peace a moment. Fancy pours.
Afresh, her beauties on his busy thought.
44 SPRING.
Her first endearments twining round the soul,
With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love. 1099
Straight the tierce storm involves his rnind anew,
Flames through the nerves, and boils along the
veins ;
While anxious doubt distracts the tortured heart :
For e'en sad assurance of his fears
Were ease to what he feels. Thus the warm youth
Whom love deludes into his thorny wilds,
Through flowery-tempting paths, or leads a life
Of fevered rapture, or of cruel care ;
His b»-ightest aims extinguished all, and all
His lively moments running down to waste.
But happy they, the happiest of their kind, 1110
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes and their beings blend.
'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself
Attuning all their passions into love ;
Where friendship full-exerts her softest power.
Perfect esteem enlivened by desire
Ineffable, and sympathy of soul ; 1119
Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence ; for nought but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
Let him, ungenerous, who, alone intent
To bless himself from sordid parents buys
The loathing virgin, in eternal care.
O-
lO-
SPRING. 45
Well-merited, consume his nights and days :
Let barbarous nations, whose inhuman love
Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel ;
Let eastern tyrants from the light of heaven
Seclude their bosom-slaves, meanly possessed 1130
Of a mere lifeless violated form :
While those whom love cements in holy faith,
And equal transport, free as Nature live,
Disdaining fear. What is the world to them,
Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all,
Who in each other clasp whatever fair
High fancy forms, and lavish hearts can wish.
Something than beauty dearer, should they look
Or on the mind, or mind-illumined face :
Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love, 1140
The richest bounty of indulgent heaven?
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round.
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows ; and every day.
Soft as it rolls alon?, shows some new charm
The father's lustre and the mother's bloom.
Then infant reason grows apace, and calls
For the kind hand of an assiduous care.
Delightful task 1 to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot, 1150
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe th' enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.
Oh, speak the joy I ye, whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,
And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss,
All various nature pressing on the heart ;
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, honks.
Ease and alternate labour, useful life, llfiO
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.
These are the matchless joys of virtuous love :
And thus their moments fly. The seasons thus.
As ceaseless round a jarring world they roll,
Still find them happy ; and consenting Spring
Sheds her own rosy garland on their heads :
Till evening comes at last, serene and mild,
When after the long vernal day of life,
Enamoured more as more remembrance swells
With many a proof of recollected love, 1170
Together down they sink in social sleep ;
Together feed, their gentle spirits fly
To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.
^ y BSifl (Ml 1 1^
ARGUMENT.
The subject proposed. Invocation. Address to Mr. Dodin^-
ton. An introductory reflection on the motion of the hea-
venly bodies ; whence the succession of the seasons. Aa
the face of tialiire in this season is almost uniform, the
progress of the poem is a description of a summer's day.
The dawn. Sun-rising. Hymn to the sun. Forenoon.
Slimmer insects described. Hay-making-. Sheep-shearing.
Noon-day. A woodland retreat. Group of herds and
flocks. A solemn grove: how it affects a contemplative
mind. A cataract, and rude scene. View of summer in
the torrid zone. Storm of thunder and lightning. A tale-
The storm over, a serene afternoon. Bathing. Hour of
walking. Transition to the prospect of a rich well-culti-
vated country ; which introduces a panegyric on Great
Britain. Sun-set. Evening. Night. Summer meteors.
A comet. The whole concluding with the praise of philo-
sophy.
SUMMER.
Fkom brig-htening fields of ether fair disclosed,
I Child of the sun, refulgent Summer comes,
' In pride of youth, and felt through nature's depth
He comes attended by the sultry Hours,
And ever-fanning breezes, on his way ;
While, from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face ; and earth, and skies,
AU-sniiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
Hence, let me haste into the mid-wood shade.
Where starce a sunbeam wanders through the
gloom ;
And on the dark-green grass, beside the brink 11
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large,
And sing the glories of the circling year.
Come, Inspiration I from thy hermit-seat.
By mortal seldom found ; may Fancy dare,
From thy fixed serious eye, and raptured glance
Shot on surrounding heaven, to steal one look
Creative of the poet, every power
Exalting to an ecstasy of soul. 20
And thou, my youthful muse's early friend.
In whom the human graces all unite :
) '■
50 SUMMER.
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart ;
Genius, and wisdom : the gay social sense,
By decency chastised ; goodness and wit,
In seldom-meeting harmony conihined ;
Unblemished honour, and an active zeal
For Britain's glory, liberty, and man :
O Dodington ! attend my rural song.
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line, 30
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
With what an awful woi-ld-revolving power
Were first th' unwieldy planets launched along
Th' illimitable void I thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men
And all their laboured monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course ;
To the kind-tempered change of night and day.
And of the seasons ever stealing round, 40
Minutely faithful : such th' all-])erfect hand
That poised, impels, and rules the steady whole I
When now no more th' alternate Twins are fired.
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the right ;
And soon, observant of approaching day,
The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dapi)led east :
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow ;
And, from before the lustre of her face, 50
Wliite break the clouds away. With quickened step,
o
SUMMER. 51
Brown Night retires ; young Day pours in apace,
And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine ;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps, awkward ; while along the forest glade
The wild deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes 60
The native voice of undissembled joy ;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves
Ilis mossy cottage, where with Peace he dwells ;
And from the crowded fold, in order drives
His flock, to taste the verdure of the mom.
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake ;
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due and sacred song 1 70
For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise ?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life ;
Total extinction of th' enlightened soul !
Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wildered, and tossing through distemper'd dreams ?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves, when every muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly-devious morning- walk ? 80
53 S V M M E B .
But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo, now, apparent all,
Aslaat the dew-bright earth, and coloured air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad ;
And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering
streams.
High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, Light !
Of all material beings first, and best I 91
Efflux divine I Nature's resplendent robe I
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom ; and thou, O Sun !
Soul of surrounding worlds I in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker ! may 1 sing of thee 1
'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,
As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy system rolls entire ; from the far bourne
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round 100
Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of tl^y blaze.
Informer of the planetary train !
Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous
orbs
Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead,
And not, as novf, the green abodes of life I
s u At M E R . 53
How many folms of being wait on thee,
Inhaling spirit ; from th' unfettered mind,
By thee sublimed, down to the daily race, 110
The mixing myriads of thy setting beam !
The vegetable world is also thine,
Parent of seasons ! who the pomp precede
That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road.
In world -rejoicing state, it moves sublime.
Meantime th' expecting nations, circled gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up
A common hymn : while, round thy beaming car,
High seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance
Harmonious knit, the rosy-fingered Hours, 122
The Zephyrs floating loose, the timely Rains,
Of bloom ethereal the light-footed Dews,
And softened into joy the surly Storms.
These,- in successive turn, with lavish hand.
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower.
Herbs, flowers, and fruits ; till, kindling at thy
touch,
From land to land is flushed the vernal yeat.
Nor to the surface of enlivened earth, 130
Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods,
Her liberal tresses, is thy force confined :
But, to the bowelled cavern darting deep.
The mindral kinds confess thy mighty power.
Effulgent, hence the veiny marble shines i
54 SUMMER.
Hence Labour draws his tools ; hence burnish'd Wat
Gleams on the day ; the nobler works of Peace
Hence bless mankind, and generous Commerce binds
The round of nations in a golden chain.
Th' unfruitful rock itself, impregn'd by thee,
In dark retirement forms the lucid stone. 141
The lively diamond drinks thy purest rays,
Collected light, compact ; that, polished bright,
And all its native lustre let abroad.
Dares, as it sparkles on the fair-one's breast,
With vain ambition emulate her eyes.
At thee the ruby lights its deepening glow,
And with a waving radiance inward flames.
From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes)
Its hue cerulean ; and of evening tinct, 150
The purple-streaming amethyst is thine.
With thy own smile the yellow topaz burns.
Nor deeper verdure dyes the robe of Spring,
When first she gives it to the southern gale.
Than the green emerald shows. But, all combined,
Thick through the whitening opal play thy beams ;
Or, flying several from its surface, form
A trembling variance of revolving hues,
As the sight varies in the gazer's hand.
The very dead creation, from thy touch, 160
Assumes a mimic life. By thee refined,
In brighter mazes the relucent stream
Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abrupt,
Projecting horror oa the blackened flood.
SUMMER. 55
Softens at thy return. The desert joys
Wildly, through all his melancholy bounds.
Rude ruins glitter ; and the briny deep,
Seen from some pointed promontory's top,
Far to the blue horizon's utmost verge,
Restless, reflects a floating gleam. But this, 170
And all the much-transported muse can sing,
Are to thy beauty, dignity, and use.
Unequal far ; great delegated Source
Of light, and life, and grace, and joy below !
How shall I then attempt to sing of Ilim
Who, light himself, in uncreated light
Invested deep, dwells awfully retired
From mortal eye or angel's purer ken,
Whose single smile has, from the first of time.
Filled, overflowing, all those lamps of heaven 180
That beam for ever through the boundless sky :
But, should he hide his face, the astonished sun,
And all th' extinguished stars, would loosening reel
Wide from their spheres, and chaos come again I
And yet was every faltering tongue of man,
Almighty Father I silent in thy praise,
Thy works themselves would raise a general voice,
E'en in the depth of solitary woods
By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power.
And to the choir celestial thee resound, 190
Th' eternal cause, support, and end of all !
To me be nature's volume broad-displayed ;
And to peruse its all-instructing page,
p— :
56 SU MMBR.
Or, haply catching inspiration thence,
Some easy passage, raptured, to translate,
My sole delight ; as through the falling glooms
Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn
On Fancy's eagle-wing excursive soar
Now, flaming up the heavens, the potent sun
Melts into limpid air the high-raised clouds, 200
And morning fogs, that hovered round the hills
In party-coloured bands : till wide unveiled
The face of nature shines, from where earth seems,
Far-stretched around, to meet the bending sphere.
Half in a blush of clustering roses lost.
Dew-dropping Coolness to the shade retires ;
There, on the verdant turf, or flowery bed,
By gelid founts and careless rills to muse ;
While tyrant Heat, dispreading through the sky.
With rapid sway, his burning influence darts 210
On man, and beast, and herb, and tepid stream.
Who can unpitying see the flowery race,
Shed by the morn, their new-flushed bloom resign.
Before the parching beam 1 so fade the fair.
When fevers revel through their azure veins.
But one, the lofty follower of the sun.
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves.
Drooping all night ; and, when he warm returns.
Points her enamored bosom to his ray.
Home, from his morning task, the swain retreats ;
His flock before him stepping to the fold : 221
While the fuU-uddered mother lows around
,_-^...,-^-, — ^^..^^^.^
— — c
SUMMER. 57
The cheerful cottage, then expecting food,
j The food of innocence and health ! The daw,
The rook and magpie, to the grey-grown oaks
That the calm village in their verdant arms.
Sheltering, embrace, direct their lazy flight ;
Where on the mingling boughs they sit embowered
All the hot noon, till cooler hours arise.
Faint, underneath, the liousehold fowls convene ;
And, in a corner of the buzzing shade, 231
The house-dog, with the vacant greyhound, lies,
Outstretched, and sleepy. In his slumbers one
Attacks the nightly thief, and one exults
O'er hill and dale ; till, wakened by the wasp,
They starting snap. Nor shall the muse disdain
To let the little noisy sunnner-race
Live in her lay, and flutter through her song :
Not mean though simple ; to the sun allied,
From him they draw their animating fire. 240
Waked by his warmer ray, the reptile young
Come winged abroad ; by the light air upborne,
Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink,
And secret corner, where they slept away
The wintry storms ; or rising from their tombs,
To higher life ; by myriads, forth at once.
Swarming they pour ; of all the varied hues
Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose.
Ten thousand forms, ten thousand different tribes,
People the blaze. To sunny waters some 250
By fatal instinct fly ; where on the pool
58 SUMMER.
They, sportive, wheel ; or, sailing down the stream,
Are snatched immediate by the quick-eyed trout,
Or darting salmcm. Through the green-wood glade
Some love to stray ; there lodged, amused and fed,
In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make
The meads their choice, and visit every flower,
And every latent herb : for the sweet task,
To propagate their kinds, and where to wrap,
In what soft beds, their young yet undisclosed, 260
Employs their tender care. Some to the house,
The fold, and dairy, hungry, bend their flight ;
Sip round the pail, or taste the curdhng cheese
Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream
They meet their fate ; or, weltering in the bowl,
With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.
But chief to heedless flies the window proves
A constant death ; where, gloomily retired.
The villain spider lives, cunning, and fierce,
Mixture abhorred I Amid a mangled heap 270
Of carcases, in eager watch he sits,
O'erlooking all his wa\-ing snares around.
Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer ofl
Passes ; as oft the ruffian shows his front ;
The prey at last en.snared, he dreadful darts, 275
With rapid glide, along the leaning line ;
And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs,
Strikes backward, grimly pleased : the fluttering
wing
SUMMER. 59
And shriller sound declare extreme distress,
And ask the helping hospitable hand. 280
Resounds the living surface of the ground :
Nor uudelightful is the ceaseless hum,
To him who muses through the woods at noon ;
Or drowsy shepherd, as he lies reclined,
With half-shut eyes, beneath the floating shade
Of willows grey, close-crowding o'er the brook.
Gradual, from these what numerous kinds descend,
Evading e'en the microscopic eye !
Full Nature swarms with life ; one wondrous mass
Of animals, or atoms organized, 290
Waiting the vital breath, when Parent-Heaven
Shall bid his spirit blow. The hoary fen,
In putrid steams, emits the livid cloud
Of pestilence. Through subterranean cells,
Where searching sunbeams scarce can find a way,
Earth animated heaves. The flowery leaf
Wants not its soft inhabitants. Secure,
Within its winding citadel, the stone
Holds multitudes. But chief the forest-boughs.
That dance unnumbered to the playful breeze, 300
The downy-orchard, and the melting pulp
Of mellow fruit, the nameless nations feed
Of evanescent insects. Where the pool
Stands mantled o'er with green, invisible,
Amid the floating verdure millions stray.
Each liquid too, whether it pierces, soothes,
Inflames, refreshes, or exalts the taste
60 SUMMER.
With various forms abounds. Nor is the stream
Of purest crystal, nor the lucid air,
Though one transparent vacancy it seems, 310
Void of their unseen people. These, concealed
By the kind art of forming Heaven, escape
The grosser eye of man ; for, if the worlds
In worlds enclosed should on his senses burst,
From cates ambrosial and the nectared bowl
He would abhorrent turn, and in dead night.
When silence sleeps o'er all, be stunn'd with noise.
Let no presuming impious railer tax
Creative wisdom, as if aught was formed
In vain, or not for admirable ends. 320
Shall little haughty Ignorance pronounce
His works unwise, of which the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind 1
As if upon a full proportioned dome,
On swelling columns heaved, the pride of art,
A critic-fly, whose feeble ray scarce spreads
An inch around, with blind presumption bold,
Should dare to tax the structure of the whole
And lives the meyi whose universal eye
Has swept at once th' unbounded scheme of things,
Marked their dependence so, and firm accord, 331
As with unfaltering accent to conclude
Tliat this availeth nought ? Has any seen
The mighty chain of beings, lessening dovm
From Infinite Perfection to the brink
•Of dreary nothing, desolate aby^s !
S U M M E B . 61
I From which astonished thought, recoiling-, turns 1
Till then alone let zealous praise ascend,
And hymns of holy wonder, to that Power
Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds 340
, As on our smiling eyes, his servant-sun.
' Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways,
Upward, and downward, thwarting, and convolved,
The quivering nations sport ; till, tempest-winged.
Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day.
E'en so luxurious men, unheeding, pass
An idle summer life in fortune's shrine,
A season's glitter ! thus they flutter on
From toy to toy. from vanity to vice ;
Till, blown away by death, oblivion comes 350
Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.
! Now swarms the village <-'er the jovial mead ;
The rustic youth, brown witli meridian toil.
Healthful and strong ; full as the summer-rose
Blown by prevailing suns, the ruddy maid.
Half-naked, swelling on the sight, and all
Her kindled graces burning o'er her cheek.
E'en stooping age is here ; and infant-hands
Trail the long-rake, or, with the fragrant load
O'erchanged, amid the kind oppression roll. 360
Wide flies the tedded grain ; all in a row
Advancing broad, <ir wheeling round the field,
They spread the breathing harvest to the sun,
That throws refreshful round a rural smell :
Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground,
o
62 SUMMER.
And drive the dusky wave along the mead,
The russet hay-cock rises thick behind,
In order gay. While heard from dale to dale,
Waking the breeze , resounds the blended voice
Of happy labour, love, and social glee. 370
Or rushing thence, in one diffusive band,
They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog
Compelled, to where the mazy-running brook
Forms a deep pool ; this bank abrupt and-high,
And that fair-spreading m a pebbled shore.
Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil.
The clamour much, of men, and boys, and dogs,
Ere the soft fearful people to the flood
Commit their wooly sides. And oft the swain,
On some impatient seizing hurls them in : 380
Emboldened then, nor hesitating more,
Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave.
And panting labour to the furthest shore.
Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece
Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt 385
The trout is banished by the sordid stream ;
Heavy, and dripping, to the breezy brow
Slow move the harmless race : where, as they spread
Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray.
Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild 390
Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints
The country fill ; and, tossed from rock to rock,
Incessant bleatings run around the hills.
At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks
G~ —- = ___™.,.^___
s t; M M & R . 63
Are ih the iVattled pen innumerous pressed.
Head above head ; and, rang'd in lusty rows
The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears.
The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores,
With all her gay-drest maids attending round.
One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned, 400
Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays
Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king ;
f "While the glad circle round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gaU.
Meantime, their joyous task goes on apace :
1 Some mingling stir the melted tar, ahd some,
; Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side
To stamp the master's cypher ready stind ;
Others th' unwilling wether drag along ;
And, glorying In his might, the sturdy boy 410
Holds by the twisted horns th' indignant ram.
Behold were bound, and of its robe bereft,
By needy man, that all-depending loi'd.
How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies !
What softness in its melancholy face,
What dumb complaining innocence appears I
Fear not, ye gentle tribes, 'tis not the knife
Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved ;
No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears,
Wlio having now, to pay his annual care, 420
Borrowed your fleece, to you a cumbrous load.
Will send you bounding to your hills again.
A simple scene ! yet hence Britannia sees
64 SUMMER.
Her solid grandeur rise : hence she commands
Th' exalted stores of every brighter clime,
The treasures of the sun without his rage :
Hence, fervent all, with culture, toil, and arts,
Wide glows her land ; her dreadful thunder hence
Rides o'er the waves isublime, and now, e'en now,
Impending hangs o'er Gallia's humbled coast ; 430
Hence rules the circling deep, and awes the world.
* Tis raging noon ; and, vertical, the sun
Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
O'er heaven and earth, far as the tanging eye
Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns ; and all
From pole to pole is undistinguished blaze.
In vain the sight, dejected to the ground.
Stoops for relief; thence hot ascending steams,
And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root
Of vegetation parched, the cleaving fields 440
And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose.
Blast Fancy's bloom, and wither e'en th*; soul.
Echo no more returns the cheefful sound
Of sharpening scythe : the mower sinking heaps
O'er him the humid hay, with flowers perfumed ;
And scarce a chirping grasshopper is heard
Through the dumb mead. Distressful Nature pants.
The Very streams look languid from afar ;
Or, through th' unsheltered glade, impatient, seem
To hurl into the covert of the grove. 450
All-'Conquering Heat, oh intermit thy wrath !
And on my throbbing temples potent thus
Q^ O
SUMMER- 65
Beam not so fierce I Incessant still you flow,
And still another fervent flood succeeds,
Poured on the head profuse. In vain I sigh,
And restless turn, and look around for night ;
Night is far off"; and hotter hours approach.
Thr.ce happy he ! who on the sunless side
Of » romantic mountain, forest-crowned.
Beneath the whole collected shade reclines : 460
Or in the gelid caverns woodbine-wrought.
And fresh bedewed with ever-spouting streams,
Sits coolly calm ; while all the world without.
Unsatisfied, and sick, tosses in noon.
Emblem instructive of the virtuous man.
Who keeps his tempered mind serene, and pure.
And every passion aptly harmonized,
Amid a jarring world with vice inflamed.
Welcome, ye shades ! ye bowery thickets, hail !
Ye lofty pines ! ye venerable oaks I 470
Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep
Delicious is your shelter to the soul.
As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,
Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he floats along the herbaged brink. 475
Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort
glides ;
The heart beats glad ; the fresh-expanded eye
And ear resume their watch ; the sinews knit ;
And life shoots swift through all the lengthened
limbs.
O-
60 SUMMER.
AroUhd th' adjoining brook, that purls along 480
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 Itiboi'ioUs ox, of honest front, 490
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 sustained ;
Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands filled ;
There, listening every noise, his Watchful dog.
Light fly his slumbers, if perchance a flight
Of angry gad-flies fasten on the hetd,
That startling scatters from the shallow brook, 500
In search of lavish stream. Tossing the foam,
They scorn the keeper's voice, and scour the plain,
Through all the bright severity of noon ;
While, from their labouring breasts, a hollow moan
Proceeding, runs low-bellowing round the hills.
Oft in this season too the horse, provoked.
While his big sinews full of spirits swell.
Trembling with vigour, in the heat of blood.
SUMMER. 67
Springs the high fence ; and, o'er the field effused,
Darts on the gloomy flood, with stedfast eye, 510
And heart estranged to fear : his nervous chest,
Luxuriant, and erect, the seat of strength.
Bears down th' opposing stream ; quenchless his
thirst :
He takes the river at redoubled draughts,
And with wide nostrils, snorting, skims the wave.
Still let me pierce into the midnight depth
Of yonder grove, of wildest largest growth :
That, forming high in air a woodland choir.
Nods o'er the mount beneath. At every step,
Solemn and slow the shadows blacker fall 520
And all is awful listening gloom around.
These are the haunts of Meditation ; these
The scenes where ancient bards th' inspiring breath,
Ecstatic, felt ; and, from this world retired,
Conversed with angels, and immortal forms,
On gracious errand bent : to save the fall
Of virtue struggling on the brink of vice ;
In waking whispers, and repeated dreams,
To hint pure thought, and warn the favoured soul
For future trials fated to prepare ; 530
To prompt the poet who devoted gives
His muse to better themes : to soothe the pangs
Of dying worth, and from the patriot's breast
(Backward to mingle in detested war.
But foremost when engaged) to turn the death ;
bo SUMMER.
And numberless such ofiires of love,
Daily, and nightly, zealous to perform
Shook sudden from the bosom of the eky,
A thousand shapes or glide athwart the dusk.
Or stalk majestic on. Deep-roused. I feel 540
A sacred terror, a severe delight,
Creep through my mortal frame ; and thus me-
thinks
A voice, than human more, th' abstracted ear
Of Fancy strikes. " Be not of us afraid.
Poor kindred man I thy fellow-creatures, we
From the same Parent-Power our beings drew.
The same our Lord, and laws, and great pursuit.
Once some of us, like thee, through stormy life.
Toiled, tempest-beaten, ere we could attain
This holy calm, this harmony of mind, 550
Where purity and peace immingle charms.
Then fear not us ; but with responsive song,
Amid these dim recesses, undisturbed
By noisy folly and discordant vice,
Of nature sing with us, and nature's God.
Here frequent, at the visionary hour.
When musing midnight reigns or silent noon,
Angelic harps are in full concert heard,
And voices chanting from the wood-crowned hill.
The deepening dale, or inmost sylvan glade, 560
A privilege bestowed by us, alone.
On Contemplation, or the hallowed ear
Of poet, swelling to seraphic strain."
o-
SUMMER 69
And art thou, Stanley,* of that sacred band ?
Alas, for us too soon I thous:h raised above 565
The leanh of human pain, above the flight
Of human joy ; yet, with a mingled ray
Of sadly pleased remembrance, must thou feel
A mother's love, a mother's tender wo,
Who seeks thee still, in many a former scene ; 570
Seeks thy fair form, thy lovely-beaming eyes,
Thy ))leasing converse, by gay lively sense
Inspired, where moral wisdom mildly shone,
Without the toil of art ; and virtue glowed,
In all her smiles, without forbidding pride.
But, O thou best of parents I wipe thy tears,
Or rather to parental nature pay
The tears of grateful joy, who for a while
Lent thee this younger self, this opening bloom
Of thy enlightened n)ind and gentle worth. 580
Believe the muse : the wintr)- blast of death
Kills not the buds of virtue ; no, they spread.
Beneath the heavenly beam of l)righter suns.
Through endless ages, into higher powers.
Thus up the mount, in airy vision rapt,
I stray, regardless whither, till the sound
Of a near fall of water every sense
W^akes from the charm of thought : swift-shrinking
back,
I check my steps, and view the broken scene.
• A yoiinor lady, well known to the author, who ilied at
the ag-e of eighteen, in the year 1738.
70 SUMMER.
Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood 590
Rolls fair and placid, where collected all,
In one impetuous torrent, down the steep
It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round.
At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad ;
Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls,
And, from the loud-resounding rocks below,
Dashed in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.
Nor can the tortured wave here find repose ;
But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks, 600
Now flashes o'er the scattered fragments, now
Aslant the hollowed channel rapid darts ;
And falling fast from gradual slope to slope,
With wild infracted course and lessened roar,
It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last,
Along the mazes of the quiet vale.
Invited from the cliff, to whose dark brow
He olings, the steep-ascending eagle soars.
With upward pinions through the flood of day ;
And, giving full his bosom to the blaze, 610
Gains on the sun ; while all the tuneful race,
Smit by afflictive noon, disordered droop.
Deep in the thicket ; or, from bower to bower
Responsive, force an interrupted strain.
The stock-dove only through the forest coos.
Mournfully hoarse ; oft ceasing from his plaint
(Short interval of weary wo I) again
The sad idea of his murdered mate,
SUMMER. 71
Struck from his side by savage fowler's guile,
Across his fancy comes ; and then resounds 620
A louder song of sorrow through the grove.
Beside the dewy border let me sit,
All in the freshness of the humid air ;
There in that hollowed rock, grotesque and wild,
An ample chair moss-lined, and overhead
Bj flowering umbrage shaded, where the bee
Strays diligent, and with th' extracted balm
Of fragrant woodbine loads his little thigh.
Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade.
While Nature lies around deep-lulled in noon, 630
Now come, bold Fancy, spread a daring flight,
And view the wonders of the torrid zone :
Climes unrelenting ! with whose rage compared,
Yon bla'ze is feeble, and yon skies are cool.
See how at once the bright-effulgent sun,
Rising direct, swift chases from the sky
The short-lived twilight, and with ardent blaze
Looks gaily fierce through all the dazzling air !
He mounts his throne ; but kind before him sends.
Issuing from out the portals of the morn, 640
The general breeze,* to mitigate his fire
And breathe refreshment on a fainting world.
Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crowned
• Which blows constantly between the tropics from the
east, or the collateral points, (he north-east and sonili east;
caused by the pressure of the rarefied air on that before i I,
according to the diurnal motion of the sun from east to
west.
'0
Q
72 SUMMER.
And barbarous wealth, that see, each circling year,
Returning suns and double seasons* pass :
Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines,
That on the high equator ridgy rise,
Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays :
Majestic vroods, of every vigorous green,
Stage above stage, high-waving o'er the hills ; 650
Or to the far horizon wide diffused,
A boundless deep immensity of shade.
Here lofty trees, to ancient song unknown.
The noble sons of potent heat and floods
Prone rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven
Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw
Meridian g'oom. Here, in eternal prime,
Unnumbered fruits, of keen delicious taste
And vital spirit, drink amid the cliffs,
And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales, 660
Redoubled day, yet in their rugged coats
A friendly juice to cool its rage contain.
Bear me, Pomona, to thy citron groves,
To where the lemon and the piercing lime,
With the deep orange, glowing through the green,
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined
Beneath the spreading tamarind, that shakes,
Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.
Deep in the night the massy locust sheds,
• In all climates between the tropics, the sun, as he passes
and repasses in his annual motion, is twice a year vertical,
which produces this effect.
SUMMER. 73
Quench my hot hmbs ; or lead me through the maze,
Embowering endless, of the Indian fig ; 671
Or, thrown at gayer ease on some fair brow,
Let me behold, my breezy murmurs cooled,
Broad o'er my head the verdant cedar wave,
And high palmetos lift their graceful shade.
Or, stretched amid these orchards of the sun,
Give me to drain the cocoa's milky bowl,
And from the palm to draw its freshening wine,
More bounteous far than all the frantic juice, 679
Which Bacchus pours ! Nor, on its slender twigs
Low-bending, be the full pomegrauate scorned :
Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid-nice
Of berries. Oft iu humble station dwells
Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp :
Witness, thou best Anana, thou the pride
Of vegetable life, beyond whate'er
The poets imaged in the golden age :
Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat.
Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove !
From these the prospect varies. Plains immense
Lie stretched below, interminable meads, 691
And vast savannahs, where the wandering eye,
Unfixed, is in a verdant ocean lost.
Another Flora there, of bolder hues,
And richer sweets, beyond our garden's pride,
Plays o'er the fields, and showers with sudden hand
Exuberant spring ; for oft these valleys shift
Their green-embroidered robe to finry brown,
74 s y M M E H .
And swift to green again, as scorching suns,
Or strcming dews and torrent rains, prevail. 700
Along these lonely regions, where, retired
From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells
In awful solitude, and nought is seen
But the wild herds that own no master's stall,
Prodigious rivers roll their fat'ning seas.
On whose luxuriant herbage, half-concealed,
Like a fall'n cedar, far-diffused his train,
Cased in green scales, the crocodile extends.
The flood disparts : behold ! in plaited mail,
Behemoth* rears his head. Glanced from his side
The darted steel in idle shivers flies : 711
He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills,
Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds
In widening circle round, forget their food,
And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze.
Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast
Their ample shade o'er Niger's yellow stream.
And' where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave ;
Or mid the central depth of blackening woods.
High-raised in solemn theatre around, 720
Leans the huge elephant : wisest of brutes !
O truly wise, with gentle might endowed.
Though powerful, not destructive ! Here he sees
Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth.
And empires rise and fall ; regardless he
* The hippopotamus, or river-horse.
SUMMER. lO
Of what the never-restiji? race of men
Project : thrice-happy could he scape their guile
Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps ;
Or with his towery grandeur swell their state 739
(The pride of kings!) or else his strength pervert,
And bid him rage amid the mortal fray,
Astonished at the madness of mankind.
Wide o'er the winding umbrage of the floods.
Like vivid blossoms glowing from afar ;
Thick swarm the brighter birds ; for Nature's hand.
That with a sportive vanity has decked
The jdumy nations, there her gayest hues
Profusely pours. But, if she bids them shine,
Arrayed in all the beauteous beams of day,
Yet, frugal still, she humbles them in song.* 740
Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent
Proud Montezuma's realm, whose legions cast
A boundless radiance waving on the sun.
While Philomel is ours, while in our shades,
Through the soft silence of the listening night,
The sober-suited songstress trills her lay.
But come, my muse, the desert-barrier burst,
A wild expanse of lifeless sand and sky.
And, swifter than the toiling caravan.
Shoot o'er the vale of Sennar, ardent climb 750
The Nubian Mountains, and the secret bounds
* In al 1 the regions of the toirid zone, the birds, though more
beautiful in their plumage, are observed to be less melodious
than ours.
7C SUMMER.
Of jealous Abyssinia boldly pierce.
Thou art no ruffian who beneath the mask
Of social commerce com'st to rob their wealth ;
No holy fury thou, blaspheming Heaven,
With consecrated steel to stab their peace,
And through the land, yet red from civil wounds
To spread the purple tyranny of Rome.
Thou, like the harndess bee, may'st freely range
From mead to mead, bright with exalted flowers,
From jasmine grove to grove may'st wander gay.
Through palmy shades and aromatic woods, 762
That grace the plains, invest the peopled hills.
And up the more than Alpine mountains wave.
There on the breezy summit, spreading fair.
For many a league ; or on stupendous rocks,
That from the sun-redoubling valley lift,
Coo] to the middle air, their lawny tops ;
Where palaces, and fanes, and villas rise,
And gardens smile around, and cultured fields : 770
And fountains gush ; and careless herds and flocks
Securely stray ; a world within itself,
Disdaining all assault : there let me draw
Ethereal soul, there drirdc reviving gales,
Profusely breathing from the spicy groves,
And vales of fragrance ; there at distance hear
The roaring floods and cataracts, that sweep
From disembowelled earth the virgin gold,
And o'er the varied landscape, restless, rove.
Fervent with life of every fairer kind : 780
O
SUMMER. 77
A land of wonders, which the sun still eyes
With ray direct, as of the lovely realm
Enamoured, and delighting there to dwell.
How changed the scene ! In blazing height of
noon,
The sun, oppressed, is plunged in thickest gloom.
Still horror reigns, a dreary twilight round,
Of struggling night and day malignant mixed.
For to the hot equator crowding fast.
Where, highly rarefied, the yielding air
Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll, 790
Amazing clouds on clouds continual heaped ;
Or whirled tempestuous by the gusty wind,
Or silent borne along, heavy, and slow,
With the big stores of steaming oceans charged.
Meantime, amid these upper seas, condensed
Around the cold aerial mountain's brow,
And by conflicting winds together dashed.
The thunder holds his black tremendous throne ;
From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage ;
Till, in the furious elemental war 800
Dissolved, the whole precipitated mass
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours.
The treasures these, hid from the bounded search
Of ancient knowledge ; whence, with annual pomp,
Rich king of floods I o'erflows the swelling Nile.
From his two springs, in Gojam's sunny realm,
Pure-wellmg out, he through the lucid lake
Of fair Dambea rolls his infant stream.
78 SUMMER.
There by the Naiads nursed, he sports away
His playful youth, amid the fragrant isles 810
That with unfading verdure smile around.
Ambitious, thence the manly river breaks ;
And gathering many a flood, and copious fed
With all the mellowed treasures of the sky,
Winds in progressive majesty along :
Through splendid kingdoms now devolves his maze,
Now wanders wild o'er solitary tracts
Of life-deserted Sand ; till, glad to quit
The joyless desert, down the Nubian rocks.
From thundering steep to steep, he pours his urn.
And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave, 821
His brother Niger too, and all the floods
In which the full-form'd maids of Afric lave
Their jetty limbs ; and all that from the tract
Of woody mountains stretched through gorgeous Ind
Fall on Cor'mandel's coast, or Malabar ;
FromMenam's orient stream*, that nightly shines
With insect lamps, to where Aurora sheds
On Indus' smiling banks the rosy shower:
All, at this bounteous season ope their urns, 830
And pour untoiling harvest o'er the land.
Nor less thy world, Columbus, drinks, refreshed,
The lavish moisture of the melting year.
Wide o'er his isles the branching Oronoque
* The river that runs throusfh Siam, on whose banks a vast
multaude of those insects called fire-flies malte a beautiful
appearance at nig-ht.
SUMMER. 79
Rolls a brown deluge, and the native drives
To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees,
At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms.
Swelled by a thousand streams, impetuous hurled
From all the roaring Andes, huge descends
The mighty Orellana.* Scarce the muse 840
Dares stretch her wing o'er this enormous mnss
Of rushini,'- water ; scarce she dares attempt
The sea-like Plata, to whose dread expanse.
Continuous depth, and wondrous length of course,
Our floods are rill?. With unabated force,
In silent dignity they sweep along.
And traverse realms unknown, and l>looming wilds,
And fruitful deserts, worlds of solitude.
Where the sun smiles, and seasons teem in vain,
Unseen, and unenjoyed. Forsaking these, 850
O'er peopled plains they fair-diffusive flow,
And many a nation feed, and circle safe.
In their soft bosom, many a happy isle.
The seat of blameless Pan, yet undisturbed
By Christian crimes and cruel Europe's sons.
Thus pouring on they proudly seek the deep,
Whose vanquish 'd tide, recoiling from the shock,
Yields to this liquid weight of half the globe.
And 0(-ean trembles for his green domain.
But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth —
This gay profusion of luxurious bliss — 861
* The river of the Amazons.
o-
BU SUMMER.
This pomp of nature T what their balmy meads,
Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain ?
By vagrant birds dispersed, and wafting winds,
What their unplanted fruits ? what the cool
draughts,
The ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health,
Their forests yield ? Their toiling insects what,
Their silky pride, and vegetable robes ?
Ah ! what avail their fatal treasures, hid,
Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth, 870
Golconda's gems, and sad Potosi's mines.
Where dwelt the gentlest children of the sun 1
What all that Afrio's golden rivers roll.
Her odorous woods, and shining ivory stores?
Ill-fated race ! the softening arts of peace,
Whate'er the humanising muses teach : —
The godlike wisdom of the tempered breast ;
Progressive truth, the patient force of thought ;
Investigation calm, whose silent powers
Command the world ; the light that leads to heaven ;
Kind equal rule, the government of laws, 881
And all-protecting Freedom, which alone
Sustains the name and dignity of man ; —
These are not theirs. The parent sun himself
Seems o'er this world of slaves to tyrannise ;
And, with oppressive ray the roseate bloom
Of beauty blasting, gives the gloomy hue,
And feature gross : or worse, to ruthless deeds,
Mad jealousy, blind rage, and fell revenge,
, Q
SUMMER. 81 !
Their fervid spirit fires. I<ove dwells not there,
The soft regards, the tenderness of life, 891
The heart-shed tear, th' ineffable deli^jht
Of sweet humanity : these court the beam ,
Of milder climes ; in selfish fierce desire,
And the wild fury of voluptuous sense, |
There lost. The very brute-creation there
This rage partakes, and burns with horrid fire.
Lo I the green serpent, from his dark abode,
Which e'en Imagination fears to tread.
At noon forth-issuing, gathers up his train 900
In orbs immense, then, darting out anew.
Seeks the refreshing founts, by which diffused
He throws his folds ; and while, with threatening
tongue.
And deathful jaws erect, the monster curls
His flaming crest, all other thirst appalled.
Or shivering flies, or checked at distance stands.
Nor dares approach. But still more dreadful he
The small close-lurking minister of fate.
Whose high-concocted venom through the veins
A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift 910
The vital current. Formed to humble man.
This child of vengeful Nature ! there, sublimed
To fearless lust of blood, the savage race
Roam, licensed by the shading hour of guilt.
And foul misdeed, when the pure day has shut
His sacred eye. The tiger darting fierce
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doomed ;
82 SUMMER.
The lively-shining leopard, speckled o'er
With many a spot, the beauty of the waste ;
And, scorning all the taming arts of man, 920
The keen hyena, fellest of the fell ;
These, rushing from th' inhospitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles
That verdant rise amid the Lybian wild,
Innumerous glare around their shaggy king,
Majestic, stalking o'er the printed sand,
And, with imperious and repeated roars,
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks
Crowd near the guardian swain ; the nobler herds,
Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease, 930
They ruminating lie, with horror hear
The coming rage. Th' awakened village starts ;
And to her fluttering breast the mother strains
Her thoughtless infant. From the pirate's den,
Or stern Morocco's tyrant fang, escaped,
Tiie wretch half wishes for his bonds again ;
While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds,
From Atlas eastward to the frighted Nile.
Unhappy he who from the fijst of joys.
Society, cut off, is left alone 940
Amid this world of death. Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below.
Still fondly forming in the furthest verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim-discovered, dropping from the clouds !
SUMMER. 83
At evening, to the sotting sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless ; while the wonted roar is up.
And hiss continual through the tedious night. 9j0
Yet here, e'en here, into these i)lack. abodes
Of monsters, unappalled, from stooping Rome,
And guilty Cansar, Liberty retired,
HerCato following through Numidian wilds,
Disdainful of Campania's gentle plains
And all the green delights Ausonia pours.
When for them she must bend the servile knee
And fawning take the splendid robljer's boon.
Nor stop the terrors of these regions here.
Commissioned demons oft, angels of wrath, 960
Let loose the raging elements. Breathed hot,
From all the boundless furnace of the sky.
And the wide glittering waste of burning sand-,
A suffocating wind the pilgrim smites
With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil,
Son of the desert 1 e'en the camel feels.
Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blaSt.
Or from the black-red ether bursting broad,
Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands,
Commoved around, in gathering eddies play ; 970
Nearer and nearer sti.ll they darkening come ;
Till, with the general all-involving storm
Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise ;
And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown,
Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep.
6-
84 SUMMER.
Beneath descending hills, the caravan
Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets
Th' irppitient merchant, -wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
But chief at sea, whose every flexile wave 980
Obeys the blast, the aerial tumult swells,
In the dread ocean, undulating wide.
Beneath the radiant line that girls the globe,
The circling Typhon*, whirled from point to point,
Exhausting all the rage of all the sky.
And dire Ecnephia* reign. Amid the heavens,
Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck t
Compressed, the mighty tempest brooding dwells ;
Of no regard, save •;o the skilful eye,
Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs 990
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm,
A fluttering gale, the demon sends before.
To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once,
Precipitant, descends a mingled mass
Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fixed the sailor stands.
Art is too slow. By rapid fate oppressed,
His broad-winged vessel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bosom of the black abyss. 1000
• Typhon and Ecnephia, names of particular storms or
hurricanes, known only between the tropics.
t Called by sailors the Ox-eye, heing in appearance at
first DO bigger.
SUMMER. 83
With such mad seas the daring Gama* fought,
For many a day, and many a dreadful night,
Incessant, lab'ring round the stormy Cape,
By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst
Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerged
The rising world of trade : the genius, then,
Of navigation, that, in hopeless sloth.
Had slumbered on the vast Atlantic deep
For idle ages, starting, heard at last
The Lusitanian priucet ; who, Heaven inspired.
To love of useful glory roused mankind, 1011
And in unbounded commerce mixed the world.
Increasing still the terrors of these storms.
His jaws horrific armed with threefold fate.
Here dwells the direful shark. Lured by the S(^ent
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,
Behold I he rushing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along ;
And, from the partners of that cruel trade
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons, 1020
Demands his share of prey, demands themselves.
The stormy fates descend : one death involves
Tyrants and slaves ; when straight their mangled
limbs,
• Va«co de Gama, the first who sailed rotind Africa, by the
Cape of Good Hope, to the East Indies.
t Don Henry, third son to John the first, Kin|r of Portiijral.
His stroiiof genius to the discovery of new countries was the
chief 3our(ie of all the modern inlprovements in navigation.
86 SUMMER.
Crashing- at once, he dyea the purple seas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.
When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains
Flooded immense, looks out the joyless sun,
And draws the copious stream from swampy fens,
Where putrefaction into life ferments,
And breathes destructive myriads, or from woods,
Impenetrable shades, recesses foul 1031
In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,
Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot
Has ever dared to pierce ; then, wasteful, forth
Walks the dire power of pestilent disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,
Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless wo.
And feeble desolation, casting down
The towering hopes and all tlie pride of man,
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quenched 1040
The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw
The miserable scene ; you, pitying, saw
To infaut-weakneas sunk the warrior's arm ;
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form.
The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye
No more with ardour bright ; you heard the groans
Of agonising ships, from shore to shore ;
Heard, nightly plunged amid the sullen waves.
The frequent corSe ; while on each other fixed
In sad presage, the blank assistants seemed, 1050
Silent, to ask whom Fate would next demand.
What need I mention those inclement skies,
o-
SUMMER. 87
Where, frequent o'er the sickening city, Plague,
The fiercest child of Nemesis divine,
Descends ? From Ethiopia's poisoned woods,
From stifled Cairo's filth, a.ud fetid fields
With locust-armies putrifying heaped*.
This great destroyer sprung. Her awful rage
The brutes escape : man is her destined prey,
Intemperate man ! and o'er his guilty domes 1060
She draws a close incumbent cloud of death ;
Uninterrupted by the living winds,
Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze ; and stained
With many a mixture by the sun, suifused,
Of angry aspect. Princely Wisdom, then,
Dejects his watchful eye ; and from the hand
Of feeble .Justice, ineffectual, drop
The sword and balance : mute the voice of joy,
And hushed the clamour of the busy world.
Empty the streets, with uncouth vendure clad ; 1070
Into ihe worst of deserts sudden turned
The cheerful haunt of men, unless escaped
From the doomed house, where matchless horror
reigns.
Shut up by barbarous fear, the smitten wretch,
With frenzy wild, breaks loose ; and, loud to heaven
Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns,
Inhuman and unwise. Tlie sullen door,
Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge
* These are the causes supposed to be the first orjo^in of the
plague, ui Dr. Mead's eleg'ant book on that subject.
H8 SUMMER.
Fearing to turn, abhors society :
Dependents, friends, relations. Love himself, 1080
Savaged by wo, forget the tender tie»
The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.
But vain their selfish care : the circling sky,
The wide enlivening air, is full of fate ;
And, struck by turns, in solitary pangs
They fall, unblest, untended, and unmourned.
Thus o'er the prostrate city black Despair
Extends her raven wing ; while, to complete
The scene of desolation, stretched around
The grim guards stand, denying all retreat, 1090
And give the flying wretch a better death.
Much yet remains unsung : the rage intense
Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields,
Where draught and famine starve the blasted year :
Fired by the torch of noon to tenfold rage,
The infuriate hill that shoots the pillared flame.
And, roused within the subterranean world,
Th' expanding earthquake, that resistless shakes
Aspiring cities from their solid base.
And buries mountains in the flaming gulf. 1100
But ' tis enough ; return my vagrant muse :
A nearer scene of horror calls thee home,
Behold, slow-settling o'er the lurid grove,
Unusual darkness broods, and growing gains
The full possession of the sky, surcharged
With wrathful vapour, from the secret beds,
Where sleep the mineral generations, drawn.
^
SUMMER. By
Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume
Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day
With various-tinctured trains of latent flame, 1110
Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud,
A reddeningf gloom, a magazine of fate,
Ferment ; till, by the touch ethereal roused,
The dash of clouds, or irritating war
Of fighting winds, while all is calm below,
They furious spring. A boding silence reigns,
Dread through the dun expanse ; save the dull
sound
That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
And shakes the forest leaf without a breath. 1120
Prone, to the lowest vale, the aerial tribes
Descend: the tempest-loving raven scarce
Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze
The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens
Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook.
Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.
'Tis listening fear and dumb amazement all.
When to the startled eye the sudden glance 1129
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,
The tempest growls ; but as it nearer comes,
And rolls its awful burden on the wind.
o-
90 SUMMER.
The lightning's 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 ether in a blaze. 1140
Follows the loosened aggravated roar.
Enlarging, deepening, mingling ; peal on peal
Crushed horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.
Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail,
Or prone-descending rain. Wide-rent, the clouds.
Pour a whole flood ; and yet, its flame unquenched
Th' unconquerable lightning struggles through,
Ragged and flerce, or in red whirling balls,
And fires the mountains with redoubled rage. 1149
Black from the stroke, above, the smould'ring pine
Stands a sad shattered trunk ; and stretched below,
A lifeless group, the blasted cattle lie :
Here .the soft flocks, with that same harmless look
They wore alive, and ruminating still
In Fancy's eye ; and there the frowning bull,
An ox half-raised. Struck on the castled cliff,
The venerable tower and spiry fane
Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods
Start. at the flash, and from their deep recess.
Wide-flaming out, their trembling inmates shake.
Amid Carnarvon's mountains rages loud 1161
The repercussive roar : with mighty crash,
Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks
Of Penmanmaur heaped hideous to the sky,
S V MME B.
91
Tumble the smitten cliffs ; and Snowden's peak,
Dissolving-, instant yields his wintry load.
Far-seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze,
And Thule bellows through her utmost isles.
Guilt hears appalled, with deeply-troubled
thought ;
And yet not always on the guilty head
Descends the fated flash. Young Celadon
And his Amelia were a matchless pair ;
With equal virtue formed and equal grace.
The same, distinguished by their sex alone :
Hers, the mild lustre of the blooming morn,
And his the radiance of the risen day.
They loved ; but such their guileless passion was
As in the dawn of time informed the heart
Of Innocence, and undissembling Truth.
'Twas friendship heightened by the mutual wish,
Th' enchanting hope, and sympathetic glow, 1181
Beamed from the mutual eye. Devoting all
To love, each was to each a dearer self.
Supremely happy in th' awakened power
Of giving joy. Alone, amid the shades.
Still in harmonious intercourse they lived
The rural day, and talked the flowing heart,
Or sighed and looked unutterable things.
So passed their life, a clear united stream,
By care unruffled ; till, in evil hour, 1190
The tempest caught them on the tender walk,
Heedless how far, and where its mazes strayed
92 SUMMER.
While, with each other blest, creative love
Still bade eternal Eden smile around.
Presaging- instant fate her bosom heaved
Unwonted sighs, and, stealing oft a look
Of the big gloom, on Celadon her eye
Fell tearful, wetting her disordered cheek.
In vain assuring love, and confidence 1199
In Heaven, repressed her fear ; it grew, and shook
Her frame near dissolution. He perceived
Th' unequal conflict, and, as angels look
On dying saints, his eyes compassion shed,
With love illumined high. " Fear not," he said,
" Sweet innocence I thou stranger to offence,
An inward storm ! He who yon skies involves
In frowns of darkness ever smiles on thee
With kind regard. O'er thee the secret shaft
That wastes at midnight, or th' undreaded hour
Of noon, flies harmless ; and that very voice 1210
Which thunders terror through the guilty heart
With tongues of seraphs whispers peace to thine.
'Tis safety to be near thee sure, and thus
To clasp perfection ! " From his void embrace
(Mysterious Heaven !) that moment, to the ground,
A blackened corse, was struck the beauteous maid.
But who can paint the lover, as he stood.
Pierced by severe amazement, hating life,
Speechless, and fixed in all the death of wo !
So (faint resemblance !) on the marble tomb, 1220
S U M M E B 93
The well-dissembled mourner stooping stands,
For ever silent, and for ever sad.
As from the face of heaven the shattered clouds
Tumultuous rove, th' interminable sky
Sublimer swells, and o'er the world expands
A purer azure. Through the lightened air
A higher lustre and a clearer calm,
Diffusive, tremble ; while, as if in sign
Of danger past, a glittering robe of joy,
Set off abundant by the yellow ray, 1230
Invests the fields, and Nature smiles revived.
'Tis beauty all, and grateful song around.
Joined to the low of kine, and numerous bleat
Of flocks thick nibbling through the clovered vale.
And shall the hymn be marred by thankless man.
Most-favoured, who with voice articulate
Should lead the chorus of this lower world 1
Shall he, so soon forgetful of the hand
That hushed the thunder, and serenes the sky.
Extinguished feel that spark the tempest waked.
That sense of powers exceeding far his own, 1241
Ere yet his feeble heart has lost its fears 1
Cheered by the milder beam, the sprightly youth
Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth
A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands
Gazing th' inverted landscape, half afraid
To meditate the blue profound below,
Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.
His ebon tresses and his rosy cheek
C- ■
94 SUMMER.
Instant emerge ; and through th' obedient wave,
At each short breathing by his lip repelled, 1251
With arms and legs according well, he makes,
As humour leads, an easy-winding path ;
Wliile, from his polished sides, a dewy light
Effuses on the pleased spectators round.
This is the purest exercise of health,
The kind refresher of the summer-heats ;
Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood.
Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink.
Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserved, 1260
By the bold swimmer, in the swift illapse
Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs
Knit into force ; and the same Roman arm
Tliat rose victorious o'er the conquered earth
First learned, while tender, to subdue the wave.
E'en from the body's purity the mind
Receives a secret sympathetic aid.
Close in the covert of a hazel copse,
Where winded into pleasing solitudes
Runs out the rambling dale, young Damon sat, 1270
Pensive, and pierced with love's delightful pangs
There to the stream that down the distant rocks
Hoarse-murmuring fell, and plaintive breeze that
played
Among the bending willows, falsely he
Of Musidora's cruelty complained.
She felt his flame ; but deep within her breast,
In bashful coyness, or in maiden pride.
SUMMER. 95
The soft return concealed, save when it stole
In side-long glances from her downcast eye,
Or from her swelling soul in stifled sighs. 1280
Touched by the scene, no stranger to his vows,
He framed a melting lay to try her heart ;
And, if an infant passion struggled there.
To call that passion forth. Thrice happy swain '
A lucky chance, that oft decides the fate
Of mighty monarchs, then decided thine.
For lo I conducted by the laughing lovos,
This cool retreat his Musidora sought :
Warm in her cheek the sultry season glowed ;
And, robed in loose array, she came to bathe 1290
Her fervent wings in the refreshing stream.
What shall he do ? In sweet confusion lost,
And dubious flutterings, he awhile remained :
A pure ingenuous elegance of soul,
A delicate refinement, known to few,
Perplexed his breast, and urged him to retire :
But love forbade. Ye prudes in virtue, say.
Say, ye severest what would you have done ?
Meantime, this fairer nymph than ever blest
Arcadian stream, with timid eye around 1300
The banks sun-eying, stripped her beauteous limbs,
To taste the lucid coolness of the flood.
Ah then ! not Paris on the piny top
Of Ida panted stronger, when aside
The rival-goddesses the veil divine
Cast unconfined, and gave him all their charms,
)— ■ 1
98 SUMMER.
Than, Damon thou ; as from the snowy leg-,
And slender foot^ th' inverted silk she drew ;
As the soft touch dissolved the virgin zone ; 1309
And, through the partinsr robe, th' alternate breast,
With youth wild-'throbbing, on thy lawless gaze
In full luxuriance rose. But, desperate youth.
How durst thou risk the soul distracting view,
As from her naked limbs, of glowing white,
Harmonious swelled by Nature's finest hand,
In folds loose-floating fell the fainter lawn ;
And fair-exposed she stood, shrunk from herself.
With fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze
Alarmed, and starting like the fearful fawn T
Then to the flood she rushed ; the parted flood 1320
Its lovely guest with closing waves received ;
And eVcry beauty softening, every grace
Flushing anew, a mellow lustre shed :
As shines the lily through the crystal mild i
Or as the rose amid the morning dew.
Fresh from Aurora's hand, more sweetly glows.
While thus she wantoned, now beneath the wave
But ill concealed, and now with streaming locks,
That half embraced her in a humid veilj
Rising again, the latent Damon drew 1330
Such madd'ning draughts of beauty to the Soul
As for awhile o'erwhelmed his raptured thought
With luxury too daring. Checked, at last,
By love's respectful modesty, he deemed
The theft profane, if aught profane to love
O : :
S tJ M M E R . 97
Can e'er be deemed ; and, struggling from the
shade,
With headlong hurry fled : but first these lines,
Traced by his ready pencil, on the bank
With trembling hand he thre-w. " Bathe on, my
fair,
Yet unbeheld, save by the sacred eye 1340
Of faithful love : I go to guard thy haunt,
To keep from thy recess each vagrant foot.
And each licentious eye." With wild surprise,
As if to marble struck, devoid of sense,
A stupid moment motionless she stood ;
So stands the statue that enchants the world,*
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
Recovering, swift she flew to tiiid those robes
Which blissful Eden knew not , and, arrayed 1350
In careless haste, th' alarming paper snatched.
But, when her Damon's well-known hand bhe saw,
Her terrors vanished, and a softer train
Of mixt emotions, hard to be described,
Her sudden bosom seized : shame void of guilt,
The charming blush of innocence, esteem
And admiration of her lover's flame.
By modesty exalted : e'en a sense
Of self-approving beauty stole across
Her busy thought. At length, a tender calm 1360
Hushed by degrees the tumult of her soul ,
• The Venus of Medici.
98 SUMMER.
And on the spreading beech, that.o'er the stream
Incumbent hung she with the silvan pen
Of rural lovers this confession carved.
Which soon her Damon kissed with weeping joy :
" Dear youth, sole judge of what these verses
mean,
By fortune too much favoured, but by love
Alas I not favoured less, be still as now
Discreet ; the time may come you need not fly."
The sun has lost its rage : his downward orb
Shoots nothing now but animating warmth, 1371
And vital lustre, that, with various ray.
Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of
heaven,
Incessant rolled into romantic shapes.
The dream of waking Fancy. Broad below
Covered with ripening fruits, and swelling fast
Into the perfect year, the pregnant earth
And all her tribes rejoice. Now the soft hour
Of walking comes to him who lonely loves
To seek the distant hills, and there converse 1380
With Nature ; there to harmonise his heart,
And in pathetic song to breathe around
The harmony to others. Social friends,
Attuned to happy unison of soul,
To whose exalting eye a fairer world,
Of which the vulgar never had a glimpse,
Displays its charms, whose minds are richly fraught
With philosophic stores, superior light,
-O
SUMMER. 99
And in whose breast, enthusiastic, burns
Virtue the sons of interest deem romance, 1390
Now called abroad enjoy the falling day :
Now to the verdant portico of woods.
To Nature's vast Lyceum forth they walk ;
By that kind school where no proud master reigns,
The full free converse of the friendly heart,
Improving and improved. Now from the world,
Sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal,
I And pour their souls in transport, which the sire
: Of love approving hears, and calls it good. 1399
' Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course ?
I The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we
I choose :
I All is the same with thee. Say, shall we wind
Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead?
Or court the forest-glades ? or wajider wild
Among the waving harvests ? or ascend,
While radiant Summer opens all its pride,
Thy hill, delightful Shene?* Here let us sweep
The boundless landscape : now the raptured eye,
Exuking, swjft to huge Augusta send.
Now to t'..e Sister hillat that skirt her plain, 1410
T'j lofty Harrow now, and now to where
Mijestic Windsor lifts his princely brow.
In lovely contrast to thjj glorious view,
• The old name of Richmond, signifying, in Saxon, shining
or tplendour.
t Highgats and Henapitead.
100 SUMMER.
Calmly magnificent, then will we turn
To where the silver Thames first rural grows.
There let the feasted eye unwearied stray :
Luxurious, there, rove throuj^h the pendent woods
That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat :
And, stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks,
Beneath whose shades, in spotless peace retired.
With her the pleasing partner of his heart, 1421
The worthy Queensb'ry yet laments his Gay,
And polished Cornbury woos the willing muse,
Slow let us trace the matchless vale of Thames ;
Fair winding-up to where the muses haunt
In Twit'nam's bowers, and for their Pope implore
The healing God ;* to Royal Hampton's pile,
To Clermont's terraced height, and Esher's groves,
Where in the sweetest solitude, embraced
B/ the soft windings of the silent Mole, 1430
From courts and senates Pelham finds repose.
Enchanting vale ! beyond whate'er the muse
Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung !
O vale of bliss ! O softly-swellmg hills !
On which the power of cultivation lies,
And joys to see the wonders of his toil.
Heavens I what a goodly prospect spreads around.
Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and
spires.
And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all
The stretching landscape into smoke decays ! 1440
* In his last sickness.
o-
!> U M M E R . 101
Happy Britannia I where, the Queen of Arts
Inspiring vigour, Li!)erty abroad
Walks, uncoiifined, e'en to thy furthest cots,
Anii scattfrs plenty witli unsparing hand.
Ri(;h is thy soil, and merciful thy clime ;
Thy streams unfailing in the summer's drought ;
Unmatched thy guardian-oaks ; thy valleys float
With golden waves ; and on thy mountains flocks
Bleat numberless, while, roving round their sides,
Bellow the blackening herds in lusty droves. 1450
Beneath, thy meadows glow, and rise unquelled
Against the mower's scythe. On every hand
Thy villas shine. Thy country teems with wealth ;
And property assures it to the swain.
Pleased, and unwearied, in his guarded toil.
Full are thy cities with the sons of art ;
And trade and joy, in every busy street,
Mingling are heard ; e'en Drudgery himself, ^ 1
As at the car he sweats, or dusty hews
The palace-stone looks gay. Thy crowded ports,
Where rising masts an endless prospect yield, 1461
With labour burn, and echo to the shouts
Of hurried sailor, as he hearty waves
His last adieu, and, loosening every sheet
Resigns the spreading vessel to the wind.
B )ld, firm, and graceful, are thy generous youth,
By hardships sinewed and by danger fired.
Scattering the natiims, where they go, and first
Or on the listed plain or stormy seas.
WZ SUMMER.
Mild are thy glories too, as o'er the plains 1470
Of thriving peare thy thoughtful sires preside ;
In genius, and substantial learning, high ;
For every virtue, every worth renowned ;
Sincere. plain-hearted, hospitable, kind;
"Vet like the mustering thunder when provoked,
The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource
Of those that under grim oppression groan.
Thy sons of glory many I Alfred thine,
In whom the splendour of heroic war.
And more heroic peace, when governed well, 1480
Combine; whose hallowed name the Virtues saint,
And his own muses love ; the best of kings I
With him thy Edwards and thy Henries shine,
Names dear to Fame ; the first who deep impressed
On haughty Gaul the terror of thy arms.
That awes her genius still. In statesmen thou,
And patriots, fertile. Thine a steady More,
Who, with a generous, though mistaken zeal,
Withstood a brutal tyrant's useful rage,
Like Cato firm, like Aristides just, 1490
Like rigid Cincinnatus nobly poor,
A dauntless soul erect, who smiled on death.
Frugal, and wise, a Walsingham is thine ;
A Drake, who made thee mistress of the deep.
And bore thy name in thunder round the world.
Then flamed thy spirit high ; but who can speak
The numerous worthies of the Maiden reign?
In Raleigh mark their every glory mixed ;
o — —
I SUMMER. 103
Raleig-h, the scourge of Spain ' whose breaat with all
The sage, the patriot, and the hero burned, 1500
Nor sunk his vigour wlien a cowar.l-reijirn
Tlie warrior fettered, and at last resi:xiied.
To glut the vengeance of a vanquished foe.
Then, active still and unrestrained, his mind
Explored the vast extent of ages past.
And with his prison-hours enriched the world ;
Yet found no times, in all the long research,
So glorious, or so base, as those he proved.
In which he conquered and in which he bled.
Nor can the muse the gallant Sidney pass, 1510
The plume of war I with early laurels crowned,
The lover's myrtle, and the poet's bay.
A Hampden too is thine (illustrious land I)
Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmittingsoul,
Who stemmed the torrent of a downward age,
To slavery prone, and bade thee rise again
In all thy native pomp of freedom hold.
Bright, at its call, thy age of men effulged,
Of men on whom late time a kindling eye
Shall turn, and tyrants tremble while they read.
Bring every sweetest flower, and let me strew 1521
The grave where Russel lies, whose tempered blood
With calmest cheerfulness for thee resigned.
Stained the sad annals of a giddy reign,
Aiming at lawless power, though meanly sunk
In loose ingloriousluxury. With hira
104 SUMMER.
His friend, the British Cassius,* fearless bled ;
Of hij,^h determined spirit, nmghly brave,
By ancient learning to the enliirhleneil love
Of ancient freedom warmed. Fair thy renown
In awful sa2res, and in noble bards, 1.'j30
Soon as the light of dawning Science spread
Her orient ray, and waked the muses' song.
Thine is a Bacon ; hapless in his choice,
Unfit to stand the civil storm of state.
And through the smooth barbarity of courts
With firm but pliant virtue forward still
To urge his course : him for the studious shade
Kind Nature formed, deep, comprehensive, clear,
Exact, and elegant ; in one rich soul, 1540
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully joined.
The great, deliverer he ! who from the gloom
Of cloistered mcmks, and jargon-teaching schools,
Led forth the true philosophy, there long
Held in the magic chain of words and forms,
And definitions void : he led her forth,
Daughter of Heaven ! that slow-ascending still,
Investigating sure the chain of things,
With radiant finger points to heaven again. 1549
The generous Ashleyt thine, the friend of man,
Who scanned his nature with a brother's eye,
His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim,
To touch the finer movements of the mind,
6-
* Algernon Sidney.
t Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shafiosbury
S U M M E B . 105
And with the moral beauty charm the heart.
Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search
Amid the dark recesses of his works
The great Creator sought 1 And why thy Locke,
Who made the whole internal world his own T
Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God
To mortals lent, to trace his boundless works 1560
From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame
In all philosophy. For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast T
Is not each great, each amiable muue
Of classic ages in thy Milton met,
A genius universal as his theme,
Astonishing as Chaos, as the bloom
Of blowing Eden fair, as heaven sublime T 1570
Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spencer, Fancy's pleasing son,
Who, like a copious river, poured his song
O'er all the mases of enchanted ground :
Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage,
Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse,
Well-moralized, shines through the Gothic cloud
Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown.
May my song soften, as thy daughters I,
Britannia, hail ! for beauty is their own, 1580
The feeling heart, simplicity of life.
And elegance, and taste ; the faultless form.
O^
o
106 SUMMER.
Shaped by l.he hand of Harmony ; the cheek,
Where the hve crimson, through the native white
Soft-shooting, o'er the face di (fuses bloom,
And every nameless grace ; the parted lip.
Like the red rose-bud moist with morning-dew,
Breatbing delight ; and, under flowing jet,
Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown.
The neck slight-shaded, and tlie swelling breast ;
The look resistless, piercing to the soul, 159J
And by thie soul informed, when dressed in love
She sits high-smiling in the conscious eye.
Island of bliss I amid the subject seas,
That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,
At once the wonder, terror, and delight.
Of distant nations, whose remotest shi)res
Can soon be shaken by thy naval arm.
Not to be shook thyself, but all assaults
Baffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave. 1600
Thou by whose almighty nod the scale
Of empire rises, or alternate falls.
Send forth the saving virtues round the land,
In bright patrol : while Peace and social Love,
The tender-looking Charity intent
On gentle deeds, and shedding tears through smiles
Undaunted Truth, and Dignity of mind :
Courage composed, and keen ; sound Temperance,
Healthful in heart and look ; clear Chastity,
With blushes reddening as she moves along, 1610
Disordered at the deep regard she draws ;
SUMMER 107
Rough Industry ; Activity untired,
With copious life informed, and all awake :
While in the radiant front superior shines
That first paternal virtue, Public Zeal,
Who throws o'er all an equal wide survey,
And, ever musing on the common weal,
Still labours glorious with some great design.
Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees,
Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds
Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train, 1621
In all their pomp attend his setting throne.
Air, earth and ocean smile immense. And now.
As if his weary chariot sought the bowers
Of Amphitrite, and her tending nymphs
(So Grecian fable sung), he dips his orb ;
Now half-immersed ; and now a golden curve
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.
For ever running an enchanted round,
Passes the day, deceitful, vain, and void, 1630
As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain,
This moment hurrying wild th' impassioned soul,
The next in nothing lost. 'Tis so to him.
The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank:
A sight of horror to the cruel wretch
Who all day long in sordid pleasure rolled.
Himself a useless load, has squandered vile,
Upon his scoundrel train, what might have cheered
A drooping family of modest worth.
But to the generous still-improving mind, 1640
108 SUMMER.
That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,
Diffusing kind beneficence around,
Boaslless, as now descends the silent dew ;
To him the long review of ordered life
Is inward rapture, only to be felt.
Confessed from yonder slow-extinguished clouds,
All ether softening, sober Evening takes
Her wonted station in the middle air,
A thausand shadows at her beck. First this
She sends on earth ; then that of deeper dye 1650
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 dust the fields of corn,
While the quail clamours for his running mate.
Wide o'er the thirsty lawn, as swells the breeze,
A whitening shower of vegetable down
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care 1659
Of Nature naught disdains : thoughtful to feed
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year.
From field to field the feathered seed 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-mixt anguish means,
Sincerely loves, by that best language shown
Of cordial glances and obliging deeds.
SUMMER. 109
OuvvanI they pass, o'e r many a panting height, IfiTO
And valley sunk, and unfrequented, where
At fall of eve the fairy people throng,
In various game and revelry, to jiass
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 mournlul chambers hold.
So night-struck Fancy dreams, the yelling ghost.
Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, 1681
The glow-worm light his gems ; and, through the
dark,
A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields
The world to Night ; not in her winter robe
Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed
In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray,
Glanced from th' imperfect surfaces of things,
Flings half an image on tlie straining eye ;
While wavering woods, and villages, and streams,
And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retained
Th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene.
Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven 1692
Thence weary vision turns, where, leading soft
The silent hours of love, with purest ray
Sweet Venus shines; and from her genial rise,
When day-light sickens till it springs afresh,
Unrivalled reigns, the fairest lamp of night.
110 SUMMER.
As thus th' effulgence tremulous I drink,
With cherished gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot
Across the sky, or horizontal dart 1700
In wondrous shapes, by fearful murmuring crowds
Portentous deemed. Amid the radiant orbs
That more than deck, that animate the sky.
The life-infusing sutis of other worlds,
Lo ! from the dread immensity of space
Returning, with accelerated course.
The rushing comet to the sun descends ;
And as he sinks below the shading earth.
With awful train projected o'er tlie heavens,
The guilty nations tremble. But, above 1710
Those superstitious horrors that enslave
The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith
And blind amazement prone, the enlightened few.
Whose godlike minds philosophy exalts.
The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy
Divinely great ; they in their powers exult,
That wondrous force of thought, which mounting
spurns
This dusky spot, and measures all the sky :
AVhiie, from his far excursion through the wilds
Of barren ether, faithful to his time, 1720
They see the blazing wonder rise anew,
In seeming terror clad, but kindly bent
To work the will of all-sustaining Love :
From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake
Reviving moisture on the numerous orbs
SUMMER. Ill
Through which his long ellipsis winds ; perhaps
To lend new fuel to declining suns,
To light up worlds, and feed th' eternal fire.
With thee, serene Philosophy, with thee,
And thy bright garland, let nie crown my song,
Effusive source of evidence, and truth !
A lustre shedding o'er th' ennobled mind,
Stronger than summer-noon, and pure as that
Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul.
New to the dawning of celestial day. [thee
Hence through her nourished powers, enlarged by
She springs aloft, with elevated pride,
Above the tangling mass of low desires,
That bind the fluttering crowd ; and angel-winged,
The heights of science and of virtue gains, 1740
Where all is calm and clear ; with Nature round,
Or in the starry regions, or th' abyss.
To Reason's and to Fancy's eye displayed :
The first up-tracing from the dreary void,
The chain of causes and effects to Him,
The world-producing Essence, who alone
Possesses being; while the last receives
The whole magnificence of heaven and earth,
And every beauty, delicate or bold.
Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense, 1750
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.
Tutored by thee, hence Poetry exalts
Her voice to ages, and informs the page
With music, image, sentiment, and thought,
112 SUMMER.
Never to die, the treasure of mankind,
Their highest honour, and their truest joy I
Without thee what were unenlightened man I
A savage roaming through the woods and wilds
In quest of prey, and with th' unfashioned fur
Rough-clad, devoid of every finer art 1760
And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mixed of tenderness and care,
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,
Nor guardian law were his ; nor various skill
To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool
Mechanic, nor the lieaven-conductedprow
Of navigation bold, that fearless braves
The burning line or dares the wintry pole ;
Mother severe of infinite delights I
Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile, 1770
And woes on woes, a still-revolving train,
"Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse ; but, taught by thee,
Ours are the plans of policy and peace,
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all
Embellish life. While thus laborious crowds
Ply the tough oar, Philosophy directs
The ruling helm ; or, like the liberal breath
Of potent Heaven, invisible, the sail
Swells out, and bears th' inferior world along. 1780
Nor to this evanescent speck of earth
Poorly confined, the radiant tracts on high
Are her exalted range ; intent to gaze
O-
o
SUMMER. 113
Cre.ation through ; and, from that full complex
Of never-endingr wonders, to conceive
Of the Sole Being right, who spoke the word,
And nature moved complete. With inward view,
Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye ; and instant, at her powerful glance,
Th' ohedient phantoms vanish or appear ; 1790
Compound, divide, and into order shift.
Each to his rank, from plain perception up
To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train :
To reason then, deducing truth from truth,
And notion quite abstract ; where first begins
The world of spirits, action all, and life
Unfettered, and unmixed. But here the cloud,
So wills eternal Providence, sits deep.
Enough for us to know that this dark state,
In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits, 1800
This infancy of being, cannot prove
The final issue of the works of God,
By boundless love and perfect wisdom formed,
And ever rising with the rising mind.
/^ W T (U) [Ml IM
AUGUMENT
the subject proposed. Addressed to Mr. OnsloW. . A pros-
pect of the fields ready for harrest. Reflections in praise
of industry raised by that view. Reaping. A tale rela-
tive to it. A harvest storm. Shooting' and hunting-, their
barbarity. A ludicrous account of fox-hunting. A view
of an orchard. Wall-fruit. A vineya:rd. A description
offog-s, frequent in the latter part of Autumn: whence a.
digression, inquiring into the rise of fountains and rivers.
Birds of season considered, that now shift their habitation.
The prodigious number of them that cover the northern
and western isles of Scotland. Hence a view of the coun-
try. A prospect of the discoloured fading woods, Aftera
gentle dusky day, moon -light. Autumnal meteors. Morn-
ingi (0 which succeeds a calm, pure, sunshiny daj', such
as usually shuts up the season. The harvest being gather-
ed in, the country dissolved in Joy. The whole conclndea
•with a panegyric on a philosophical country hfe.
AUTUMN.
CrowneO with the sickle and the Mrheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding' o'er the yellow plain.
Comes jovial on, the Doric reed once more.
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nittous prepared, the various-bloSsomed Spring
Put in white promise forth, and Summer-suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.
Onslow I the muse, ambitious of thy name,
To grace, inspire, and dignify her song.
Would from the public voice thy gentle ear
Awhile engaee. Thy noble cares she knows,
The patriot virtues that distend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow ;
While listening Senates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving through the maze of eloquence
A roil of periods, sweeter than her song.
But she too pants for public virtue, she,
Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her crtUntry rushes on her heart, 20
Assumes a boldet note, and fondly tries
To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.
When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
o-
0- :
118 AUTUMN.
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year,
From heaven's high cope the fierc6 effulgence shook
Of parting summer, a serenerblue,
With golden light enlivened, vi^ide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,
Sweet-beamed, and shedding oft through lucid
clouds
A pleasing calm ; while, broad and brown, below 30
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand ; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain :
A calm of plenty I till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky ;
The clouds fly diflferent ; and the sudden sun
By fits eflfulgent gilds th' illumined field
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily-checkered heart-expanding view, 40
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossihg in a flood of corn.
These are thy blessings ! Industry, rough power I
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain ;
Yet the kind source of every gentle art,
And all the soft civility of life :
Raiser of human kind ! by Nature cast.
Naked and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements ;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind 50
Implaiited, and profusely poured around
AUTUMN. 119
Materials infinite ; but idle all.
Still unexerted, in th' unconscious breast,
Slept the lethargic powers ; Corruption still,
Voracious, swallowed what the liberal hand
Of bounty scattered o'er the savage year :
And still the sad barbarian, roving mixed
With beasts of prey, or for his acorn-meal
Fought the fierce tusky boar, — a shivering wretch '
Aghast, and comfortless, when the bleak north, 60
"With winter charged, let the mixed tempest fly.
Hail, rain, and snow, and bitter-breathing frost ;
Then to the shelter of the hut he fled.
And the wild season, sordid, pined away.
For home he had not ; home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polished friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.
But this the rugged savage never felt.
E'en desolate in crowds ; and thus his days 70
Rolled heavy, dark, and unenjoyed along,
A M'aste of time, till Industry approached,
And roused him from his miserable sloth,
His faculties unfolded, pointed out
Where lavish Nature the directing hand
Of art demanded ; showed him how to raise
His feeble force by the mechanic powers,
To dig the mineral from the vaulted earth,
On what to turn the piercing rage of fire.
On what the torrent, and the gathered blast ; 80
120 AUTUMN.
Gave the tall ancient forest to his axe ;
Taught him to chip the wood and hew the stone,
Till by degrees the finished fabric rose ;
Tore from his limbs the blood-polluted fur,
And wrapt them in the woolly vestment warm,
Or bright in glossy silk and flowing lawn ;
With wholesome viands filled his table, poured
The generous glass around, inspired to wake
The life-refining soul of decent wit :
Nor stopped at barren bare necessity ; 90
But, still advancing bolder, led him on
To pomp, to pleasure, elegance, and grace ;
And, breathing high ambition through his soul,
Set science, wisdom, glory, in his view,
And bade him be the Lord of all below.
Then gathering men their natural powers com»
bined
And formed a public, to the general good
Submitting, aiming, and conducting all, ■*
For this the patriot-council met, the full.
The free, and fairly represented whole ; 100
For this they planned the holy guardian laws,
Distinguished orders, animated arts.
And, with joint force oppression chaining, set
Imperial Justice at the helm, yet still
To them accountable, nor slavish dreamed
That toiling millions must resign their weal,
And all the honey of their search, to such
As for themselves alone themselves have raised.
O
AUTUMN. 121
Hence every form of cultivated life
In order set, protected, and inspired, 110
Into perfection wrought. Uniting all,
Society grew numerous, high, polite,
And happy. Nurse of art I the city reared
In beauteous pride her tower-encircled head ;
And, stretching street on street, by thousands drew,
From twining woody haunts, or the tough yew
To bows strong-straining, her aspiring sons
Then Commerce brought into the public walk
The busy merchant ; the big warehouse built ; 119
Raised the strong crane ; choked up the loaded
street
With foreign plenty ; and thy stream, Thames,
Large, gentle, deep, majestic, king of floods I
Chose for his grand resort. On either hand,
Like a long wintry forest, groves of masts
Shot up their spires ; the bellying sheet between
Possessed the breezy void ; the sooty hulk
Steered sluggish on ; the splendid barge along
Rowed, regular, to harmony ; around
The boat, hght-skimming, stretched its oary wings ;
While deep the various voice of fer\'^ent toil 130
From bank to bank increased ; whence ribbed with
oak.
To bear the British thunder, black and bold,
The roaring vessel rushed into the main.
Then too the pillar'd dome, magnific, heaved
Its ample roof; and Luxury within
C-
122 AUTUMN.
Poured out her glittering stores : the canvas smooth,
With glowing life protuberant, to the view
Embodied rose ; the statue seemed to breathe,
And soften into flesh, beneath the touch
Of forming art, imagination-flushed. 140
All is the gift of Industry, whate 'er
Exalts, embellishes, and renders life
Delightful. Pensive Winter cheer'd by him
Sits at the social fire, and happy hears
Th' excluded tempest idly rave along ;
His hardened fingers deck the gaudy Spring ;
Without him Summer were an arid waste ;
Nor to th' autumnal months could thus transmit
Those full, mature, immeasurable stores.
That, waving round, recal my wandering song. 150
Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And, unperceived, unfolds the spreading day,
Before the ripened field the reapers stand,
In fair array, each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle ofllces her toil.
At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves ;
While through their cheerful band the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest.
Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time, 160
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks ;
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side
His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
AUTUMN. 123
The gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick
Be not too narrow, husbandman I but fling-
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth.
The liberal handful. Think, oh grateful think !
How good the God of harvest is to you, 170
Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields ;
While these unhappy partners of your kind
Wide-hover round you, like the fowls of heaven,
And ask their humble dole. The various turns
Of fortune ponder ; that your sons may want
What now, with hard reluctance, faint, ye give.
The lovely young Lavinia once had friends.
And fortune smiled, deceitful, on her birth.
For, in her helpless years deprived of all.
Of every stay, save innocence and Heaven, 180
She, with her widowed mother, feeble, old.
And poor, lived in a cottage, far retired
Among the windings of a woody vale.
By solitude and deep surrounding shades.
But more by bashful modesty concealed.
Together thus they shumied the cruel scorn
Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet
From giddy passion and low-minded pride.
Almost on Nature's common bounty fed,
Like the gay birds that sung them to repose, 190
Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.
Her form was fresher than the morning rose,
When the dew wets its leaves ; unstained, and pure I
O
124 AUTUMN.
As is the lily, or the mountain snow.
The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,
Still on the ground dejected, darting all
Their humid beams into the blooming flowers :
Or when the mournful tale her mother told.
Of what her faithless fortune promised once, 199
Thrilled in her thought, they, like the dewy star
Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace
Sat fair-proportioned on her polished limbs,
Veiled in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress ; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament.
But is when unadorned adorned the most.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close-embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, 210
A myrtle rises, far from human eye.
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild ;
So flourished, blooming and unseen by all,
The sweet Lavinia ; till, at length, compelled
By strong necessity's supreme command,
With smiling patience in her looks, she went
To glean Palemon's fields. The pride of swains
Palemon was, the generous, and the rich,
Who led the rural life in all its joy
And elegance, such as Arcadian song 220
Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times.
When tyrant custom had not shackled man,
AUTUMN. 125
But free to follow Nature was the mode.
He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes
Amusing, chanced beside his reaper-train
To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye,
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick
With unaffected blushes from his gaze :
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty concealed. 230
That very moment love and chaste desire
Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown ;
For still the world prevailed, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosoplier can scorn
Should his heart own a gleaner in the field :
And thus in secret to his soul he sighed :
" What pity that so delicate a form,
By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense
And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell
Should be devoted to the rude embrace 240
Of some indecent clown ! She looks, methinks,
Of old Acasto's line ; and to my mind
Recals that patron of my happy life.
From whom my liberal fortune took its rise,
Now to the dust gone down, his houses, lands,
And once fair-spreading family, dissolved.
'Tis said that in some lone obscure retreat.
Urged by remembrance sad, and decent pride,
Far from those scenes which knevv theii better days
His aged widow and his daughter live, 230
126 AUTUMN.
Whom yet my fruitless search could never find.
Romantic wish ! would this the daughter were !"
When, strict inquiring, from herself he found
She was the same, the daughter of his friend,
Of bountiful Acasto, who can speak
The mingled passions that surprised his heart,
And through his nerves in shivering transport ran?
Then blazed his smothered flame, avowed, and bold ;
And as he viewed her, ardent, o'er and o'er,
Love, gratitude, and pity wept at once. 260
Confused, and frightened at his sudden tears.
Her rising beauties flushed a higher bloom.
As thus Palemon, passionate and just.
Poured out the pious rapture of his soul:—
" And art thou then Acasto's dear remains 1
She whom my restless gratitude has sought
So long in vain 1 O heavens I the very same.
The softened image of my noble friend,
Alive his every look, his every feature,
More elegantly touched. Sweater than Spring ! 270
Thou sole-surviving blossom from the root
That nourished up my fortune ! Say, ah where,
In what sequestered desert, hast thou drawn
The kindest aspect of delighted Heaven,
Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair,
Though poverty's cold wind, and crushing rain,
Beat keen, and heavy, on thy tender years ?
O let me now into a richer soil
AUTUMN. 127
Transplant thee safe ! where vernal suns and
showers
Diffuse their warmest, largest influence, 280
And of my garden be the pride and joy !
Ill it befits thee, oh it ill befits
Acasto's daughter, his whose open stores,
Though vast, were little to his ampler heart,
The father of a country, thus to pick
The Very refuse of those harvest-fields
Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy.
Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand,
But ill applied to such a rugged task ;
The field, the master, all, my fair, are thine ; 290
If to the various blessings which thy house
Has on me lavished thou wilt add that blisS)
That dearest bliss, the power of hlessing thee I'*
Here ceased the youth : yet still his speaking eye
Expressed the sacred triumph of his soul.
With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love.
Above the vulgar joy divinely raised.
Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm
Of goodness irresistible, and all
In sweet disorder lost, she blushed consent. 300
The news immediate to her mother brought,
While, pierced with anxious thought, she pined
away
The lonely moments for Lavinia's fate ;
Amazed, and scarce believing what she heard,
Joy seized her withered veins, and one bright gleam
O
i28 AUTUMN.
Of setting Hfe shone on her evenin?-hours,
Not less enraptured than the happy pair,
Who flourished long in tender bliss, and reared
A numerous offspring-, lovely like themselves,
And good, the grace of all the country roUnd. 310
Defeating oft the labours cf the year,
The sultry south collects a potent blast.
At first the groves are scarcely seen to stir
Their trembling tops, and a still murmuf runS
Along the soft-inclining fields of corn.
But as the aerial tempest fuller swells,
And in one mighty stream, invisible.
Immense, the whole excited atmosphere
Impetuous rushes o'er the Sounding worlds
Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours 320
A rusthng shower of yet untimely leaves.
High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in,
From the bare wild, the dissipated storm,
And send it in a torrent down the vale.
Exposed, and naked, to its utmost rage,
Through all the sea of harvest rolling round.
The billowy plain floats wide, nor can evade,
Though pHant to the blast, its seizing force ;
Or whirled in air, or into vacant chaff 329
Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of rain,
Swept from the black horizon, broad, descends
In one Continuous flood Still over head
The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still
The deluge deepens, till the fields around
AUTUMN. 129
Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave,
Sudden the ditches swell, the meadows swim.
Red, ffom the hills^ innumerable streams
Tumultuous roar, and high above its banks
The river lift, before whose rushing tide
Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains, 340
Roll mingled down ; all that the winds had spared
tn one wild moment ruined, the big hopes
And well-earned treasures of the painful year.
Fled to some eminence, the husbandman
Helpless beholds the miserable \treck
Driving along ; his drowning ox at once
Descending, with his labours scattered round.
He sees ; and instant o'er his shivering thought
Comes winter unprovidedj and a train
Of clamant children dear. Ye masters, then, 350
Be mindful of the rough laborious hand
That sinks you soft in elegance and ease ;
Be mindful of those hntbs, in russet clad.
Whose toil to yours is warmth and graceful pride ;
And oh be mindful of that sparing board
Which covers yours with luxury profuse.
Makes your glass sparkle j and your sense rejoice,
Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains
And all-involving winds haive swept away.
Here the rude clamoui" of the sportsman's joy, 360
The gun fast-thundering, and the winded horn,
Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game :
How in his mid-career the spaniel struck,
130 AUTUMN.
Stiff, by the tainted g-ale, with open nose,
Outstretched, and tiiielj' sensible, draws full,
Fearful, and cautious, on the latent prey ;
As in the sun the circling covey bask
Their varied plumes, and watchful every way
Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye
Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat 370
Their idle wings, entangled more and more :
Nor on the surges of the boundless air.
Though borne triumphant, are they safe ; the gun
Glanced just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye
O'ertakes their sounding pinions ; and again,
Immediate brings them from the towering wing,
Dead to the ground, or drives them wide-dispersed,
Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.
These are not subjects for the peaceful muse,
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song, 380
Then most delighted when she social sees
The whole mixed animal-creation round
Alive and happy. 'Tis not joy to her.
The falsely-cheerful barbarous game of death.
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth
Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn,
When beasts of prey retire, that all nightlong,
Urged by necessity, had ranged the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shunned the light,
Ashamed. Not so the steady tyrant man, 390
Who with the thoughtless insolence of power
Inflamed, beyond the most infuriate wrath
AUTUMN. 131
Of the worst monster that e'er roamed the waste,
For sport alone pursues the cruel chase,
Amid the beamings of the gentle days.
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want ;
But lavish fed, in Nature's bounty rolled,
To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew. 400
Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare !
Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat
Retired : the rushy fen ; the ragged furze,
Stretched o'er the stony heath ; tlie stubble chapt ;
The thistly lawn ; the thick-entangled broom ;
Of the same friendly hue, the withered fern ;
The fallow ground laid open to the sun,
Concoctive ; and the nodding sandy bank,
Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook.
Vain is her best precaution, though she sits 410
Concealed, with folded ears, unsleeping eyes,
By Nature raised to take the horizon in.
And head couched close betwixt her hairy feet,
In act to spring away. The scented dew
Betrays her early labyrinth ; and deep
In scattered sullen openings, far behind.
With every breeze she hears the coming storm.
But nearer, and more frequent, as it loads
The sighing gale, she springs amazed, and all
The savage soul of game is up at once ; 420
The pack full-opening, various ; the shrill horn
, i^
132 AUTUMN.
Resounded from the liills ; the neighin? steed,
Wild for the chase ; and the loud hunter's sTiout
O'er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all
Mixed in mad tumult, and discordant joy.
The stag- too, singled from the herd where long
He ranged, the branching monarnli of the shades,
Before the tempest drives. At first in speed
He, sprightly, puts his faith ; and, roused by fear.
Gives all his swift aerial soul to flight ; 430
Against the breeze he darts, that way the more
To leave the lessening murderous cry behind :
Deception short ' though fleeter than the winds
Blown o'er the keen-aired mountain by the north.
He bursts the thickets, glances through the glades,
And plunges deep into the wildest wood ;
If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track
Hot-steaming, up behind him come again
Th' inhuman rout, and from the shady depth
Expel him, circling through his every shift. 440
He sweeps the forest oft ; and sobbing sees
The glades, mild opening to the golden day,
Where in kind contest, with his butting friends
He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy.
Oft in the full-descending flood he tries
To lose the scent, and lave hisburning sides:
Oft seeks the herd ; the watchful herd, alarmed,
With selfish care avoid a brother's wo.
What shall he do 1 His once so vivid nerves,
So full of buoyant spirit, now no more 450
-o
AUTUMN. 133 I
Inspire the course ; but fainting breathless toil,
Sicic, seizes on his heart : he stands at bay,
And puts his last weak refuge in despair.
The big round tears run down his dap])]ed face ;
He groans in anguish ; while the growling pack,
Blood-happ\', hang at his fair jutting chest,
And mark his beauteous checkered sides with gore.
Of this enough. But if tlie sylvan youth,
Whose fervent blood boils into violence,
Must have tlie chase ; behold, despising flight 460
The roused-up lion, resolute, and slow,
Advancing full on the protended spear,
And coward-hand, that circling wheel aloof.
Slunk from the cavern, and the troubled wood,
See the grim wolf; on him his shaggy foe
Vindictive fix, and let the ruffian die :
Or, growling horrid, as the brindled boar
Grins fell-destruction, to the monster's heart
Let the dart lighten from the nervous arm.
These Britain knows not ; give, yq Britons, then
Your sportive fury, pitiless, to pour 471
Loose on the nightly robber of the fold :
Hiiji, from his craggy winding haunts unearthed,
Let all the thunder of the chase pursue.
Throw the broad ditch behind you ; o'er the hedge
High-bound, resistless ; nor the deep morass
Refuse, but through the shaking wilderness
Pick your nice way ; into the perilous flood
Bear fearless, of the raging instinct full ;
134 AUTUMN.
And, as you ride the torrent, to the banks 480
Your triumph sound sonorous, running- round,
From rock to rock, in circling echoes tossed ;
Then scale the mountains to their woody tops ;
Rush down the dangerous steep ; and o'er the lawn,
In fancy swallowing up the space between,
Pour all your speed into the rapid game.
For happy he who tops the wheeling chase,
Has every maze evolved and every guile
Disclosed^ who knows the merits of the pack,
Who saw the villain seized, and dying hard, 490
Without complaint, though by a hundred mouths
Relentless torn. O glorious he, beyond
His daring peers I when the retreating hora
Calls them to ghostly halls of grey renown.
With woodland honours graced, the fox's fur
Depending decent from the roof, and spread
Round the drear walls, with antic figures fierce.
The stag's large front : he then is loudest heard.
When the night staggers with severer toils,
With feats Thessalian centaurs never knew, 500
And their repeated wonders skake the dome.
But first the fuelled chimney blazes wide ;
The tankards foam ; and the strong table groans
Beneath the smoking sirloin, stretched immense
From side to side, in which, with desperate knife
They deep incision make, and talk the while
Of England's glory, ne'er to be defaced.
While hence they borrow vigour ; or amain
vK^Koihe pasty lounged, at intervals,
If stomach keen can intervals allovp, 510
Relating all the glories of the chase.
Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst
Produce the mighty bowl ; the mighty bowl,
Swelled high with fiery juice, steams liberal round,
A potent gale, delicious, as the breath
Of Maia to the love-srck sheperdess,
On violets diffused, while soft she hears
Her panting shepherd stealing to her arms.
Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn
Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat 520
Of thirty years ; and now his honest front
Tri.,^r,c ;.. fi.p 'ifj-iit refulgent, not afraid
iieyard's best produce to vie.
irsty moments, Whist awhile
Walks his dull round, beneath a cloud of smoke,
Wreathed, fragrant, from the pipe, or the quick
dice.
In thunder leaping from the box, awake
The sounding gammon ; while romp-loving miss
Is hauled about, in gallantry robust
At last, these puling idlenesses laid 530
Aside, frequent and full, the dry divan
Close in firm circle ; and set, ardent, in
For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly.
Nor sober shift, is to the puking wretch
Indulged apart ; but earnest, brimming bowls
Lave every soul, the table floating round.
AUTUMN. 135
136 AUTUMN,
W
And pavement, faithless to the fud9|^d foot.-
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues, 539 A
Reels fast from theme to theme ; from horses,
hounds.
To church or mistress, politics or ghost,
In endless mazes, intricate, perplexed.
Meantime, with sudden interruption, loud,
Th' impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart :
That moment touched is every kindred soul ;
And, opening in a full-mouthed cry of joy,
The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse go rOund ; .
While, from their slumbers shook, the kennelled
hounds
Mix in the music of the day again.
As when the tempest, that has vexeil t-lir- diM-p 550
The dark night long, with faintermtn-niurs fallsf
So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up ^e cumbrous word,
Lie quite dissolved. Before their maudlin eyes,
Seen dim and blue, the double tapers dance.
Like the sun wading through the misty sky.
Then, slidmg soft, they drop. Confused above.
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table e'en itself was drunk.
Lie a wet broken scene ; and wide, below, 560
Is heaped the social slaughter : where astride
The lubber power in fiUhy triumph sits,
Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side,
O
A. U T U M N . 137
And steeps th^^^^nclied in potent sleep till mom.
Peihapfe'some otIBt, of tremendous paunch,
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,
Outlives them all ; and from his buried flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad.
Laments the weakness of these latter times.
But, if the rougher sex by this fierce sport 570
Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy
E'er stain the bosom of the British fair.
Far be^espirit of the chase from them I
UucorcflH^rage, nnbqrf|h|ung skill ;
To sjffliP^B fence, to PM^HPl»r;incing steed ;
The cap, tTiti u.uii, ti;e masculine attire,
In wliicli r.hc_v ]■ MiLjii ;'. to the sense, and all
^Tl'.' - .c.^s iT thfiii- sex is lost.
Ill ■ f«l III dissolve at wo ;
Wita tvn y uuhuju, every word, to wave 580
Quick o'er the kindling pheek the ready blush,
And from the smallest violence to shrink
Unequal, then the loveliest in'their fears,
And by this silent adulation, soft,
To their protection more engaging man.
O may their eyes no miserable sight,
Save weeping lovers, see 1 a nobler game.
Through love's enchanting wiles pursued, yet fled,
In chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs
Float in the loose simplicity of dress 1 590
And, fashioned all to harmony, alone
Know they to seize the captivated soul.
138 AUTUMN,
In rapture warbled from love-bi^^mg lips ;
To teach the lute to languish ; with smooth step,
Disclosing' motion in its every charm,
To swim along, and swell the mazy dance ,
To train the foliage o'er the snowy lawn ;
To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page ;
To lend new flavour to the fruitful year,
And heighten Nature's dainties ; in their race 600
To rear their graces into second life ;
To give society its highest taste ;
Well-ordered-home man's best delight toilBi%e ;
And by submissive wisdom, modest skill,
With every gentle care-eluding art,
To raise the virtues, animate the bliss.
And sweeten all the toils of human lifel
This be the female dignity and^Ris^
Ye swains, now hasten to the hazel bank,
Where, do\vn yon dale, the wildly-winding brook
Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close anay.
Fit for the thickets and the tangling shrub, 612
Ye virgins, come. For you their latest song
The woodlands raise ; the clustering nuts for you
The lover finds amid the secret shade ;
And, where they burnish on the topmost bough,
With active vigour crushes down the tree.
Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk,
A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown,
As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair : 620
Melinda ! formed with every grace complete,
AUTUMN. 139
Yet these neglecting^, above beauty wise,
And tar transcending^ such a vulgar praise.
Hence from the busy joy-resounding fields.
In cheerful error, let us tread the maze
Of Autumn, unconfined ; and taste, revived,
The breath of orchard big with bending fruit.
Obedient to the breeze and beating ray,
From the deep-loaded bough a mellow shower
Incessant melts away. The juicy pear 630
Lies, in a soft profusion, scattered round.
A various sweetness swells the gentle race,
By Nature's all-refining hand prepared,
Of tempered sun, aiid water, earth, and air.
In ever-changing composition mixed.
Such, falling frequent through the chiller night,
The fragrant stores, the wide-projected heaps
Of apples, which the lusty-handed year,
Innunierous, o'er the blushing orchard shakes.
A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen,
Dwells in their gelid pores ; and, active, points
The piercing cider for the thirsty tongue :
Thy native theme, and boon inspirer too,
Phillips, Pomona's bard, the second thou
Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfettered verse.
With British freedom sin^ the British song :
How, from Silurian vats, high-sparkling wines
Foam in transparent floods ; some strong, to cheer
The wintry revels of the labouring hind ;
And tasteful some, to cool the summer-hours. 650
140 AUTUMN.
Iti this glad season, while his sweetest beams
The suii sheds equal o'er the meekeiied day.
Oh lose nie in the green delightful walks
Of, Dodington, thy seat, serene and plain,
Where simple Nature reigns ; and every view,
Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs,
In boundless prospect ; yonder shagged with wood,
Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks !
Meantime the grandeur of thy lofty dome,
Far-splendid, seizes on the ravished eye, 660
New beauties rise with each revolving day ;
New columns swell ; and still the fresh ^ing finds
New plants to quickea and new groves to green.
Full of thy genius all I the ir uses' ^^t.
Where in the secret bower, and wSlfing walk.
For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay,
Here wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst
Of thy applause, I solitary court
Th' inspiring breeze, and meditate the book
Of Nature, ever open ; aiming thence, 670
Warm from the heart, to leani the moral song.
Here, as I steal along the sunny wall
Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep
My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought,
Presents the downy peach, the shining plum,
The ruddy, fragrant nectarine, and, dark
Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig.
The vine too here her curling tendrils shoots,
AUTUMN. 141
Hangs out her clusters glowing to the south,
And scarcely wishes for a«waririer sky. 680
Turn we a moment fancy's rapid flight
To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent.
Where, by the potent sun elated high,
The vineyard swells refulgent on the day.
Spreads o'er the vale, or up the mountain climbs,
Profuse, and drinks amid the sunny rocks.
From cliff to clitf increased, the heightened blaze.
Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters clear,
Half through the foliage seen, or ardent flame,
Or shine transparent ; while perfection breathes
White o'er the turgent film the living dew. 691
As thus they brighten with exalted juice.
Touched into flavour by the mingling ray.
The rural youth and virgins o'er the field,
Each fond for each to cull the autumnal prime,
Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh.
Then comes the crushing swain; the country floats,
And foams unbounded with the mashy flood,
That by degrees fermented, and refined.
Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy : 700
The claret smooth, red as the lip we press
In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl ;
The mellow-tasted Burgundy ; and, quick
As is the wit it gives, the gay Cnampagne.
Now by the cool declining year condensed,
Descends the copious exhalations, checked
As up the middle sky unseen they stole.
142 AUTUMN.
And roll the doubling fogs around the hill.
No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime,
Which pours a sweep of rivers from its sides, 710
And high between contending kingdoms rears
The rocky long division, fills the view
With great variety ; but, in a night
Of gathering vapour, from the baffled sense
Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far.
The huge dusk, gradual, swallows up the plain:
Vanish the woods ; the dim-seen river seeius
Sullen, and slow, to roll the misty wave.
E'en in the height of noon oppressed, the sun
Sheds weak, and blunt, his wide-refracted ray ; 720
Whence glaring oft, with many a broadened orb,
He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth.
Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life
Objects appear; and, wildered, o'er the waste
The shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last
Wreathed dun around, in deeper circles still
Successive closing, sits the general fog
Unbounded o'er the world ; and, mingling thick,
A formless grey confusion covers all.
As when of old (so sung the Hebrew bard) 730
Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged
Its infant way ; nor Order yet had drawn
His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.
These roving mists, that constant now begin
To smoke along the hilly country, these
With weightier rains, and melted Alpine snows,
o —
AUTUMN. 143
The mountain-cisterns fill, those ample stores
Of water, scooped among the hollow rocks ;
Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains
play,
And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw. 740
Some sages say, that where the numerous wave
For ever lashes the resounding shore,
Drilled through the sandy stratum, every way,
The waters with the sandy stratum rise ;
Amid whose angles, infinitely strained.
They joyful leave their jagg^y salts behind,
And clear and sweeten as they soak along.
Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still.
Though oft amidst the irriguous vale it springs !
But to the mountain courted by the sand, 750
That leads it darkling on in faithful maze,
Far from the parent-main, it boils again
Fresh into day, and all the glittering hill
Is bright with spouting rills. But hence this vain
Amusive dream I why should the waters love
To take so far a journey to the hills,
When the sweet valleys offer to their toil
Inviting quiet and a nearer bed ?
Or if, by bhnd ambition led astray,
They must aspire, why should they sudden stop 760
Among the broken mountain's rushy dells.
And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert
The attractive sand that charmed their course so
long ?
o-
144 AUTUMN.
Besides, the hard agg'lomerating' salts,
The spoil of ages, would impervious choke
Their secret channels ; or, by slow degrees,
High as the hills protrude the swelling vales ;
Old Ocean too, sucked through the porous globe,
Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed.
And brought Deucalion's wat'ry times again. 770
Say, then, where lurk the vast eternal springs
That, like creating Nature, lie concealed
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 structure to the astonished view !
Strip from the branching Alps the piny load ;
The huge incumlirance of horrific woods 780
From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretched
Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds !
Give opening Hemus to my searching eye,
And high Olympus pouring many a stream ,
O from the sounding summits of the north,
The Dofrine Hills, through Scandinavia rolled
To furthest Lapland and the frozen main ;
From lofty Caucasus, far seen by those
Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil ;
From cold Riphean rocks, which the wild Russ
Believes the stony girdle* of the world ; 791
The Muscovites call the Riphean Mountains Weliki
AUTUMN. 145
And all the dreadful monntains, wrapt in storm,
Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods ;
sweep the eternal snows I 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 ! * 800
O'ertopping all these giant-sons of earth.
Let the dire Andes, from the radiant line
Stretched to the stormy seas that thunder round
The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold !
Amazing scene I Behold I the glooms disclose,
1 see the rivers in their infant beds I
Deep, deep I hear them lab'ring to get free !
I see the leaning strata, artful ranged ;
The gaping fissures to receive the rains,
The melting snows, and ever-dripping fogs. 810
Strew'd bibulous above I see the sands,
The pebbly gravel next, the layers then
Of mingled inoulds, of more retentive earths,
The guttered rocks and mazy-running clefts,
That, while the stealing moisture they transmit,
Retard its motion and forbid its waste.
Beneath th' incessant weeping of these drains,
Camenypoys, that is, the Great Scnn;/ G'rdle ; because they
suppose ihem to encompass the whole earth.
' A rang-e of mountains in Africa, that surround almost all
Monomotapa.
146 AUTUMN.
I see the rocky syphons stretched immense,
The mighty reservoirs, of hardened chalk,
Or stiff compacted clay, capacious formed. 82C
O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores,
The crystal treasures of the liquid world.
Through the stirred sands a bubbling passage bursts ;
And welling out, around the middle steep,
Or from the bottoms of the bosomed hills,
In pure effusion flow. United, thus,
Th' exhaling sun, the vapour-burdened air.
The gelid mountains, that to rain condensed
These vapours in continual current draw.
And send them, o'er the fair-divided earth, 830
In bounteous rivers to the deep again,
A social commerce hold, and firm support
The full-adjusted harmony of things.
When Autumn scatters his departing gleams, •
Warned of approaching Winter, gathered, play
The swallow-people ; and tossed wide around,
O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift.
The feathered eddy floats : rejoicing once,
Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire ;
In clusters clung, beneath the mouldering bank, 840
And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats.
Or rather into warmer climes conveyed.
With other kindred birds of season, there
They twitter cheerful, till the vernal months
Invite them welcome back : for, thronging now
Innumerous wings are in ci^mmotion all.
AUTUMN. 147
Where the Rhine loses his majestic lorce
In Belg-ian plains, won from the raging deep,
By diligence amazing, and the strong
Unconquerable hand of Liberty, 650
The stork-assembly meets, for many a day
Consulting deep and various, ere they take
Their arduous voyage through the liquid sky.
And now their route designed, their leaders chose,
Their tribes adjusted, cleaned their vigorous wings,
And many a circle, many a short essay,
Wheeled round and round, in congregation full
The figured flight ascends ; and, riding high
The aerial billows, mixes with the clouds.
Or where the northern ocean, in vast whirls, 860
Boils round the naked melancholy isles
Of furthest Thule and the Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides ;
Who can recount what transmigrations there
Are annual made ? what nations come and go ?
And how the Uving clouds on clouds arise 1
Infinite wings ! till all the plume-dark air
And rude resounding shore are one wild cry.
Here the plain harmless native his small flock.
And herd diminutive of many hues, 870
Tends on the httle island's verdant swell,
The shepherd's sea-girt reign ; or, to the rocks
Dire-clinging, gathers his ovarious food ;
Or sweeps the fishy shore ; or treasures up
The plumage, rising full, to form the bed
' n '
148 AUTUMN.
Of luxury. And here awhile the muse,
High hovering o'er the broad cerulean scene,
Sees Caledonia, in romantic view :
Her airy mountains from the waving main,
Invested with a keen diffusive sky, 880
Breathing the soul acute ; her forests huge,
Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand
Planted of old ; her azure lakes between,
Toured out extensive, and of wat'ry wealth
Full ; winding-deep, and green, her fertile vales ;
With many a cool translucent brimming flood
Washedlovely, from the Tweed {pure parentstream,
"Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed,
With, sylvan Jed, thy tributary brook)
To where the north-inflated tempest foams 890
O'er Orca's or Betubium's highest peak :
Nurse of a people in misfortune's school
Trained up to hardy deeds, soon visited
By learning, when before the Gothic rage
She took her western flight. A manly race,
Of unsubmitting spirit, wise and brave.
Who still through bleeding ages struggled hard
(As well unhappy Wallace can attest,
Great patriot-hero ! ill-requited chief!)
To hold a generous undiminished state ; 900
Too much in vain '. Hence of unequal bounds
Impatient, and by tempting glory borne
O'er every land, for every land their life
Has flowed profuse, their piercing genius planned,
O-
AUTUMN. 149
And swelled the pomp of peace their faithful toil.
As from their own clear north, in radiant streams,
Bright over Europe bursts the Boreal morn.
Oh is there not some patriot, in whose power
That best, that godlike luxury is placed.
Of blessing thousands, thousands yet unborn, 910
Through late posterity? some, large of soul,
To cheer dejected industry? to give
A double harvest to the pining swain.
And teach the labouring hand the sweets of toil ?
How, by the finest art, the native robe
To weave ; how, white as hyperborean snow,
To form the lucid lawn ; with venturous oar
How to dash wide the billow ; nor look on.
Shamefully passive, while Batavian fleets
Defraud us of the glittering finny swarms 920
That heave our friths and crowd upon our shores ;
How all-enlivening trade to rouse, and wing
The prosperous sail, from every growing port,
Uninjured, round the sea-encircled globe ;
And thus in soul united, as in name,
Bid Britain reign the mistress of the deep ^
Yes, there are such. And full on thee, Argyle,
Her hope, her stay, her darling, and her boast.
From her first patriots and her heroes sprung,
Thy fond imploring country turns her eye ; 930
In thee, with all a mother's triumph, sees
Her every virtue, every grace combined,
Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn.
I - - ■ - — -^
150 AUTUMN.
Her pride of honour, and her courage tried,
Calm and intrepid, in the very throat
Of sulphurous war, on Tenier's dreadful field.
Nor less the palm of peace inwreathes thy brovr j
For, powerful as thy sword, from thy rich tongue
Persuasion flows, and wins tlie high debate ;
While mixed in thee combine the charm of youth.
The force of manhood, and the depth of atje. 941
Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends,
As truth sincere, as weeping- friendship kind,
Thee truly generous, and in silence great.
Thy country feels through her reviving arts.
Planned by thy wisdom, by thy soul informed ;
And seldom has she known a friend like thee.
But see the fading many-coloured woods,
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown, a crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun, 950
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse,
Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strowu walks,
And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime, light shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether, whose least wave
Stands ti'emulous, uncertain where to tUm
The gentle current ; while, illumined wide,
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun,
And through their lucid veil his softened fotce 960
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time
For those whom wisdom and whom Nature charm |
— - ' - -'-- O
AVTUMN. 151
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things,
To tread low-thoughted Vice beneath their feet,
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace,
And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.
Thus solitary, and in pensive giaise,
Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead.
And through the saddened grove, where scarce is
heard
One dying strain, to cheer the woodman's toil 971
Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint.
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks.
And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late
Swelled all the music of the swarming shades.
Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock.
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes,
And nought save chattering discord in their note.
O let not, aimed from some inhuman eye, 981
The gun the music of the coming year
Destroy ; and harmless, unsuspecting harm,
Lay the weak tribes, a miserable prey.
In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground !
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires ; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove.
Oft startling such as, studious, walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air 990
152 AUTUMN.
But, should a quicker breeze amid the bough
Sob o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams ;
Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower,
The forest walks, at every rising gale,
Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields ;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. E'en what remained
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree ;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around
The desolated prospect thrills the soul. 1001
lie comes I he comes ! in every breeze the power
Of philosophic melancholy comes I
His near approach the sudden starting tear,
The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,
The softened feature, and the beating heart.
Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, declare.
O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes ;
Inflames imagination ; through the breast
Infuses every tenderness ; and far 1010
Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought.
Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such
As never mingled with the vulgar dream,
Crowd fast into the mind's creative eye.
As fast the correspondent passions rise.
As varied, and as high. Devotion raised
To rapture, and divine astonishment ;
The love of nature unconfined, and, chief,
Of human race ; the large ambitious wish.
o-
AUTUMN. 153
To make them blest ; the sigh for suffering worth
Lost in obscurity ; the noble scorn 1021
Of tyrant-pride ; the fearless great resolve ;
The wonder wliich the dying patriot draws,
Inspiring glory through remotest time ;
Th' awakened throb for virtue and for fame ;
The sympathies of love, and friendship dear ;
With all the social offspring of the heart.
Oh bear me then to vast embowering shades,
To twilight groves and visionary vales,
To weeping grottoes and prophetic glooms, 1030
Where angel forms athwart the solemn dusk
Tremendous sweep, or seem to sweep along,
And voices more than human, through the void
Deep-sounding, seize, th' enthusiastic ear!
Or is this gloom too much ? Then lead, ye powers
That o'er the garden and the rural seat
Preside, which shining through the cheerful land
In countless numbers blest Britannia sees,
O lead me to the wide-extended walks,
The fair majestic paradise of Stowe '.* 1040
Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia's shore
E'er saw such sylvan scenes, such various art
By genius fired, such ardent genius tamed
By cool judicious art, that, in the strife,
All beauteous Nature fears to be outdone.
And there, O Pitt, thy country's early boast,
There let me sit beneath the sheltered slopes,
* The scat of Lord Cobham.
154 AUTUMN.
Or in that temple* where, in future times,
Thou well shall merit a distinguished name ;
And, with thy converse blest, catch the last smiles
Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods. 1051
While there with thee th' enchanted round I walk,
The regulated wild, gay Fancy then
Will tread in thought the groves of Attic land,
Will from thy standard taste refine her own,
Correct her pencil to the purest truth
Of nature, or th' unimpassioned shades
Forsaking, raise it to the human mind.
Or if hereafter she, with juster hand.
Shall draw the tragic scene, instruct her thou
To mark the varied movements of the heart, 1061
What every decent character requires.
And every passion speaks : O through her strain
Breathe thy pathetic eloquence, that moulds
Th' attentive senate, charms, persuades, exalts.
Of honest zeal th' indignant lightning throws.
And shakes Corruption on her venal throne !
While thus we talk, and, through Elysian vales
Dehghted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes :
What pity, Cobham, thou thy verdant files 1070
Of ordered trees shouldst here inglorious range,
Instead of squadrons flaming o'er the field,
And long embattled hosts ! when the proud foe.
The faithless vain disturber of mankind.
Insulting Gaul, has roused the world to war ;
• The Temple of Virtue in Stowe-gardens !
-o
AUTUMN. 155 I
When keen, once more, within their bounds to press I
Those polished robbers, those ambitious slaves,
The British youth would hail thy wise command,
Thy tempered ardour and thy veteran skill.
The western sun withdraws the shortened day ;
And humid Evening gliding o'er the sky, 1081
In her chiU progress, to the ground condensed
The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze,
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the moon,
Full-orbed and breaking through the scattered
clouds.
Shows her broad visage in the crimsoned east.
Turned to the sun direct, her spotted disk.
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend.
And caverns deep, as optic tube descries, 1091
A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale,
WTiile rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam.
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide,
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world. 1 100
But when half blotted from the sky her light.
Fainting, permits the starry fires to bum
With keener lustre through the depth of heaven
d.
156 AUTUMN.
Or near extinct her dreaded orb appears, j
And scarce appears, of sickly beaniless white ;
Oft in this season, silent from the north
A blaze of meteors shoot : ensweeping first
The lower skies, they all at once converge
High to the crown of heaven, and all at once
Relapsing quick as quickly reascend, 1110
And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew,
All ether coursing in a maze of light.
From look to look, contagious through the crowd,
The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes
Th' appearance throws : armies in meet array,
Thronged with aerial spears, and steeds of fire,
Till, the long lines of full-extended war
In bleeding fight commixt, the sanguine flood
Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of heaven.
As thus they scan the visionaiy scene, 1120
On all sides swells the superstitious dm.
Incontinent ; and busy Frenzy talks
Of blood and battle, cities overturned.
And late at night in swallowing earthquake sunk,
Or hideous wrapt in fierce ascending flame ;
Of sallow famine, inundation, storm ;
Of pestilence, and every great distress ;
Empires subversed, when ruling fate has struck
The unalterable hour : e'en Nature's self
Is deemed to totter on the brink of time. 1130
Not so the man of philosophic eye.
And inspect sage ; the waving brightness he
AUTUMN. 157
Curious surveys, inquisitive to know
The causes, and materials, yet unfixed,
Of this appearance beautiful and nevf.
Now black, and de^p, the nie^ht begins to fall,
A shade immense. Sunk in the. quenching gloom,
Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.
Order confounded lies ; all beauty void ;
Distinction lost ; and gay variety 1140
One universal blot : such the fair power
Of light to kindle and create the whole.
Drear is the state of the benighted wretch
Who then, bewildered, wanders through the dark.
Full of pale fancies, and chimeras huge ;
Nor visited by one directive ray,
From cottage streaming, or from airy hall.
Perhaps impatient as he stumbles on.
Struck from the root of slimy rushes, blue,
The wildfire scatters round, or gathered trails 1150
A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss,
Whither decoyed by the fantastic blaze.
Now lost and now renewed, he sinks absorpt.
Rider and horse, amid the miry gulf,
While still from day to day his pining wife
And plaintive children his return await,
In wild conjecture lost. At other times,
Sent by the better genius of the night.
Innoxious, gleaming on the horse's mane,
The meteor sits, and shows the narrow path 1160
O
158 AUTUMN.
That winding leads through pits of death, or else
Instructs him how to take the dangerous ford.
The lengthened night elapsed, the morning shines
Serene, in all her dewy beauty bright,
Unfolding fair the last autumnal day.
And now the mountain sun dispels the fog;
The rigid hoar-frost melts before his beam ,
And hung on every spray, on every blade 1168
Of grass, the myriad dew-drops twinkle round.
Ah see where robbed, and murdered, in that pit
Lies the still heaving hive ! at evening snatched,
Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night,
And fixed o'er sulphur ; while, not dreaming ill,
The happy people, in their waxen cells,
Sat tending pubhc cares, and planning schemes
Of temperance, for Winter poor ; rejoiced
To mark, full flowing round, their copious stores.
Sudden the dark oppressive steam ascends ;
And, used to milder scents, the tender race,
By thousands, tumble from their honeyed domes,
Convolved, and agonizing in the dust. 1181
And was it then for this you roamed the Spring,
Intent from flower to flower ? for this you toiled
Ceaseless the burning Summer-heats away ?
For this in Autumn searched the blooming waste,
Nor lost one sunny gleam ? for this sad fate ?
O man ! tyrannic lord ! how long, how long.
Shall prostrate Nature groan beneath your rage .
( Awaiting renovation "< When obliged,
O— — '
AUTUMW. 159
Must you destroy ? Or their ambrosial food 1190
Can you not borrow ; and, in just return,
Afford them shelter from the wintry winds 1
Or, as the sharp year pinches, with their own
Again regale them on some smihng day ?
See where the stony bottom of their town
Looks desolate and wild ; with here and there,
A helpless number, who the ruined state
Survivej lamenting weak, cast out to death.
Thus a proud city, populous and rich,
Full of the works of peace, and liigh in joy, 1300
At theatre or feast, or suidc in sleep
(As late, Palermo, was thy fate,) is seized
By some dread earthquake, and convulsive hurled
Sheer from the black foundation, stench-involved,
Into a gulf of blue sulphureous- flame.
Hence every harsher sight I for now the day.
O'er heaven and earth diffused, grows warm, and
high,
Infinite splendour ! wide investing all.
How still the breeze ! save what the filmy thread
Of dew evaporate brushes from the plain, 1210
How clear the cloudless sky I hov/ deeply tinged
With a peculiar blue ! the ethereal arch
How swelled immense ! amid whose azure throne
The radiant sun how gay ! how calm below
The gilded earth ! the harvest-treasures all
Now gathered in, beyond the rage of storms,
Sure to the swain, the circling fence shut up
160 AUTUMN.
And instant Winter's utmost rage defined ;
While, loose to festive joy, the country round
Laug-hs with the loud sincerity of mirth, 1220
Shook to the wind their cares. The toil-strong
youth,
By the quick sense of music taught alone,
Leaps wildly graceful in the lively dance.
Her every charm abroad, the village toast,
Young, buxom, warm, in native beauty rich,
Darts not unmeaning looks : and, where her eye
Points an approving smile, with double force,
The cudgel rattles, and the wrestler twines.
Age too shines out ; and, garrulous, recounts
The feats of youth. Thus they rejoice ; nor think
That, with to-morrow's sun, their annual toil 1231
Begins again the never-ceasing round.
Oh knew he but his happiness, of men
The happiest he who far from public rage,
Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired.
Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life I
What though the dome bo wanting, whose proud
gate.
Each morning, vomits out the sneaking crowd
Of flatterers false, and in their turn abused ?
Vile intercourse 1 What though the glittering robe.
Of every hue reflected light can give, 1241
Or floating loose, or stiff with mazy gold,
The pride and gaze of fools, oppress him not 1
What though, from utmost land and sea purveyed.
AUTUMN. 161
For him each rarer tributary life
Bleeds not. and his insatiate table heaps
With luxury and death T What though his bowl
Flames not with costly juice, nor sunk in beds,
Oft of gay care, he tosses out the night,
j Or melts the thoughtless hours in idle state? 1250
I What though he knows not those fantastic joys
1 That still amuse the wanton, still deceive ;
A face of pleasure, but a heart of pain ;
Their hollow moments undelighted all?
Sure peace is his ; a solid life, estranged
To disappointment and fallacious hope :
Rich in content, in Nature's bounty rich,
In herbs and fruits ; whatever greens the Spring,
When heaven descends in showers, or bends the
bough
When summer reddens, and when Autumn beams,
Or in the wintry glebe whatever lies 1261
Concealed, and fattens with the richest gap :
These are not wanting ; nor the milky drove.
Luxuriant, spread o'er all the lowing vale ;
Nor bleating mountains ; nor the chide of streami,
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,
Ditn. grottoes, gleaming lakes, and fountain clear
Here too dwells simple Truth ; plain Innocence ;
UnsuUied Beauty ; sound unbroken Youth, 1272
162 AUTUMN.
Patient of labour, with a little pleased ;
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,
Unpierccd, exulting in the widow's wail, 1280
The virgin's shriek, and infant's trembling cry.
Let some, far-distant from their native soil.
Urged or by want or hardened avarice,
Find other lands beneath another sun.
Let this through cities work his eager way
By legal outrage and established guile,
The social sense extinct, and that ferment
Mad into tumult the seditious herd,
Or melt them down to slavery. Let these
Ensnare the wretched in the toils of law, 1290
Fomenting discord and perplexing right,
An iron race I 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, 1301
AUTUMN. 163
Move n"t the man who, from the world escaped,
In still retreats, and flowery solitudes.
To Nature's voice attends, from month to month
/.nd 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
germs,
Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale,
Into his freshened soul ; her genial hours 1311
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,
^\'hen autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world, 1320
And tempts the sickled swain into the field.
Seized by the general joy, his heart distends
With gentle throes ; 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, stretched o'er the buried earth,
Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies,
Disclosed, and kindled by refining frost,
O
12
164 AUTUMN.
Pour every lustre on th' exalted eye. 1330
A friend, a book, the stealing- hours secure,
And mark them down for wisdom. With swil.t 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, twined around his neck, 1340
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns ;
For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the social still and smiling 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 I all-sufficient ! overall! 1350
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works ;
Snatch me to heaven ; thy rolling wonders there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely scattered 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
AUTUMN. 165
O'er that the rising- system, more complex,
Of aiiimHls; and, higher still, the mind, 1360
The varied scene of quick-compounded thoug-ht,
And where the nuxing passions endless shift ;
These ever open to my ravished eye,
A search the flight of time can ne'er exhaust.
But if to that unequal, — if the hlood,
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition, — underdosing shades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From thee begin,
Dwell all on Thee, with Thee conclude my song ;
And let me never, never stray from Thee 1 1371
WflMTH^
ARGUMENT.
The subject proposed. Address to the Earl of Wilmingtou.
First approach of Winter According' to the natural
course of the season, various storms described. Rain.
Wind. Snow. The driving- of the snows : a man per-
ishing among them; whence reflections on the wants
and miseries of human hfe. The wolves descending-
from the Alps and Apennines, A winter-evening de-
scribed; as spent by philosophers ; by the country people ;
inlhe city. Frost. A view of winter within the polar
circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral re-
flections on a future state.
WINTER.
See Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train,
Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,
These that exalt the soul to solemn thought,
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms !
Congenial horrors, hail ! with frequent foot,
Pleased have I — in my cheerful morn of life.
When nursed by careless Solitude I lived,
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, —
Pleased have I wandered through your rough
domain.
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure, 11
Heard the winds roar and the big torrent burst,
Or seen the deep fermenting tempest brewed
In the grim evening sky. Thus passed the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the south
Looked out the joyous Spring, looked out and smiled.
To thee, the patron of her first essay,
The muse, O Wilmington I renews her song.
Since has she rounded the revolving year ;
Skimmed the gay spring ; on eagle-pinions borne,
Attempted through the summer-blaze to rise ; 21
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale ;
170 WINTER.
And now among the wintry clouds again,
Rolled m 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 in her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy could she fill thy judging ear
With bold description and with manly thought.
Nor art thou skilled in awful schemes alone, 30
And how to make a mighty people thrive ;
But equal goodness, sound integrity,
A firm, unshaken, uncorriipted 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. 40
Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the centaur archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius stains th' inverted year,
Hung o'er the furthest 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 clothed in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky ;
And, soon descenJing, to the long dark night, 50
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.
WINTER. 171
Nor is the night unwished ; while vital heat,
Lig'ht, life, and joy, the dubious daj- forsake.
Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast.
Deep-tinged 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. 60
The soul of man dies in him, loathing life.
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop ; and o'er the furrowed land.
Fresh from the plough, the dun discoloured 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 cliflTs,
And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan, 70
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, 80
172 WINTER.
Each to his home, retire ; save those that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
Or skiinmjng flutter round the dimply pool.
The cattle from th' untasted fields return.
And ask, with meaning low, their wonted stalls,
Or ruminate in the contiaiuous shade.
Thither the household feathery people crowd,
The crested cock, with all his female train.
Pensive, and dripping ; while the cottage hind
Jiangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful there 90
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 swelled,
And the mixed ruin of its banks o'erspread,
At last the roused-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, 100
Calm, sluggish, silent : till again, constrained
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 I great parent I whose unceasing hand
Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year,
How mighty, how majestic, are thy works I
With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul,
O
— o
173
O-
Tliat Fees astonished, and ust.jiiished sin^ I 110
Ye lO'j, ve winds, that now hegni to blow,
With li(-isterous sweep, I raise my voice to you.
Where iir<^ your stores, ye powerful beings, say,
Where your aerial magazines reserved,
To s%\eH the brooding len^>rsof the storm?
In wh:io far distant reijion of tlie sky.
Hushed in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm
Whe.i from the pallid sky the sun descends.
With many a spot, that (j'er his glaring- orb
Uncertain wanders, stained . red fiery streaks 120
Begin to flush around. Tlie reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
Which master to obey ; while rising slow,
Blank, in the leaden-coloured east, the moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
The stars obtuse emit a shivered ray,
Or frequent seem to shoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.
Snatched in short eddies, plays the withered leaf;
And on the flood the dancing feather floats. 131
With broadened nostrils, to the sky up-turned,
The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale.
E'en as the matron, at her nightly task,
With pensive labour draws the flaxen thread.
The wasted taper and the crackling flame
Foretel the blast. But chief the plumy race.
The tenants of the sky, its changes speak
174 W I N T K a
Retiring from the clowns, where all day long
They picked their scanty fare, a blackening train
Of clamorous rooks tliick-urgc their weary flight,
And seek the closing: shelter of the grove. 142
Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land.
Loud shrieks the soaring hern ; and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds ;
Ocean, unequal pressed, with broken tide
And blind commoticm heaves ; while from the shore.
Eat into caverns by the restless wave, 150
And forest-rustling mountain, comes a voice,
That solemn sounding bids the world prepare.
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And hurls 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 discoloured deep.
Through the black niyht that sits immense around,
Lashed into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn : 160
Meantime the mountain-billows, to the clouds
In dreadful tumult swelled, surge above surge,
Burst into chaos with tremendous roar,
And anchored navies from their stations drive.
Wild as the winds across the howling waste
Of mighty waters : now Ih' inflated wave
Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot
1
WINTER. 175
Into the secret chambers of the deep,
The wintry Baltic thunderinsj o'er their head.
Emerging tlieiice a^ain before the breath 170
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 on land the loosened tempest reigns.
The mountain thunders ; and its st\irdy 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. 180
Low waves the rooted forest, vexed, and sheds
What of its tarnished honours yet remain ;
Dashed down and scattered, by the tearing wind's
Assiduous fury. Us gigantic limbs.
Thus struggling through the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain ;
And on the cottage thatched, or lordly roof.
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies ; and nmnd the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast. 190
Then too, they say, through all the burdened air,
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant
sighs.
That, uttered by the demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of wo and death.
Huge Uproar lords it wide. The clouds commixed
176 WINTER.
With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky,
All Nsture reels. Till Nature's King who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells Jilone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm ; 200
Then straight air, sea, and earth are hushed at once.
As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary cbuds,
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.
Where now, ye lying vanities of life !
Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train ! 210
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 resolved.
With new-flushed hopes, to run the giddy round.
Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme I
O teach me what is good, teach me Thyself:
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice.
From every low pursuit, and feed my soul 220
With knowledge, cons(;ious peace, and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss !
The keener tempests rise : and fuming dun
From all the livid east, or piercing north.
WINTER. 177
Thick clouds ascend, m whose capacious womb
A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed,
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along,
And the sky saddens with the gathered storm.
Through the hushed air the whitening shower de-
scends.
At first thin wavering ; till at last the flakes 230
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished 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 wild dazzling waste, that buries wide 239
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed 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 the embroiling sky.
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first 250
Against the window beats ; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth ; then hopping o'er the floor,
178 WINTER.
Eyes all the smiling' family askance,
Ai»(l pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is :
'Till, more foniiliar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his tender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare
Thoug-h timorous of heart and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, 260
Urged on by fearless Want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and nextthe glisteningearth.
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad-dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.
Now shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind.
Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens
With food at will ; lod^e them below the storm.
And watch them strict ; for from the bellowing east,
In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing
Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains 270
At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks,
Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills.
The billowy tempest whelms ; till upwards urged,
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 darkened air,
In his own loose-revolving fields the swain
Disaslered stands, sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow ,• and other scenes, 280
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain :
WINTER. 179
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 feigned 290
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the trace 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 covered pits, unfafhomably deep,
A dire descent I beyond the power of frost ;
Of faithless bogs ; of precipices huge, 300
Smoothed 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,
Mixed with the tender anguish Nature shoots
_
189 WINTER.
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. 310
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
Tlie 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 I
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 stiffened corse, 320
Stretched out and bleaching m 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 sink in the devouring flood
Or more devouring flame ; how many bleed, 330
By shameful variance betwixt man and man ;
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms,
Shut from common air and common use
Of their own limbs : how many drink the cap
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,
WINTER. 181
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse, 340
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of lifej
They furnish matter for the tragic muse ;
E'en in the vale where Wisdom loves to dvrell.
With Friendship, Peace, and Contemplation joined
How many, racked 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, 350
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate.
Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
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,
Refining still, the social passions work
And here can I forget the generous band,*
Who, touched with human wo, redressive searched
Into the horrors of the gloomy jail, 361
Unpitied, and unheard, where Misery moans
Where Sickness pines, where Thirst and Hunger
bum,
And poor Misfortune feels the lash of Vice.
While in the land of liberty, the land
Whose every street and public meeting glow
• The Jail Coramitteej in the year 173.
182 WINTER.
With open freedom, little tyrants raged,
Snatched tlie lean morsel from the starving- moath,
Tore from cold wintr>- limbs the scattered weed,
E'en robbed them of the last of comforts, sleep, 370
The free-bom Briton to the dungeon chained,
Or, as the lust of cruelty prevailed.
At pleasure marked him Tfith inglorious stripes,
And crushed oat lives, by secret barbarous ways
That for their cotinrr\- would have toiled or bled.
O great design I if executed well,
With patient care, and wisdom-tempered zeal.
Ye sons of mercy, yet resume the search.
Drag forth the legal monsters into light,
Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod, 380
And bid the cruel fesir the pains they give.
Much still untouched remains ; in this rank age,
Much is the patriot's weeding hand required.
The toils of law (what dark insiduous men
Have cumbrous 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 I
By wintry famine roused, from all the tnct
Of horrid mountains which the shining Alps, 390
And wavy Apenuine and Pvrenees,
j Branch out stupendous into distant lands,
I Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave,
i Burning for blood, bony, and gaunt, and grim,
Assembling wolves in raging troops deaceod ;
wi X T E a . 183
And, pouring o'er tlie country, bear along'.
Keen as the noRh-vrind sweeps tas glossy snow.
All is their prize. They fasten on the steed,
Press him to earth, and pierce his niighty heart.
Nor can the b'oll his awful front defend, 400
Or shake the murdering savages away.
Rapaci'jus, at the mothers throat they fly,
Aad tear the screaming infant from her breast.
The gi->diike face of man avails him nought.
E'en beauty, force divine ! at who^ bright glance
The generous lion stands in softened g^ze.
Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguished prey.
But if, apprised of the severe attack,
The country be shut up, lured by the scent.
On churchjrards drear (inhuman to relate !} 410
The disappointed prowlers faU, and dig
The shrouded body from the grave, o'er which,
Mixed with foul shades, and frighted ghosts, they
howl.
Among those hilly regions where embraced
In peaceful vales the happy Gnsons dwell.
Oft. rushing sudden from the loaded cl:i&.
Mountains of snow their gathering terrors roll.
From steep to steep, loud-thundering down they
come,
A wintry waste in dire commotion all ; 419
And herds, and flocks, and travellers, and swains.
And sometimes whole brigades of marching troops
0--
184 WINTER.
Or hamlets sleeping in the dead of night,
Are deep beneath the smothering ruin whelmed.
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, sheltered, solitary scene,
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join 430
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead.
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered,
As gods beneficent, who bless'd mankind
With arts, with arms, and humanised a world.
Roused at th' inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-lived 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, 440
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 I wisest of mankind,
Solon the next, who built his common weal
On equity's wide base, by tender laws
A lively people curbing, yet undamped
Preserving still that quick peculiar fire
Whence in the laurelled field of finer arts, 450
b — O
WINTER. 185
And of bold freedom, they unequalled shon*.,
The pride of smiling^ Greece and human kincJ.
Lycurgus then, who bowed beneath the fo:ce
Of strictest discipline, severely wise,
All human passions. Following him, I sd,
As at Thermopylse he glorious fell.
The firm devoted chief* who proved ty d'^-eds
Tlie hardest lesson which the other ta'ight,
Then Aristides lifts his honest front, 459
Spotless of heart, to whom th' unf.attcriny vcxe
Of freedom gave the nobleat n?me of Jjst,
In pure majestic poverty revere''..
Who, e'en his glory to his country's weal
Submitting, swelled a haughty rival'st fame.
Reared by hi^ care, of softer ray appears
Cimon, sweet-souleu, whose genius, rising strong,
Shook off the load of young debauch, abroad
The sccurge of Persian pride, at home the friend
Of every wor'.h and every splendid art,
Modest anil simple in the pomp of wealth. 470
Then the last worthies of declining Greece,
Late called to glory, in unequal times.
Pensive, appear. The fair Corinthian boast
Timoleon, happy temper I mild and firm.
Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled ;
And, equal to the best, the The ban pair,t
Whose virtues, in heroic concord joined,
* Leoniilas. t Themistocles.
J PelepiJas and EpeminonJas.
100 WINTER.
Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.
He too with whom Athenian honour sunk,
And left a mass of sordid lees behind, 480
Phocion the Good, in public life severe,
To virtue still inexorably firm ;
But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,
Sweet Peace and happy Wisdom smoothed 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
E'en Sparta's self to servile avarice sunk.
The two Achaian heroes close the train : 490
Aratus, who awhile relumed the soul
Of fondly lingering Liberty in Greece ;
And he her darling, as her latest hope,
The gallant Philopoemen, who to arms
Turned 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, m those virtuous times
Which knew no stain, save that with partial flame
Their dearest country they too fondly loved : 501
Her better founder first, the light of Rome,
Numa, who softened 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 :
WINTER. 187
The public father* who the private quelled,
As on the dread tribunal sternly sad ;
He whom his thankless country could not lose,
CamiUus, only vengeful to her foes ; 510
Fabricius, scorner of all conquering gold ;
And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough.
Thy willing victim,t Carthage, bursting loose
From all that pleading Nature could oppose,
From a whole city's tears, by rigid faith
Imperious called, 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 retired ; 520
TuUy, whose powerful eloquence awhile
Restrained the rapid fate of rushing Rome ;
Unconquer'd Cato, virtuous in extreme ;
And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart,
Whose steady arm, by awful virtue urged.
Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend :
Thousands besides the tribute of a verse
Demand : but who can count the stars of heaven T
Who sing their influence on this lower world ?
Behold who yonder comes, in sober state, 530
Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun :
'Tis Phcebus' self, or else the Mantuan Swain I
Great Homer too appears, of daring wing
Parent of song ! and, equal by his side,
* Marcus Junius Brutus. t Regulus.
o-
100 WINTER.
The British muse ; joined hand in hand they walk,
Darkling-, full up the middle steep to fame.
Nor absent are those shades whose skilful touch
Pathetic drew th' impassioned heart, and charmed
Transported Athens with the moral scene ;
Nor those who, tuneful, waked th' enchanting- lyre.
First of your kind I society divine ! 541
Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved,
And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours.
Silence, thou lonely power ! the door be thine ;
See on the hallowed hour that none intrude,
Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deign
To bless my humble roof, witk sense refined,
Learning digested well, exalted faith.
Unstudied wit, and humour ever gay.
Or from the muses' hill will Pope descend, 550
To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile.
And with the social spirit warm the heart?
For, though not sweeter his own Homer sings.
Yet is his life the more endearing song.
Where art thou, Hammond ? thou, the darling
pride,
The friend and lover of the tuneful throng !
Ah why, dear youth, in all the blooming prime
Of vernal genius, where disclosing fast
Each active worth, each manly virtue lay.
Why wert thou ravished from our hope so soon 1 560
What now avails that noble thirst of fame
Which stung thy fervent breast, that treasured store
WINTER. 189
Of knowledge, early gained, that eager zeal
To serve thy country, glowing in the band
Of youthful patriots, who sustain her name ?
What now, alas ! that life-diffusing charm
Of sprightly wit, that rapture for the muse,
That heart of friendship, and that soul of joy,
Which bade with softest hght thy virtues smile ?
Ah I only showed to check our fond pursuits, 570
And teach our humbled hopes that life is vain I
Thus in some deep retirement would I pass
The wiater-glooms, with friends of pliant soul
Or blithe, or solemn, as the theme inspired.
With them would search if Nature's boundless frame
Was called, late-rising, from the void of night,
Or sprung eternal from th' eternal Mind,
Its life, its laws, its progress, and its end.
Hence larger prospects of the beauteous whole
Would, gradual, open on our opening minds ; 580
And each diffusive harmony unite
In full perfection to th' astonished eye.
Then would we try to scan the moral world.
Which, though to us it seems embroiled, moves on
In higher order, fitted and impelled
By Wisdom's finest hand, and issuing all
In general good. The sage historic muse
Should next conduct us through the deeps of time,
Show us how empire grew, declined, and fell.
In scattered states, what makes the nations smile.
Improves their soil, and gives them double suns, 591
190 W I N T K JK . I
And why they pine beneath the brightest skies, I
In Nature's richest lap. As thus we talked |
Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale
That portion of divinity, thut ray
Of purest heaven, which lights the public soul
Of patriots and of heroes. But if doomed,
In powerless humble fortune to repress
These ardent risings of the kindling soul,
Then, e'en superior to ambition, we 600
Would learn the private virtues : how to glide
Through shades and plains, along the smoothest
stream
Of rural life, or, snatched away by Hope,
Through the dim sjiaoes of futurity
With earnest eye anticipate those scenes
Of happiness and wonder, where the mind,
In endless growth and infinite ascent,
Rises from state to state and world to world.
But, when with these the serious thought is foiled.
We, shifting for relief, would play the shapes 610
Of frolic Fancy, and incessant form
Those rapid pictures, that assembled train
Of fleet ideas, never joined before.
Whence lively Wit excites to gay surprise.
Or folly-painting Humour, grave himself.
Calls laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve.
Meantime the village rouses up the fire ;
While well-attested, and as well believed,
Heard solemn, goes the goblin story round,
O-
WINTER. 191
Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all. 620
Of, frequent in the sounding hall, they wake
, The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round ;
The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart,
i Easily pleased ; the long loud laugh, sincere ;
j The kiss, snatched hasty from the side-long maid,
I On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep :
1 The leap, the slap, the haul, and, shook to notes
Of native music, the respondent dance.
Thus jocund fleets with them the winter-night.
The city swarms intense. The public haunt, 630
Full of each theme, and warm with mixed discourse
Hums indistinct. The sons of riot flow
Down the loose stream of false enchanted joy,
To swift destruction. On the rankled soul
The gaming fury falls ; and in one gulf
Of total ruin, honour, virtue, peace,
Friends, families, and fortune, headlong sink.
Up-springs the dance along the lighted dome,
Mixed, and evolved, a thousand sprightly ways.
The glittering court effuses every pomp ; 640
The circle deepens ; beamed from gaudy robes,
Tapers, and sparkling gems, and radiant eyes,
A soft effulgence o'er the palace waves ;
While, a gay insect in his summer-shine,
The fop, light-fluttering, spreads his mealy wings.
Dread o'er the scene, the ghost of Hamlet stalks ;
Othello rages ; poor Monimia mourns ;
I And Belvidera pours her soul in love.
O ■ — (
192 WINTER.
Terror alarms the breast ; the comely tear
Steals o'et the cheek : or else the comic muse 650
Holds to the world a picture of itself,
And raises sly the fair impartial lau^h.
Sometimes she lifts her sti'ain, and {)aints the scenes
Of beauteous life ; whate'er can deck mankind,
Or charm the heart, in generous Bevil* showed.
O thott whose wisdom, Solid yet refined,
Whose patriot virtues, and consummate skill
To touch the finer springs that move the world,
Joined to whate'er the graces can bestow,
And all Apollo's anim.ating fire. 660
Give thee, with pleasing dignity, to shine
At once the guardian, ornament, and joy,
Of pohshed life. Permit the rural muse,
O Chesterfield ! to grace with thee her song-.
Ere to the shades again she humbly flies.
Indulge her fond ambition, in thy train
(For every muse has in thy train a place)
To mark thy various full-accomplished mind,
To mark that spirit which, with British scorn.
Rejects th' allurements of corrupted power, — 670
That elegant politeness, which excels.
E'en in the judgment of presumptuous France,
The boasted manners of her shining court, —
That wit, the vivid energy of sense.
The truth of Nature, which, with Attic point,
* A character in " The Conscious Lovers," written by Sir
Richard Steele.
WINTER. 193
And kind well-tempered satire, smoothly keen,
Steals through the soul, and without pain corrects.
Or, rising- thence with yet a brighter flame,
O let me hail thee on some glorious day.
When to the listening senate, ardent crowd 680
Britannia's sons to hear her pleaded cause.
Then, dressed by thee, more amiably fair,
Truth the soft robe of mild persuasion wears :
Thou to assenting Reason giv'st again
Her own enlightened thoughts ; called from the heart
Th' obedient passions on thy voice attend ;
And e'en reluctant Party feels awhile
Thy gracious power, as through the varied maze
Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now strong,
Profound and clear, you roll the copious flood. 690
To thy loved haunt return, my happy muse ;
For now, behold, the joyous vsrinter-days,
Frosty, succeed ; and through the blue serene
For sight too fine, th' ethereal nitre flies,
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air
Storing afresh wifh elemental life.
Close crowds the shining atmosphere, and binds
Our strengthened bodies in its cold embrace.
Constringent ; feeds and animates our blood ;
Refmes our spirits, through the new-strung nerves
In swifter sallies darting to the brain, 701
Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies and as the season keen.
1 AU Nature feels the renovating force
C
194 WINTER.
Of winter, only to the thoughtless eye
Id ruin seen. The frost-concocted glebe
Draws in abundant vegetable soul,
And gathers vigour for the coming year.
A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek
Of ruddy Fire, and luculent along 710
The purer rivers flow ; their sullen deeps,
Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze.
And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.
What art thou, frost 1 and whence are thy keen
stores
Derived, thou secret all-invading power.
Whom e'en th' illusive fluid cannot fly T
Is not thy potent energy, unseen.
Myriads of little salts, or hooked, or shaped
Like double wedges, and diffused immense
Through water, earth, and ether? Hence at eve.
Steamed eager from the red horizon round, 721
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffused.
An icy gale, oft shifting, o'er the pool
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering stream. The loosened ice,
Let down the flood, and half dissolved by day,
Rustles no more ; but to the sedgy bank
Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone,
A crystal pavement, by the breath of heaven
Cemented firm ; till, seized from shore to shore,
The whole imprisoned river growls below. 731
Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
O-
o
WINTER. 195
A double noise ; while, at his evening watch,
The village dog deters the nightly thief ;
The heifer lows ; the distant water-fall
Swells in the breeze ; and, with the hasty tread
Of traveller, the hollow-sounding plain
Shakes from afar. Tlie full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen ; and, all one cope 740
Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole.
From pole to pole the rigid influence falls,
Through the still night, incessant, heavy, strong,
And seizes Nature fast. It freezes on ;
Till Morn, late rising o'er the drooping world,
Lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then appears
The various labour of the silent night :
Prone from the dripping eave, and dumb cascade,
^Vhose idle torrents only seem to roar.
The pendent icicle ; the frost-work fair, 750
Where transient hues, and fancied figures rise ;
Wide-spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook,
A livid tract, cold-gleaming on the mom ;
The forest bent beneath the plumy wave ;
And by the frost refined the whiter snow,
Encrusted hard, and sounding to the tread
Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks
His pining flock, or from the mountain top,
Pleased with the slippery surface, swift descends.
On blithesome frohcs bent, the youthful swains.
While every work of man is laid at rest, 761
_
196 WINTER.
Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport
And revelry dissolved ; where mixing glad,
Happiest of all the train ! the raptured boy
Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine
Branched out in many a long- canal extends,
From every province swarming, void of care.
Batavia rushes forth ; and as they sweep.
On sounding skates, a thousand different ways,
In circling poise, swift as the winds, along, 770
The then gay land is maddened all to joy.
Nor less the northern courts, wide o'er the snow,
Pour a new pomp. Eager, on rapid sleds.
Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel
The long-resounding course. Meantime, to raise
The manly strife, with highly blooming charms.
Flushed by the season, Scandinavia's dames
Or Russia's buxom daughters glow around.
Pure, quick, and sportful, is the wholesome day ;
But soon elapsed. The horizontal sun, 780
Broad o'er the south, hangs at his utmost noon.
And ineffectual, strikes the gelid cliff;
His azure gloss the mountain still maintains.
Nor feels tlie feeble touch. Perhaps the vale
Relents awhile to the reflected ray ;
Or from the forest falls the clustered snow,
Myriads of gems, that in the waving gleam
Gay twinkle as they scatter. Thick around
Thunders the sport of those who with the gun,
And dog impatient bounding at the shot, 790
WINTER. 19/
Worse than the season desolate the fields ;
And, addin<j to the ruins of the year,
Distress the footed or the feathered game.
But what is this? Our infant Winter sinks,
Divested of its grandeur, should our eye
Astonished shoot into the frigid zone,
Where, for relentless months, continual Night
Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.
There through the prison of unbounded wilds.
Barred by the hand of Nature from escape, 800
Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around
Strikes his sad eye but deserts lost in snow,
And heavy-loaded groves, and solid floods
That stretch athwart the solitary waste
Their icy horrors to the frozen main.
And cheerless towns far distant, never blessed,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,*
With news of human kind. Yet there life glows ;
Yet cherished there, beneath the shining waste, 810
The furry nations harbour : tipt with jet,
Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press ;
Sables, of glossy black ; and dark embrowned,
Or beauteous freaked with many a mingled hue,
Thousand besides, the costly pride of courts.
There, warm together pressed, the trooping deer '
Sleep on the new-fallen snows ; and, scarce his head
Raised o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
* The old name for China.
lyo WINTER.
Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss.
The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils, 820
Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives
The fearful flying race ; with ponderous clubs,
As weak against the mountain-heaps they push
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray.
He lays them quivering on th' ensanguined snows,
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home.
There through the piny forest half absorpt.
Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear,
With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn ;
Slow-paced, and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath th' inclement drift, 831
And with stern patience, scorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against assailing want.
Wide o'er the spacious regions of the north.
That see Bootes urge his tardy wain
A boisterous race, by frosty Caurus* pierced,
Who little pleasure know and fear no pain,
Prolific swarm. They once relumed the flame
Of lost mankind in polished slavery sunk,
Drove martial horde on horde, t with dreadful sweep.
Resistless rushing o'er th' enfeebled south, 841
And gave the vanquished world another form.
Not such the sons of Lapland : wisely they
Despise th' insensate barbarous trade of war ;
They ask no more than simple Nature gives ;
• The north-west wind,
t The wandering Scythian clans.
WINTER. 199
They love their mountains and enjoy their storms.
No false desires, no pride-created wants,
Disturb the peaceful current of their time,
And through the restless ever-tortured maze
Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it rage, 850
Their rein-deer form their riches. These their tents.
Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth
Supply, their wholesome fare and cheerful cups.
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe
Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swift
O'er hill and dale, heaped into one erpanse
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glazed.
By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless shake
A waving blaze refracted o'er the heavens, 860
And vivid moons, and stars that keener play
With doubled lustre from the glossy waste,
E'en in the depth of polar night they find
A wondrous day, enough to light the chase,
Or guide their daring steps to Finland fairs.
Wished Spring returns ; and from the hazy south,
While dim Aurora slowly moves before,
The welcome sun, just verging up at first,
By small degrees extends the swelling curve,
Till seen at last for gay rejoicing months, 870
Still round and round his spiral course he winds,
And, as he nearly dips his flaming orb.
Wheels up again, and reasceuds the sky,
In that glad season, from the lakes and floods,
200 WINTER.
Where pure Niemi's* fairy mountains rise,
And fringed with roses Tengliot rolls his stream,
They draw the nopious fry. With these at eve,
They cheerful loaded to their tents repair,
Where, all day long in useful cares employed,
Their kind unblemished wives the fire prepare. 880
Thrice happy race I by poverty secured
From legal plunder and rapacious power,
In whom fell interest never yet has sown
The seeds of vice, whose spotless swains ne'er knew
Injurious deed, nor, blasted by the breath
Of faithless Love, their blooming daughters wo.
Still pressing on, beyond Tomea's lake.
And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow,
And furthest Greenland, to the pole itself.
Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out, 890
The muse expands her solitary flight.
And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene,
Beholds new seas beneath another sky.t
Throned in his palace of cerulean ice,
• M. de Maupertuis, in his book on the " Figure of the
Earth," after having described the beautil'ul lake and moun-
tain of Niemi in Lapland, says, "From this heig-ht we had
opportunity several times to see those vapours rise from the
lake which the people of the country call Haltios, and which
they deem to be the guardian spirits of the mountains. We
had been frighted with stories of bears that haunted this
place, but saw none. It seems rather a place of resort for
fairies and genii than bears."
T The same author observes, " I was surprised to see upon
the banks of this river (the Tenglio) roses of as lively a red
as any that are in our gardens."
I The other hemisphere.
i
WINTER 201
Here Winter holds his unrejnicing court,
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is forever heard ;
Here the grim tp-ant meditates his wrath ;
Here arms his winds with all subduing frost,
Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his snows,
With which he now oppresses half the globe. 901
Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's coast,
She sweeps the howling margin of the main,
Where undissolving from the first of time.
Snows swell on snows amazing to the sky.
And icy mountains high on mountains piled
Seem to the shivering sailor from afar.
Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds.
Projected huge and horrid o'er the surge,
Alps frown on Alps ; or rushing hideous down, 910
As if old Chaos were again returned,
Wide-rend the deep, and shake the solid pole.
Ocean itself no longer can resist
The binding fury ; but, in all its rage
Of tempest shaken by the boundless frost,
Is many a fathom to the bottom chained.
And bid to roar no more — a bleak expanse,
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void
Of every life, tliat from the dreary mouths
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they 920
Who here, entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun ;
While full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost.
aoa WINTER.
Tlie long long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's* fate.
As with first prow (what have not Briton's dared I)
He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught, 930
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate sealed, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task.
Froze into statues ; to the cordage glued
The sailor and the pilot to the helm.
Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing
stream
Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men ;
And half enhvened by the distant sun.
That rears and ripens man, as well as plants,
Here human nature wears its rudest form. 940
Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves,
Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer.
They waste the tedious gloom. Immersed in furs,
Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor song.
Nor tenderness they know ; nor aught of life
Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without.
Till Morn at length, her roses drooping all,
Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their fields,
And calls the quivered savage to the chase.
* Sir Hugh Wilioughby, sent by qu«en Elizabeth to discoTW
the north-east passage.
WINTER. 203
What cannot active government perform, 950
New-moulding man 1 Wide-stretching from these
shores,
A people savage from remotest time,
A huge neglected empire, one vast mind.
By heaven inspired, from Gothic darkness called.
Immortal Peter I first of monarchs I He
His stubborn country tamed, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons ;
And, while the fierce barbarian he subdued,
To more exalted soul he raised the man.
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toiled 960
Through long successive ages to build up
A labouring plan of state, behold at once
The wonder done I behold the matchless prince
Who left his native throne, where reigned till then
A mighty shadow of unreal power,
Who greatly spurned the slothful pomp of courts,
And, roaming every land, in every port
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unwearied pl)nng the mechanic tool,
Gathered the seeds of trade, of useful arts, 970
Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill.
Charged with the stores of Europe, home he goes I
Then cities rise amid th' illumined waste I
O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign ;
Far-distant flood to flood is social joined ;
Th' astonished Euxine hears the Baltic roar ;
Proud navies ride on seas that never foamed
O
204 WINTER.
With daring keel before ; and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repressing here
The frantic Alexander of the north, 980
And awing there stem Othman's shrinking sons.
Sloth flies the land, and Ignorance, and Vice,
Of old Dishonour proud ; it glows around,
Taught by the royal hand that roused the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade ;
For what his wisdom planned, and power enforced,
More potent still, his great example showed.
Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point,
Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdued,
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. 990
Spotted the mountains shine ; loose sleet descends,
And floods the country round. The rivers swell.
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills,
O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts,
A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once ;
And where they rush the wide-resounding plain
Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas
That washed th' ungenial pole will rest no more
Beneath the shackles of the mighty north.
But rousing all their waves, resistless heave. 1000
And hark ! the lengthening roar continuous runs
Athwart the rifted deep, at once it bursts
And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds.
Ill fares the bark, with trembling wretches charg'd,
That, tost amid the floating fragments, moors
Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,
O
WINTER. 205
While night o'erwhelms the sea and Horror looks
More horrible. Can human force endure
Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege them round 1
Heart-gnawing Hunger, fainting Weariness, 1010
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renewed with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main.
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan
And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempest the loosened brine, while through the
gloom.
Far from the bleak inhospitable shore.
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Of famished monsters, there awaiting wrecks.
Yet Providence, that ever-waking eye, 1020
Looks down with pity on the feeble toil
Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe
Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.
'Tis done I dread Winter spreads his latest glooms
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies I
How dumb the tuneful ! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man I
See here thy pictured life ; pass some few years.
Thy flowering spring, thy summer's ardent
strength, 1030
Thy sober autumn fading into age,
And pale concluding winter comes at last,
And shuts the scene. Ah I whither now are fled
. 3
206 WINTER.
Those dreams of greatness — those unsolid hopes
Of happiness — those longings after fame —
Those restless cares — those busy bustling days —
Those gay-spent, festive nights — those veering
thoughts.
Lost betM'een good and ill, that shared thy life^
All now are vanished I Virtue sole survives,
Immortal never-failing friend of man, 1040
His guide to happiness on high. And see I
'Tis come, the glorious mom ! the second birth
Of heaven, and earth I Awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heightened form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads.
To Reason's eye refined clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise I ye blind presumptuous I now, 1050
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdcm oft arraigned : see now the cause
Why unassuming Worth in secret lived,
And died neglected, — why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul,— ^
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined
In starving solitude, while Luxury
In palaces lay straining her low thought
To form unreal wants, — why heaven-born Truth,
And Moderation fair, wore the red marks 1060
Of superstition's scourge, — why licensed Pain,
-O
A HYMN. 207
That cruel spoiler, that eniboaomed foe,
Embittered all our bliss. Ye gumi distressed,
Ye noble few \vho here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile ;
And what your hounded view, which only saw
A little part, deemed evil is no more ;
The stiirms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all. 1069
A HYMN
These, as they change. Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ;
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ;
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes thy glory in the Summer-months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
Shoots full perfection ihrough the swelling year ;
! And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks ;
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve.
By brooks and groves, in hollow- whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful Thou I with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled.
Majestic darkness ! on the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, Thou bidd'st the world adore,
And humblest Nature with thy northern blast.
J — O
208 A H y M N .
Mysterious round I what skill, what force divine,
Deep felt, in these appear I a simple train,
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined,
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade,
And all so forming- a harmonious whole,
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze,
Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand,
That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres ;
Works in the secret deep ; shoots, steaming, thence
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring ;
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ;
Feeds every creature ; hurls the tempest forth ;
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves.
With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend ! join, every living soul
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join ; and, ardent, raise
One general song ! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness
breathes :
Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms I
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar.
Who shake th' astonished world, lift high to heaven
Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills ;
And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound, —
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale, — and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself; —
Sound His stupendous praise ; whose greater voice
Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
A HYMN. 209
Soft-roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and
flowers,
In mingled clouds to Him ; whose sun exalts.
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil
paints.
Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to Ilim ;
Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day ! best image here belov?
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide.
From world to world, the vital ocean round.
On Nature write with every beam His praise.
The thunder rolls : be hushed the prostrate world ;
While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.
Bleat out afresh, ye hills : ye mossy rocks.
Retain the sound : the broad responsive low.
Ye valleys, raise ; for the Great Shepherd reigns,
And his unsuffering kingdom j'et will come.
Ye woodlands all, awake : a boundless song
Burst from the groves I and when the restless day,
Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetcstof birds, sweet Philomela, charm
The list'ning shades, and teach the night His
praise.
Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles,
At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,
Crown the great hymn ! In swarming cities vast,
Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear.
At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass ;
And, as each mingling flame increases each.
In one united ardour rise to heaven.
i Or if you rather choose the rural shade,
O
or
210 A HYMN.
And find a fane in every sacred grove ;
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay,
The proniptiu? Seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll I
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray
Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams,
Or Winter rises in the black'ningeast ;
Be my tongue mute, may Fancy paint no more.
And, deaa to joy, forget my heart to beat !
Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes.
Rivers unknown to song ; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on th' Atlantic isles ; 'tis nought to me :
Since God is ever present, ever felt.
In the void waste as in the city full ;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When e'en at last the solemn hour shall come.
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey ; there, with new powers,
WiU nsing wonders sing : I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustainiug all yon orbs, and all their suns ;
From seeming Evil still educing Good,
And better thence agaia, and better still.
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in Light Ineffable !
Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise.
--.-<
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