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THE SEASONS.

Printed by S. Hamilton, Weybridge.

THE

SEASONS,

BY

JAMES THOMSON.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,

BY P. MURDOCH, D.D. F.R.S.

AND

AN ESSAY ^^

THE PLAN AND CHARACTER OF THE POEM, BY J. AIKIN, M. D.

^ei?

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILKIE AND ROBINSON; J.WALKER; CADELt AND DAVIES; SCATCHERD AND LETTERM4N; W.LOWNDES; .1. NUNN; LONGMAN AND CO.; C. LAW; J. CARPENTER; WHITE AND COCHRANE; B. CROSBY AND CO.; BLACK AND CO.; J. MURRAY; J. RICHARDSON; L. B. SEELEY; J. BOOKER; AND GALE AND CURTIS.

iSll.

\ ^i\

AN-

ACCOUNT

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

MR. JAMES THOMSON.

It is commonly said, that the life of a good writer is best read in his works ; which can scarce fail to re- ceive a peculiar tincture from his temper, manners, and habits : the distinguishing character of his mind, his ruling passion, at least, will there appear undis- guised. But however just this observation may be, and although we might safely rest Mr. Thomson's fame, as a good man, as well as a man of genius, on this sole footing ; " yet the desire which the public always shew of being more particularly acquainted with the history of an eminent author, ought not to be disappointed ; as it proceeds not from mere curiosity, but chiefly from affection and gratitude, to those by whom they have been entertained and instructed.

ii THE LIFE OF

To give some account of a deceased Mend is often a piece of justice likewise, which ought not to be refused to his memory; to prevent or efface the impertinent fictions which officious biographers are so apt to collect and propagate. And we may add, that the circumstan- ces of an author's life will sometimes throw the best light upon his writings ; instances whereof we shall meet with in the following pages.

Mr. Thomson was born at Ednam, in the shire of Roxburgh, on the eleventh of September, in the year 1700. His father, minister of that place, was but little known beyond the narrow circle of his co-presbyters, and to a few gentlemen in the neighbourhood ; but highly respected by them, for his piety, and his dili- gence in the pastoral duty : as appeared afterwards, in their kind offices to his widow and orphan family.

The Reverend Messrs. Riccarton and Gusthart par- ticularly, took a most affectionate and friendly part ia all their concerns. The former, a man of uncommon penetration and good taste, had very early discovered, through the rudeness of young Thomson's puerile es- says, a fund of genius well deserving culture and en- couragement. He undertook, therefore, with the fa- ther's approbation, the chief direction of his studies, furnished him with the proper books, corrected his per- formances; and was daily rewarded with the pleasure of seeing his labour so happily employed.

The other reverend gentleman, Mr. Gusthart, who is still living (1762), one of the ministers of Edinburgh,

MR. JAMES THOMSON, iii

and senior of the Chapel Royal, was no less serviceable to Mrs. Thomson in the management of her little af- fairs ; which after the decease of her husband, burdened as she was with a family of nine children, required the prudent counsels and assistance of that faithful and generous friend.

Sir WiUiam Bennet likewise, well known for his gay humour and ready poetical wit, was highly delighted with our young poet, and used to invite him to pass the summer-vacation at his country-seat : a scene of life which Mr. Thomson always remembered with par- ticular pleasure. But what he wrote during that time, either to entertain Sii- William and Mr. Riccarton, or for his own amusement, he destroyed every new-year's day ; committing his little pieces to the flames, in their due order ; and crowning the solemnity with a copy of verses, in which were humorously recited the several grounds of their condemnation.

After the usual course of school education, under an able master at Jedburgh, Mr. Thomson was sent to the university of Edinburgh. But in the second year of his admission, his studies were for some time inter- rupted by the death of his father ; who was carried oif so suddenly, that it was not possible for Mr. Thomson, with all the diligence he could use, to receive his last blessing. This affected him to an uncommon degree; and his relations still remember some extraordinary instances of his grief and filial duty on that occa- sion.

iv THE LIFE OF

Mrs. Thomson, whose maiden name was Hume, and who was co-hciiess of a snlall estate in the country, did not sink under this misfortune. She consulted her friend, Mr, Gusthart: and having, by his advice, mortgaged her moiety of the farm, repaired with her family to Edinburgh ; where slie lived in a decent fru- gal n:anner, till her favourite son had not only finished his academical course, but was even distinguished and patronised as a man of genius. She was, herself, a person of uncommon natural endowments ; possessed of every social and domestic virtue ; with an imagina- tion, for vivacity and warmth, scarce inferior to her son's, and which raised her devotional exercises to a pitch bordering on enthusiasm.

But whatever advantage Mr. Thomson might derive fiom the complexion of his parent, it is certain he owed much to a religious education ; and that his early ac- quaintance with the sacred writings contributed greatly to that subUme, by which his works will be for ever distinguished. In his first pieces, the Seasons, we see him at once assume the majestic freedom of an Eastern wi'iter ; seizing the grand images as tliey rise, clothing them in his own expressive language, and preserving, throughout, the grace, the variety, and the dignity, which belong to a just composition j unhurt by the stiffness of formal method.

About tliis time, the study of poetry was become general in Scotland, the best English authors being univei'sally read, and imitations of them attempted.

MR. JAMES THOMSON. v

Addison had lately displayed the beauties of Milton's immortal work; and his remarks on it, together with Mr. Pope's celebrated Essay, had opened the way to an acquaintance with the best poets and critics.

But the most learned critic is not always the best judge of poetry ; taste being a gift of nature, the want of which Aristotle and Bossu cannot supply ; nor even the study of the best originals, when the reader's facul- ties are not tuned in a certain consonance to those of the poet J and this happened to be the case with cer- tain leai'ned gentlemen, into whose hands a few of Mr. Thomson's first essays had fallen. Some inaccuracies of style, and those luxuriancies which a young writer can hardly avoid, lay open to their cavils and censure : so far, indeed, they might be competent judges ; but the fire and enthusiasm of the poet had entirely escaped their notice. Mr. Thomson, however, conscious of his own strength, was not discouraged by this treatment; especially as he had some friends on whose judgement he could better rely, and who thought very differently of his performances. Only from that time, he began to turn his views towards London; where works of genius may always expect a candid reception and due encouragement; and an accident soon after entirely determined him to try his fortune there.

The divinity-chair at Edinburgh was then filled by the reverend and learned Mr. Hamilton ; a gentleman universally respected and beloved ; and who had parti- cularly endeared himself to the young divines under his

vi THE LIFE OF

care, by his kind offices, his candoui', and affability. Our author had attended his lectures for about a year, wlien there was prescribed to him, for the subject of an exercise, a psalm, in which the power and majesty of God are celebrated. Of this psalm he gave a paraphrase and illustration, as the nature of the exercise required; but in a style so highly poetical as surprised the whole audience. Mr. Hamilton, as his custom was, compli- mented the orator upon his performance, and pointed out to the students the most masterly striking parts of it ; but at last, turning to Mr. Thomson, he told him, smiling, that if he thought of being useful to the mi- nistry, he must keep a stricter rein upon his imagina- tion, and express himself in language more intelligible to an ordinary congregation.

This gave Mr. Thomson to understand, that his ex- pectations from the study of theology might be very pi'ecarious ; even though the church had been more his fi-ee choice than probably it was. So that having, soon after, received some encouragement from a lady of quality, a friend of his mother's, then in London, he quickly prepared himself for his jom'ney. And although this encouragement ended in nothing beneficial, it served for the pretext, to cover the imprudence of com- mitting himself to the wide world, unfiiended and unpatronised, and with the slender stock of money he was then possessed of.

But his merit did not long lie concealed. I\lr. Forbes, afterwards lord president of the session, then attending

MR. JAMES THOMSON. vii

the sen-ice of parliament, having; seen a specimen of Mr. Thomson's poetry in Scotland, received him very kindly, and recommended him to some of his friends : particularly to Mr. Aikman, who lived in great inti- macy with many persons of distinguished rank and worth. This gentleman, fi'om a connoisseur in paint- ing, was become a professed painter j and his taste being no less just and deUcate in the kindred art of descripti\ e poetry, than in his own, no wonder that he soon conceived a friendship for our author. What a warm return he met with, and how Mr. Tliomson was affected by his friend's premature death, appears in the copy of verses which he wrote on that occasion.

In the mean time, our author's reception, wherever lie was introduced, emboldened him to risk the pub- lication of his Winter : in which, as himself was a mere novice in such matters, he was kindly assisted by Mr. Mallet, then private tutor to his grace the Duke of Montrose, and his brother the Lord Gcoige Graham, so well known afterwards as an able and gallant sea-of- licer. To Mr. Mallet he likewise owed his first acquaint- ance with several of the wits of that time ; an exact in- formation of their characters, personal and poetical, and how they stood affected to each other.

The poem of Winter, published in March 1/26, was no sooner read than universally admired ; those only excepted who had not been used to feel, or to look for, any thing in poetry, beyond a point of satirical or e])i- grammatic wit, a smart antithesis richly trimmed with

viii THE LIFE OF

rhyme;, or the softness of an elegiac complaint. To such, his manly classical spirit could not easily recom- mend itself 5 till after a more attentive perusal they had got the better of their prejudices, and either acquired or affected a truer taste. A few others stood aloof, merely because they had long before fixed the articles of their poetical creed, and resigned themselves to an absolute despair of ever seeing any thing new and ori- ginal. These were somewhat mortified to find their I notions disturbed by the ajjpearance of a poet who ' seemed to owe nothing but to nature and his own genius. But, in a short time, the applause became i_ unanimous ; every one wondering how so many picr tures^ and pictures so familiar, should have moved them but faintly to what they felt in his descriptions. His digressions too, the overflowings of a tender, benevo- lent heart, charmed the reader no less ; leaving him in doubt, whether he should more admire the poet, or love the man.

From that time, Mr. Thomson's acquaintance was courted by all men of taste ; and several ladies of hv h rank and distinction became his declared patronesses : the Countess of Hartford, Miss DreUncourt, afterwards Viscountess Primrose, Mrs. Stanley, and others. But the chief happiness which his Winter procured liim was, that it brought him acquainted with Dr. Rundle, after- wards Lord Bishop of Deny : who, upon conversing with Mr. Thomson, and finding in liim qualities greater still, and of more value, than those of a poet, received

MR. JAMES THOMSON. ix

liim into his intimate confidence and friendship; pro- moted his character eveiy where ; introduced him to his great friend the Lord Chancellor Talbot; and, some years after, when the eldest son of that nobleman was to make his tour of ti-a veiling, recommended Mr. Thom- son as a proper companion for him. His affection and gratitude to Dr. Rundle, and his indignation at the treatment that worthy prelate had met with, are finely expressed in his poem to the memory of Lord Talbot. The ti-ue cause of that undeserved treatment has been secreted from the public, as well as the dark manoeuvres that were employed : but Mr. Thomson, who had access to the best information, places it to the account of

Slanderous zeal, and politics infirm,

Jealous of worth.

Meanwhile, our poet's chief care had been, in return for the public favour, to finish the plan which their wishes laid out for him ; and the expectations Avhich his Winter had raised, were fully satisfied by the suc- cessive publication of the other Seasons : of Summer, in the year 1727; of Spring, in the beginning of the following year; and of Autumn, in a quarto edition of his works, printed in 1730.

In that edition, the Seasons are placed in their natu- ral order ; and crowned with that inimitable Hymn, in which we view them in their beautiful succession, as one whole, the immediate effect of infinite Power and Goodness. In imitation of the Hebrew bard, all nature

X THE LIFE OF

is called forth to do homage to the Creator^, and the reader is left enraptured in silent adoration and praise.

Besides these, and his tragedy of Sophonisba, written and acted with applause, in the year 1729, Mr. Thom- son had, in If'^r^ published his poem to the memoiy of Sir Isaac Newton, then lately deceased ; containing a desened encomium of that incomparable man, with an account of his chief discoveries ; sublimely poetical ; and yet so just, that an ingenious foreigner, the Count Algarotti, takes a line of it for the text of his philoso- phical dialogues, II Neutonianismo per le dame: this was in part owing to the assistance he had of his friend Mr. Gray, a gentleman well versed in the Newtonian philosophy, who, on that occasion, gave him a verj' exact, though general, abstract of its principles.

That same year, the resentment of our merchants, for the interruption of their trade by the Spaniards in America, nmning very high, Mr. Thomson zealously took part in it 3 and wrote his poem Britannia, to rouse the nation to revenge. And although this piece is the less read that its subject was but accidental and temporary, the spirited generous sentiments that en- rich it, can never be out of season : they will at least remain a monument of that love of his country, that devotion to the public, which he is ever inculcating as the perfection of \irtue, and which none ever felt more pure, or more intense, than himself.

Our author's poetical studies were now to be inter- rupted, or rather improved, by his attendance on the

MR. JAMES THOMSON. xi

honourable Mr. Charles Talbot in his travels. A de- lightful task indeed ! endowed as that young nobleman was by nature, and accomplished by the care and exam- ple of the best of fathers, in whatever could adorn hu- manity : gi-aceful of person, elegant in manners and address ; pious, humane, generous ; with an exquisite taste in all the finer arts.

With this amiable companion and friend, INIr. Thom- son visited most of the courts and capital cities of Eu- rope ; and returned with his views greatly enlarged ; not of exterior nature only, and the works of art, but of human life and manners, of the constitution and policy of the several states, their connexions, and their religious institutions. How particular and judicious his observations were, we see in his poem of Liberty, begun i^oon after his return to England. VVe see, at the same time, to what a high pitch his love of his country was raised, by the comparisons he had all along been making of our happy well-poised government with those of other nations. To inspire his fellow-subjects with the like sentiments, and to shew them by what means the precious fi-eedom we enjoy may be preserved, and how it may be abused or lost, he employed two years of his life in composing that noble work : upon which, conscious of the importance and dignity of the sub- ject, he valued himself more than upon all his other writings.

While Mr. Thomson was writing his first part of Liberty, he received a severe shock, by the death of his

xu THE LIFE OF

noble friend and fellow-traveller : which was soon fol- lowed bj' another that was severer still, and of more general concern} the death of Lord Talbot himself; which ]Mr. Thomson so pathetically and so justly la- ments in the poem dedicated to his memory. In him the nation saw itself deprived of an uncorrupted pa- triot, the faithful guardian of their rights, on whose wisdom and integrity they had founded their hopes of relief from many tedious vexations : and Mr, Thomson, besides his share in the general mourning, had to bear all the afPiiction which a heart like his could feel, for the person whom, of all mankind, he most revered and loved. At the same time, he found himself, from an easy competency, reduced to a state of precarious de- pendence, in which he passed the remainder of his life j excepting only the two last years of it, during which he enjoyed the place of surveyor-general of the Leeward islands, procured for him by the generous friendship of my Lord Lyttelton.

Immediately upon his return to England with Mr. Talbot, the chancellor had made him his secretary of briefs ; a place of little attendance, suiting his retired indolent way of life, and equal to all his wants. This place fell with his patron ; and although the noble lord who succeeded to Lord Talbot in office, kept it vacant for some time, probably till Mr. Thomson should apply for it, he was so dispirited, and so listless to every concern of that kind, that he never took one step in the affair : p, neglect which his best friends greatly blamed in him

MR. JAMES THOMSON. xiii

Yet could not his genius be depressed, or his temper hurt, by this reverse of fortune. He resumed, with time, his usual cheerfulness, and never abated one ar- ticle in his way of living j which, though simple, was genial and elegant. The profits arising from his works were not inconsiderable : his tragedy of Agamemnon, acted in 1738, yielded a good sum ; Mr. Millar was always at hand, to answer, or even to prevent, his demands ; and he had a friend or two besides, whose hearts, he knew, were not contracted by the ample for- tunes they had acquired; who would, of themselves, intei"pose, if they saw any occasion for it.

But his chief dependence, during this long interval, was on the protection and bounty of his royal highness Frederic Prince of Wales ; who, upon the recommend- ation of Lord Lyttelton, then his chief favourite, settled on him a handsome allowance. And afterwards, when he was introduced to his royal highness, that excellent prince, who truly was what Mr. Thomson paints him, the friend of mankind and of merit, received him very graciously, and ever after honoured him with many marks of particular favour and confidence. A circum- stance, which does equal honour to the patron and the poet, ought not here to be omitted ; that my Lord Lyt- telton's recommendation came altogether unsolicited, and long before Mr. Thomson was personally known to him.

It happened, however, that the favour of his royal highness was in one instance of some prejudice to oiu'

xiv THE LIFE OF

author; in the refusal of a licence for his tragedy of Edward and Eleonora, which he had prepared for the stage in the year 17oi). The reader may see that this play contains not a line which could justly give offence j but the ministry, still sore from certain pasquinades, vvMch had lately produced the stage-act ; and as little satisfied with some part of the prince's political conduct, as he was with their management of the public affairs; would not risk the representation of a piece written under his eye, and, they might probably think, by hia command.

This refusal drew after it anotlier ; and in a way which, as it is related, was rather ludicrous. Mr. Pater- son, a companion of Mr. Thomson, afterwards his de- puty and then his successor, in the general-surveyorship, used to write out fair copies for his friend, when such were wanted for the press or for the stage. This gen- tleman likewise courted the tragic muse ; and had taken for his subject the story of Arminius the German hero. But his play, guiltless as it was, being presented for a licence; no sooner had the censor cast his eyes on the hand- writing in which he had seen Edward and Eleonora, than he cried out, " Away with it !" and the author's profits were reduced to what his bookseller could aflbrd for a tragedy in distress.

Mr. Thomson's next dramatic performance was tlie masque of Alfred ; written, jointly with Mr. Mallet, by command of the Prince of Wales, for the entertainment of his royal highness's court, at his summer-residence.

MR, JAMES THOMSON. xv

This piece, with some alterations, and tlie music new, has been since brought upon the stage by Mr. Mallet : it was originally acted at Clifden, in the year 1740, on the birth-day of her royal highness the Princess Augusta.

In tlie year 1745, hisTancred and Sigismunda, taken from tlie novel in Gil Bias, was performed with ap- ])lause ; and fi'om the deep romantic distress of the lovers, continues to draw crowded houses. The success of this piece was indeed insured from the first by Mr. Ganick and Mrs. Gibber, their appearing in the prin- cipal characters ; which they heightened and adorned with all the magic of their never- failing art.

He had, in the mean time, been finishing his Castle of Indolence, in two cantos. It was, at first, little more than a few detached stanzas, in the way of raillery on himself, and on some of his friends, who would re- proach him with indolence, while he thought them, at least, as indolent as himself. But he saw very soon, that the subject deserved to be treated more seriously, and in a form fitted to convey one of the most import- ant moral lessons.

The stanza which he uses in this work is that of Spenser, borrowed from tlie Italian poets ; in which he thought rhymes had their proper place, and were even graceful : the compass of the stanza admitting an agreeable variety of final sounds : while the sense of tlie poet is not cramped or cut short, nor yet too much dilated; as must often happen, when it is parcelled out

xvi THE LIFE OF

into rhymed couplets j the usual measure indeed of our elegy and satire, but which always weakens the higher poetry, and, to a true ear, will sometimes give it an air of the burlesque.

This was the last piece Mr. Thomson himself pub- lished ; his tragedy of Coriolanus being only prepared for the theatre, when a fatal accident robbed the world of one of the best of men, and best poets, that lived in it.

He had always been a timorous horseman ; and more so, m a road where numljcrs of giddy or unskil- ful riders are continually passing; so that, when the weather did not invite him to go by water, he would commonly walk the distance between London and Rich- mond, with any acquaintance that offered ; with whom he might chat and rest himself, or perhaps dine, by the way. One summer evening, being alone, in his walk from town to Hammersmith, he had overheated him- self, and, in that condition, imprudently took a boat to carry him to Kew ; apprehending no bad consequence from the chill air on the river, which his walk to his house, at the upper end of Kew-lane, had always hither- to prevented. But now the cold had so seized him, that next day he found himself in a high fever, so much the more to be dreaded tliat he was of a full habit. This, however, by the use of proper medicines, was removed, so that he was thought to be out of danger : till the fine weather having tempted him to expose himself once more to the evening dews, his fever returned witk

MR. JAMES THOMSON. xvii

violence, and witli such symptoms as left no hopes of a cure. Two days had passed before his relajjse was known in townj at last, Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Reid, with Dr. Armstrong, being informed of it, posted out at midnight to his assistance : but, alas ! came only to endure a sight of all others the most shocking to na- ture, the last agonies of their beloved friend. This lamented death happened on the 27 th day of August, 1748.

His testamentary executors were, the Lord Lyttel- ton, whose care of our poet's fortune and fame ceased not with his lifej and Mr. Mitchell, a gentleman equally noted for the truth and constancy of his private friendships, and for his address and spirit as a public minister. By their united interest, the orphan play of Coriolanus was brought on the stage to the best ad- vantage: from the profits of which, and the sale of manuscripts, and other effects, all demands were duly satisfied, and a handsome sum remitted to his sisters. My Lord Lyttelton's prologue to this piece was admired as one of the best that had ever been written ; the best spoken it certainly was. The sympathising audience saw that then, indeed, Mr. jQuin was no actor ; that the tears he shed were those of real friendship and grief.

Mr. Thomson's remains were deposited in the church of Richmond, under a plain stone, without any inscrip- tion J nor did his brother-poets at all exert themselves on the occasion, as they had lately done for one who had been the terror of poets all his life-time This b

xviii THE LIFE OF

silence furnished matter to one of his friends for an excellent satirical epigram, which we are sorry we can- not give the reader. Only one gentleman, Mr. Collins, who had lived some time at Richmond, but forsook it when Mr. Thomson died, wro^e an ode to his memory. This for the dirge-like melancholy it breathes, and the warmth of affection that seems to have dictated it, we shall subjoin to the present account.

Our author himself hints, somewhere in his morks, that his exterior was not the most promising : his make being rather robust than graceful 3 though it is known that in his youth he had been thought handsome. His worst appearance was, when you saw him walking alone, in a thoughtful mood : but let a friend accost him, and enter into conversation, he would instantly brighten into a most amiable aspect, his features no longer the same, and his eye darting a peculiar animated fire. The case was much alike in company ; where, if it was mixed, or very numerous, he made but an indifferent figxu'e : but with a few select friends, he was open, sprightly, and entertaining. His wit flowed freely, but perti- nently, and at due intervals, leaving room for every one to contribute his share. Such was his extreme sensibi- lity, so perfect the harmony of his organs with the sen- timents of his mind, that his looks always announced, and half expressed, what he was about to say; and his voice corresponded exactly to the manner and degree in which he was affected. This sensibility had one in- convenience attending it, that it rendered liim the very

MR. JAMES THOMSON. xix

worst reader of good poetry : a sonnet or a copy of tame verses, he could manage pretty wellj or even improve them in the reading : but a passage of Virgil, Milton, or Shakespeare, would sometimes quite oppress him, that you could hear httle else than some ill-articulated sounds, rising as from the bottom of his breast.

He had improved his taste upon the best originals, ancient and modern : but could not bear to write what was not strictly his own, what had not more immedi- ately struck his imagination, or touched his heart : so that he is not in the least concerned in that question about the merit or demerit of imitators. What he bor- rows from the ancients, he gives us in an avowed faithful paraphrase or translation j as we see in a few passages taken from Virgil, and in that beautiful pic- ture from Pliny the elder, where the course and gradual increase of the Nile are figured by the stages of man's life.

The autumn was his favourite season for poetical composition, and the deep silence of the night, the time he commonly chose for such studies ; so that he would often be heard walking in his hbrary, till near morning, humming over, in his way, what he was to correct and write out next day.

The amusements of his leisure hours were civil and natural history, voyages, and the relations of travellers, the most authentic he could procure : and, had his si- tuation favoured it, he would certainly have excelled in gardening, agriculture, and every rural improvement

XX THE LIFE OF

and exercise. Although he performed on no instni- nient, he was passionately fond of music, and would sometimes listen a full hour at his window to the night- ingales in Richmond Gardens, While abroad, he had been greatly delighted with the regular Italian drama, such as Metastasio writes ; as it is there heightened by the charms of the best voices and instruments 5 and looked upon our theatrical entertainments as, in one respect, naked and imperfect, when compared with the ancient, or with those of Italy j wishing sometimes that a chorus, at least, and a better recitative, could be in- troduced.

Nor was his taste less exquisite in the arts of paint- ing, sculpture, and architecture. In his travels he had seen all the most celebrated monuments of antiquity, and the best productions of modern artj and studied them so minutely, and with so true a judgement, that in some of his descriptions, in the poem of Liberty, we have the master-pieces there mentioned placed in a stronger light perhaps than if we saw them with our eyes 5 at least, more justly delineated than in any other account extant : so superior is a natural taste of the grand and beautiful, to the traditional lessons of a common virtuoso. His collection of prints, and some <lrawings from the antique, are now in the possession of his friend Mr. Gray, of Richmond Hill.

As for his more distinguishing qualities of mind and heart, they arc better represented in his writings than they can be by the pen of aaiy biographer. There, his

MR. JAMES THOMSON. xxi

love of mankind, of Ins country and friends, his devo- tion to the Supreme Being, founded on the most ele- vated and just conceptions of his operations and provi- dence, shine out in every page. So unbounded was his tenderness of heart, that it took in even the brute cre- ation : judge what it must have been towards his own species. He is not indeed known, through his whole life, to have given any person one moment's pain, by his writings or otherwise. He took no part in the po- etical squabbles which happened in his time j and was respected and left undisturbed by both sides. He would even refuse to take offence when he justly might ; by interrupting any personal story that was brought him, with some jest, or some humorous apology for the of- fender. Nor was he ever seen ruffled or discomposed, but when he read or heard of some flagrant instance of injustice, oppression, or cruelty : then indeed the strongest marks of horror and indignation were visible in his countenance.

These amiable virtues, this divine temper of mind, did not fail of their due reward. His friends loved him with an enthusiastic ardor, and lamented his untimely fate in the manner that is still fresh' in every one's memory ; the best and greatest men of his time honoured him with their friendship and protection ; the applause of the public attended every appearance he made ; the actors, of whom the more eminent were his friends and admirers, grudging no pains to do justice to his trage- dies. At present, indeed, if we except Tancred, they

xxii THE LIFE OF MR. THOMSON.

are seldom called for ; the simplicity of his plots, and the models he worked after, not suiting the reigning taste, nor the impatience of an English theatre. They may hereafter come to be in vogue ; but we hazard no comment or conjecture upon them, or upon any part of Mr. Thomson's works ; neither need they any defence or apology, after the reception they have had at home, and in the foreign languages into which they have been translated. We shall only say, that, to judge from the imitations of his manner, which have been following hira close from the very first publication of Winter, he seems to have fixed no inconsiderable era of the Eng- lish poetry.

ODE

ON THE

DEATH OF MR. THOMSON,

BY MR. COLLINS.

[The scene of the following stanzas is supposed to Jie on the Thames, near Riclimond.]

In yonder grave a druid lies.

Where slowly winds the stealing wave :

The year's best sweets shall duteous rise To deck its poet's sylvan grave.

In yon deep bed of whispering reeds

His airy harp* shall now be laid. That he whose heart in sorrow bleeds,

May love through life the soothing shade.

Then maids and youths shall linger here. And while its sounds at distance swell.

Shall sadly seem, in Pity's ear. To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell.

• Tlie liarp of ;Eolus, of which see a description in the Castle of Indolence.

uv ODE ON THE

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore When Thames in summer-wreaths is diestj

And oft suspend the dashing oar To bid his gentle spirit rest :

And oft as Ease and Health retire

To breezy kwn, or forest deep. The friend shall view yon whitening spire*.

And 'mid the varied landscape weep.

But thou, who ownest that earthy bed.

Ah ! what will every dirge avail ; Or tears, which love and pity shed.

That mourn beneath the gliding sail?

Yet lives there one, whose heedless eje

Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near ?

With him, sweet bard, may fancy die. And joy desert the blooming year.

But thou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide No sedge-crowned sisters now attend.

Now waft me from the green hill's side Whose cold turf hides the bm-ied friend.

And see ! the fairy valleys fade;

Dun night has veiled the solemn view: Yet once again, dear parted shade.

Meek Nature's child, again adieu !

• Richmond church.

DEATH OF MR. THOMSON. xxv

The genial meads assigned to bless Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom :

Their hinds and shepherd-girls shall dress. With simple hands, thy rural tomb.

Long, long, thy stone, and pointed clay.

Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes ; O ! vales, and wild woods, shall he say,

In yonder gra\ e your druid lies.

AN

ESSAY

ON THE

PLAN AND CHARACTER

OF

THE SEASONS.

When a work of art to masterly execution adds novelty of design, it demands not only a cursory ad- miration, but such a mature inquiry into the principles upon which it has been formed, as may determine how far it deserves to be received as a model for future attempts in the same walk. Originals are always rare productions. The performances of artists in general, even of those who stand high in their respective classes, are only imitations ; which have more or less merit, in proportion to the degree of skill and judgment with which they copy originals more or less excellent. A good original, therefore, forms an era in the art itself^ and the history of every art divides itself into periods

xxviii AN ESSAY ON

comprehending the intervals between the appearance of different approved oiiginals. Sometimes, indeed, various models of a very different cast may exercise the talents of imitators during a single jjcriod} and this will more frequently be the case, as arts become more generally known and studied ; difference of taste being always the result of liberal and varied pursuit.

How strongly these periods are marked in the history of poetry, both ancient and modern, a cursory view will suffice to shew. The scarcity of originals here is universally acknowledged and lamented, and the pre- sent race of poets are thought particularly chargeable with this defect. It ought, however, to be allowed in their favour, that if genius has declined, taste has improved j and that if they imitate more, they choose better models to copy after.

That Thomson's Seasons is the original whence our modern descriptive poets have derived that more elegant and correct style of painting natural objects which dis- tinguishes them from their immediate predecessors, will, I think, appear evident to one who examines their several casts and manners. That none of them, how- ever, have yet equalled their master j and that his per- formance is an exquisite piece, replete with beauties of the most engaging and delightful kind ; will be sensibly felt by all of congenial taste : — and perhaps no poem was ever composed which addressed itself to the feel- ings of a greater number of readers. It is, theretbre, on every account, an object well worthy the attention

THE SEASONS. xxlx

of criticism ; and an enquiry into the peculiar nature of its plan and the manner of its execution may be an agreeable introduction to a re-perusal of it in the elegant edition now offered to the public.

The description of such natural objects as by their beauty, grandeur, or novelty, agreeably inipress the imagination, has at all times been a principal and fa- vourite occupation of poetiy. Various have been the methods in which such descriptions have been intro- duced. They have been made subservient to the pur- poses of ornament and illustration, in the more elevated and abstracted kinds of poetiy, by being used as objects of similitude. They have constituted a pleasing and necessary part of epic narration, when employed in forming a scenery suitable to the events. The simple tale of pastoral life could scarcely without their aid be rendered in any degree interesting. The precepts of an art, and the systems of philosophers, depend upon the adventitious ornaments afforded by them for almost eveiy thing which can render them fit subjects fop poetry.

Thus intermixed as they are with almost all, and es- sential to some species of poetry, it was, however, thought that they could not legitimately constitute the whole, or even the principal part, of a capital piece. Something of a more solid nature was required as the ground-work of a poetical fabric ; pure description was opposed to sense ; and binding together the wild ttowers which giew obvious to common sight and

XXX AN ESSAY ON

touch, was deemed a trifling and unprofitable amuse- ment.

Such was the state of critical opinion, when Thom- son published, in succession, but not in their present order*, the pieces which compose his Seasons ; the first capital work in which natuml description was profess- edly the principal object. To paint the face of Nature as changing through the changing seasons ; to mark the approaches, and trace the progress of these vicissi- tudes, in a series of landscapes all formed upon images of grandeur or beauty j and to give animation and va- riety to the whole by interspersing manners and inci- dents suitable to the scenery ; appears to be the general design of this poem. Essentially different from a di- dactic piece, its business is to describe, and the occupa- tion of its leisure to teach. And as in the Georgics, whenever the poet has, for a while, borne away by the warmth of fancy, wandered through the floweiy wilds of description, he suddenly checks himself, and returns to the toils of the husbandman ; so Thomson, in the midst of his delightful lessons of moi-afity, and atfectiug relations, recurs to a view of that state of the season which introduced the digression.

It is an attention to this leading idea, that in this piece there is a progressive series of descriptions, all tending to a certain point, and all parts of a general plan, which alone can enable us to range through the

• They appeared in the following order: Winter, Summer, Spring, Autumn.

THE SEASONS. x.\xi

vast variety and quick, succession of objects presented in it, with any clear conception of the writer's method, or true judgement concerning what may be regarded as forwarding his main purpose, or as merely ornamental deviation. The particular elucidation of this point will constitute the principal part of the present essay.

Although each of the Seasons appears to have been intended as a complete piece, and contains within itself the natural order of beginning, middle, and termina- tion, yet as they were at length collected and modelled by their author, they have all a nmtual relation to each other, and concur in forming a more comprehensive whole. The annual space in which the earth performs its revolution round the sun is so strongly marked by nature for a perfect period, that all mankind have agreed in forming their computations of time upon it. In all the temperate climates of the globe, the four seasons are so many progressive stages in this circuit, which, like the acts in a well-constructed drama, gradually disclose, ripen, and bring to an end, the various business transacted on the great theatre of nature. The striking analogy which this period with its several divisions bears to the course of human existence, has been I'cmarked and' pursued by writers of all ages and countries. Spring has been represented as the youth of the year — the season of pleasing hope, li\ ely energy, and rapid incrcase. Summer has been resembled to perfect manhood — the season of steady warmth, con- firmed strength, and unremitting vigour. Autumn,

xxxii AN ESSAY ON

which, while it bestows the rich products of full matu-l ^m rity, is yet ever hasteniug to decline, has been aptlyl jvoieo compared to that period, when the man, mellowed by jndi' age, yields the most valuable fruits of experience and ^0, wisdom, but daily exhibits encreasing symptoms of de- cay. The cold, cheerless, and sluggish Winter has al- most without a metaphor been termed the decrepid and hoary old age of the year. Thus the history of the year, pursued through its changing seasons, is that of an in- dividual, whose existence is marked by a progressive course from its origin to its termination. It is thus represented by our poetj this idea preserves a unity and connection through his whole work ; and the ac- curate observer will remark a beautiful chain of cir- cumstances in his description, by which the birth, vigour, decline, and extinction, of the vital principle of the year, are pictured in the most lively manner.

This order and gradation of the whole runs, as has been already hinted, through each division of the poem. Every season has its incipient, confirmed, and receding state, of which its historian ought to give distinct views, arranged according to the succession in which they ap- pear. Each too, like the prismatic colours, is indis- tinguishably blended in its origin and termination with that which precedes, and which follows it ; and it may be expected fi'om the pencil of an artist to hit oiF these mingled shades so as to produce a pleasing and pic- turesque effect. Our poet has not been inattentive to these circumstances in the conduct of his plan. His

THE SEASONS. xxxiii

Spring" begins with a view of the season as yet iincon- firmed, and partaking of the roughness of Winter*; and it is not till after several steps in gradual progres- sion, that it breaks forth in all its ornaments, as the favourite of Love and Pleasure. His Autumn, after a rich prospect of its bounties and splendors, gently fades into *' the sere, the yellow leaf," and, with the lengthened night,'the clouded sun, and the rising storm, sinks into the arms of Winter. It is remarkable, that in order to produce something of a similar effect in his Summer, a season which, on account of its uniformity of character, does not admit of any strongly marked gradations, he has comprised the whole of his description within the limits of a single day, pursuing the course of the sun from its rising to its setting. A summer's day is, in reality, a just model of the entire season. Its begin- ning is moist and temperate; its middle, sultry and parching ; its close, soft and refreshing. By thus ex- hibiting all the vicissitudes of Summer under one point of view, they are rendered much more striking than could have been done in a series of feebly contrasted and scarcely distinguishable periods.

With this idea of the general plan of the whole work and of its several parts, we proceed to take a view of the various subjects composing the descriptive series of which it principally consists.

• A descriptive piece, in which this very interval of time is re- preseutetl, with all the accuracy of a naturahst, and vivid colour- ing; of a poet, has lately appeared in a poem of Mr. "Wartou's, en- titled " The First of April."

e

xxxiv AN ESSAY ON

Every grand and beautiful appearance in nature, that distinguishes one portion of the annual circuit from another, is a proper source of materials for the poet of the seasons. Of these, some are obvious to the common observer, and require only justness and ele- gance of taste for the selection : others discover them- selves only to the mind opened and enlarged by science and philosophy. All the knowledge we acquire con- cerning natural objects by such a train of obser\ation and reasoning as merits the appellation of science, is comprehended under the two divisions of natural phi- losophy and natural history. Both of these may be em- ployed to advantage in descriptive poetry : for although it be true, that poetical composition, being rather cal- culated for amusement than instruction, and addressing itself to the many who feel rather than to the few who reason, is improperly occupied about the abstruse and argumentative parts of a science ; yet, to reject those grand and beautiful ideas which a philosophical view of nature offers to the mind, merely because they are above the comprehension of vulgar readers, is surely an unnecessary degradation of this noble art. Still more narrow and unreasonable is that critical precept, which, in conformity to the received notion that fiction is the soul of poetry, obliges the poet to adopt ancient errors in preference to modern truths ; and this even where truth has the advantage in point of poetical effect. In fact, modern philosophy is as much superior to the ancient in sublimity as in solidity ; and the most vivid

THE SEASONS. xxxv

imagination cannot paint to itself scenes of grandeur equal to those which cool science and demonstration offer to the enlightened mind. Objects so vast and mag- nificent as planets rolling with even pace through their orbits, comets rushing along their devious track, light springing from its unexhausted source, mighty rivers formed in their subterranean beds, do not require, or even admit, a heightening from the fancy. The most faithful pencil here produces the noblest pictures ; and Thomson, by strictly adhering to the character of the Poet of Nature, has treated all these topics with a true sublimity, which a writer of less knowledge and ac- curacy could never have attained. The strict propriety with which subjects from astronomy and the other parts of natural philosophy are introduced into a poem describing the changes of the seasons, need not be in- sisted on, since it is obvious that the primary cause of all these changes is to be sought in principles derived from these sciences. They are the ground-work of the whole; and establish that connected series of cause and effect, upon which all those appearances in nature depend, from whence the descriptive poet draws hi* materials.

Natural history, in its most extensive signification, includes every obsenation relative to the distinctions, resemblances, and changes, of all the bodies, both ani- mate and inanimate, which nature offers to us. These observations, however, deserve to be considered as part «f a science only when they refer to some general tnith.

xxxvi AN ESSAY ON

and form a link of that vast chain which connects all created beings in one grand system. It was my attempt, in an essay lately published*, to show how necessary a more accurate and scientific survey of natural objects than has usually been taken, was to the avoiding the common defects, and attaining the highest beauties, of descriptive poetry ; and some of the most striking ex- amples of excellence arising from this source were ex- tracted from the poem now before us. It will be un- necessary here to recapitulate the substance of these remarks, or to mark out singly the several passages of our author which display his talents for description to the greatest a<lvantage. Our present design rather re- quires such a general view of the materials he has col- lected, and the method in which he has arranged them, as may show in what degree they forward and coincide with the plan of his work.

The coiTespondence between certain changes in the animal and vegetable tribes, and those revolutions of the heavenly bodies which produce the vicissitudes of the seasons, is the foundation of an alliance between astronomy and natvual history, that equally demands attention, as a matter of curioxis speculation, and of practical utility. The astronomical calendar, filled up by the naturalist, is a combination of science at the same time pregnant with important instruction to the husbandman, and fertile in grand and pleasing objects

* Essay on the Application of Natural History to Poetiy.

THE SEASONS. xxxvii

to the poet and philosopher. Thomson seems constantly to have kept in view a combination of this kind ; and to have formed from it such an idea of the economy of nature, as enabled him to preserve a regularity of method and uniformity of design through all the va- riety of his descriptions. We shall attempt to draw out a kind of historical narrative of his progress through the seasons, as far as this order is obser%able.

Spring is characterised as the season of the renova- tion of nature : in which animals and vegetables, ex- cited by the kindly influence of returning warmth, shake off the torpid inaction of winter, and prepare for the continuance and increase of their several species. The vegetable tribes, as more independent and self- provided, lead the way in this progress. The poet, ac- cordingly, begins with representing the i-eviviscent plants emerging, as soon as genial showers have soft- ened the ground, in numbers " beyond the power of botanist to reckon up their tribes," The opening blossoms and flowers soon call forth from their winter retreats those industrious insects which derive susten- ance from their nectareous juices. As the beams of the sun become more potent, the larger vegetables, shmbs and trees, unfold their leaves j and, as soon as a friendly concealment is by their means provided for the various nations of the feathered mce, they joyfully begin the course of laborious but pleasing occupations, which are to engage them during the whole season. The delight- ful series of pictures, so truly expressive of that genial

xxxviii AN ESSAY ON

spirit that pervades the Spring, which Tliomson has formed on the variety of circumstances attending the Passion of the Groves, cannot escape the notice and ad- miration of the most negligent eye. Affected by the same soft influence, and equally indebted to the renewed vegetable tribes for food and shelter, the several kinds of quadrupeds are represented as concurring in the ce- lebration of this charming season with conjugal and parental rites. Even man himself, though from his social condition less under the dominion of physical necessities, is properly described as partaking of the general ardour. Such is the order and connexion of this whole book, that it might well pass for a commen- tai7 upon a most beautiful passage in the philosophical poet Lucretius j who certainly wanted nothing but a better system and more circumscribed subject, to have appeared as one of the greatest masters of description in either ancient or modern poetry. Reasoning on the unperishable nature, and perpetual circulation, of the particles of matter, he deduces all the delightful ap- pearances of spring from the seeds of fertility which descend in the vernal showers :

pereunt imbies, ubi eos pater ^Ether

In gremium niatris 'l>rrai praecipitavit. At nitidac snrgunt frugcs, raniiqiie virescimt Arboribus ; crcscunt ipsae, foetuquc gravaiitiir : Hinc alitur porro nostrum gcnns, atque feraruni ; Hinc laetas uibois pueris floiere vidcmns, Frondiferasque novis avibus cancre undiqiie sylvas: Hinc fessae pecudes pingues per pabula laeta

THE SEASONS. xxxix

Corpora deponiint, et candens lacteus hnnior Uberibus manat distentis ; liiiic nova proles Artnbiis infimiis teiieras lasciva per lierbas Ludit, lacte luero inentcis percussa novellas*

Lib. I. 251, &:c.

The rains are lost, when Jove descends^ in showers Soft on the bosom of the parent Earth ; Bnt springs the shining grain ; their verdant robe The trees resume ; they grow, and pregnant bend Beneath tlieir fertile load : hence kindly food Tlie livin» tribes receive: the cheeifnl town Beholds its joyous bands of flowering youth; With new-born songs the leafy groves re^olnld ; The full-fed flocks amid the laiighini; meads Their weary bodies lay, while wide-distent The plenteous udder teems witli milky juice ; And o'er tlie grass, as their young hearts beat high, Swelled by the pure and generous streams they di-aia, Frolic tlie wanton lambs witli joints infirm.

The period of Summer is marked by fewer and less striking changes in the face of nature. A soft and pleasing languor, interrupted only by the gradual pro- gression of the vegetable and animal tribeg towards their state of maturity, forms the leading character of this season. The active fermentation of the juices, which the first access of genial warmth had excited, now subsides j and the increasing heats rather inspiie faintness and inaction than lively exertions. The insect race alone seem animated with peculiar vigour imder the more direct influence of the sun ; and are therefore with equal truth and advantage introtluced by the poet to enliven the silent and drooping scenes presented by

xl AN ESSAY Ox\

the other forms of animal nature. As this source, how- ever, together with whatever else our summers aftbrd, is insufficient to furnish novelty and business enough for this act of the drama of the year, the poet judiciously opens a new field, profusely fertile in objects suited to the glowing- colours of descriptive poetry. By an easy and natural transition, he quits the chastised summer of our temperate clime for those regions whei'e a perpetual sunmier reigns, exalted by such superior degrees of so- lar heat as give an entirely new face to almost every part of nature. The terrific grandeur prevalent in some of these, the exquisite richness and beauty in others, and the novelty in all, afford such a happy variety for the poet's selection, that we need not wonder if some of his noblest pieces are the product of this delightful excursion. He returns, however, with apparent satis- faction, to take a last survey of the softer summer of our island ; and, after closing the prospect of terrestrial beauties, artfully shifts the scene to celestial splendors, which, though perhaps not more striking in this season than in some of the others, are now alone agreeable objects of contemplation in a northern climate.

Autumn is too eventful a period in the history of the year within the temperate parts of the globe, to require foreign aid for rendering it more varied and interesting. The promise pf the Spring is now fulfilled. The silent and gradual process of maturation is completed ; and human industry beholds with triumph tlie rich products of its toil. The vegetable tribes disclose their infinitely

THE SEASONS. xli

various forms of fruit ; which terra, while, with respect to common use, it is confined to a few peculiar modes of fructification, in the more comprehensive language of the naturalist includes eveiy product of vegetation by which the rudiments of a future progeny are deve- loped, and separated from the parent plant. These are in part collected and stored up by those animals for whose sustenance during the ensuing sleep of nature they are provided. The rest, furnished with various contrivances for dissemination, are scattered, by the friendly winds which now begin to blow, over the sur- face of that earth which they are to clothe and decorate. The young of the animal race, which Spring and Summer had brought forth and cherished, having now acquired sufficient vigour, quit their concealments, and offer themselves to the pursuit of the carnivorous among their fellow-animals, and of the great destroyer man. Thus the scenery is enlivened with the various sports of the hunter j which, however repugnant they may ap- pear to that system of general benevolence and sympa- thy which philosophy would inculcate, have ever afforded a most agreeable exertion to the human powers, and have much to plead in their favour as a necessary part of the great plan of Nature. Indeed, she marks her in- tention with sufficient precision, by refusing to grant any longer those friendly shades which had grown for the protection of the infant offspring. The grove loses its honours ; but before they arc cnlijely tarnished, an adventitious beauty, arising from that gradual decay

xlii AN ESSAY ON

wliich loosens the withering leaf, gilds the autumnal landscape with a temporary splendor, superior to the verdure of Spring, or the luxuriance of Summer. The infinitely various and ever-changing hues of the leaves at this season, melting into every soft gradation of tint and shade, have long engaged the imitation of the painter, and are equally happy ornaments in the de- scription of the poet.

These unvarying symptoms of approaching Winter now warn several of the winged tribes to prepare for their aerial voyage to those happy climates of peqjetual Summer, where no deficiency of food or shelter can ever distress them 5 and about the same time other fowls of hardier constitution, which are contented with escaping the iron Winters of the arctic regions, arrive to supply the vacancy. Thus the striking scenes afforded by that wonderful part of the economy of Nature, the migra- tion of birds, present themselves at this season to the poet. The thickening fogs, the heavy rains, the swoln rivers, while they deform this sinking period of the year, add new subjects to the pleasing variety which reigns throughout its whole course, and which justifies the poet's character of it, as the season when the muse ** best exerts her voice."

Winter, directly opposite as it is in other respects to Summer, yet resembles it in this, that it is a season m which Nature is employed rather in secretly preparing for the mighty changes which it successively brings to light, than in the actual exhibition of them. It is

THE SEASONS. xliii

therefore a period equally barren of events ; and has still less of animation than Summer, inasmuch as leth- £irgic insensibility is a state more distant from vital energy than the languor of indolent repose. From the fall of the leaf, and withering of the herb, an unvarying death-like torpor oppresses almost the whole vegetable creation, and a considerable part of the animal, during this entire portion of the year. The whole insect race, which filled every part of the summer-landscape with life and motion, are now either buried in profound sleep, or actually no longer exist, except in the un- formed rudiments of a future progeny. Many of the birds and quadrupeds are retired to concealments, from which not even the calls of hunger can force them 5 and the rest, intent only on the pi-eservation of a joyless being, have ceased to exert those powers of pleasing, which, at other seasons, so much contribute to their mutual happiness, as well as to the amusement of their human sovereign. Their social connexions, however, are improved by their wants. In order the better to procure their scanty subsistence, and resist the inclemencies of the sky, they are taught by instinct to assemble in flocks ; and this provision has the secondary effect of gratifying the spectator with something of novelty and action even in the dreariness of a wintry prospect.

But it is in the extraordinary changes and agitations which the elements and the surrounding atmospliere undergo during this season, that the poet of nature

xliv AN ESSAY ON

must principally look for relief from the gloomy uni- formity reigning through other parts of the creation. Here scenes are presented to his view, which, were they less frequent, must strike with wonder and admiration the most incurious spectator. The effects of cold are more sudden, and in many instances more extraordinary and unexpected, than those of heat. He who has be- held the vegetable productions of even a northern Sum- mer, will not be greatly amazed at the richer, and more luxuriant, but still resembling, growths of the tropics. But one, who has always been accustomed to \ iew water in a liquid and colourless state, cannot form the least conception of the same element as hardened into an extensive plain of solid crystal, or covering the ground with a robe of the purest white. The highest possible degree of astonishment must therefore attend the first view of these phenomena j and as in our temperate climate but a small portion of the yeai' affords these spectacles, we find that, even here, they have novelty enough to excite emotions of agreeable surprise. But it is not to novelty alone that they owe theii* charms. Their intrinsic beauty is, perhaps, individually superior to that of the gayest objects presented by the other seasons. Where is the elegance and brilliancy that can compare with that which decorates eveiy tree or bush on the clear morning succeeding a night of hoar frost ? or what is the lustre that would not appear dull and tarnished in competition with a field of snow just glazed over with frost ? By the viA-id description of such ob-

THE SEASONS. xlv

jects as these, contrasted with the savage sublimity of storms and tempestsj our poet has been able to produce a set of winter-landscapes, as engaging to the fancy as the apparently happier scenes of genial warmth and verdure.

But he has not trusted entirely to these resources for combating the natural sterility of Winter, Repeating the pleasing artifice of his Summer, he has called in foreign aid, and has heightened the scenery with gran- deur and horror not our own. The famished troops of wolves pouring from the Alps ; the mountains of snow rolling down the precipices of the same regions} the dreary plains over which the Laplander urges his rein-deer J the wonders of the icy sea, and volcanoes *' flaming through a waste of snowj" are objects ju- diciously selected from all that Nature presents most singular and striking in the various domains of boreal cold and wintry desolation.

Thus have we attempted to give a general view of those materials which constitute the ground- work of a poem on the Seasons; which are essential to its veiy nature ; and on the proper arrangement of which, its regularity and connexion depend. The extent of know- ledge, as well as the powers of description, which Thom- son has exhibited in this part of his work, is, on the whole, truly admirable ; and though, with the present advanced taste for accurate obsei-vation in natural his- tory, some improvements might be suggested, yet he cer- tainly remains unrivalled in the list of descriptive poet.«.

xlvi AN ESSAY ON

But the rural landscape is not solely made up of land and water, and trees, and birds, and beasts ; man is a distinguished feature in it j his multiplied occupations and concerns introduce themselves into every part of it j he intermixes even in the wildest and rudest scenes, and throws a life and interest upon eveiy surrounding ob- ject. Manners and character therefore constitute a part of a descriptive poem ; and in a plan so extensive as the history of the year, they must enter under various forms, and upon numerous occasions.

The most obvious and appropriated use of human figures in pictures of the seasons, is the introduction of them to assist in marking out the succession of annual changes by their various labours and amusements. In common with other animals, man is directed in the diversified employment of earning a toilsome subsist- ence by an attention to the vicissitudes of the seasons ; and all his diversions in the simple state of rustic society are also regulated by the same circumstance. Thus a series of moving figures enlivens the landscape, and contributes to stamp on each scene its peculiar chaiac- ter. The shepherd, the husbandman, the hunter, appear in their turns j and may be considered as natural con- comitants of that portion of the yearly round which prompts their several occupations. f 'But it is not only the bodily pursuits of man which are affected by these changes ; the sensations and affec- tions of his mind are almost equally under their influ- ence j and the result of the whole, as forming the

THE SEASONS. xlvu

enamoured votary of Nature to a peculiar cost of cha- racter and manners, is not less conspicuous. Thus the poet of the seasons is at liberty, without deviating from his plan, to descant on the varieties of moral constitu- tion, and the powers which external causes are found to possess over the temper of the soul. He may draw pictures of the pastoral life in all its genuine simplicity} and assuming the tone of a moral instructor, may con- trast the peace and felicity of innocent retirement with the turbulent agitations of ambition and avarice. \

The various incidents, too, upon which the simple tale of rural events is founded, are very much modelled by the diiference of seasons. The catastrophes of Win- ter differ from those of Summer j the sports of Spring from those of Autumn. Thus, little history-pieces and adventures, whether pathetic or amusing, will suggest themselves to the poet ; which, when properly adapted to the scenery and circumstances, may very happily coincide with the main design of the composition.

The bare enumei-ation of these several occasions of introducing draughts of human life and manners, will be sufficient to call to mind the admirable use which Thomson, throughout his whole poem, has made of them. He, in fact, never appears more truly inspired with his subject, than when giving birth to those senti- ments of tenderness and beneficence, which seem to have occupied his whole heart. A universal benevo- lence, extending to every part of the animal creation, manifests itself in almost every scene he draws ; and

xlviii AN ESSAY ON

the rural character, as delineated in his feelings, con- tains all the softness, purity, and simplicity, that are feigned of the golden age. Yet, excellent as the moral and sentimental part of his work must appear to every congenial mind, it is, perhaps, that in which he may the most easily be rivalled. A refined and feeling heart may derive from its own proper sources a store of cor- responding sentiment, which will naturally clothe itself in the form of expression best suited to the occasion. Nor does the invention of those simple incidents which are most adapted to excite the sympathetic emotions, require any great stretch of fancy. The nearer they approach to common life, the more certainly will they produce their effect. Wonder and surprise are affec- tions of so different a kind, and so distract the atten- tion, that they never fail to diminish the force of the pathetic. On these accounts, writers much inferior in respect to the powers of description and imagery, have equalled our poet in elegant and benevolent sentiment, and perhaps excelled him in interesting narration. Of these, it will be sufficient to mention the ingenious author of a French poem on the Seasons ; who, though a mere copyist in the descriptive parts, has made many pleasing additions to the manners and incidents proper for such a composition.

^But there is a strain of sentiment of a higher and more digressive nature, with which Mr. Thomson has occupied a considei-able portion of his poem. The fun- damental principles of moral philosophy, ideas concern-

THE SEASONS. xlix

ing the origin and progress of government, and civilisa- tion, historical sketches, and reviews of the characters most famous in ancient and modern history, are in- terspei-sed through the various parts of the Seasons.) The manly, liberal, and enlightened spirit which this writer breathes in all his works, must ever endear him to the friends of truth and virtue: and, in par- ticular, his genuine patriotism and zeal in the cause of liberty will render his writings always estimable to the British reader. But, just and important as his thoughts on these topics may be, there may remain a doubt in the breast of the critic, whether their intro- duction in a piece like this, do not, in some instances, break in upon that unity of character which every work of art should support. We have seen, from the general plan and tenor of the poem, that it is profess- edly of the rui-al cast. The objects it is chiefly con- versant with are those presented by the hand of Nature, not the products of human art ; and when man himself is introduced as a part of the group, it would seem that, in conformity to the rest, he ought to be repre- sented in such a state only, as the simplest forms of so- ciety, and most unconstrained situations in it, exhibit. GDurts and cities, camps and senates, do not well accord with sylvan scenery. From the principle of congruity, therefore, a critic might be induced to reject some of these digressive ornaments, though intrinsically beau- tiful, and doubtless contributing to the elevation and variety of the piece. His judgement in this respect d

1 AN ESSAY ON

would be a good deal influenced by the manner of their introduction. In some instances this is so easy and natural, that the mind is scarcely sensible of the devia- tion j in others it is more abrupt and unartful. As examples of both, we may refer to the passages in which various characters from English, and from Grecian and Roman history, are displayed. The former, by a happy gradation, is introduced at the close of a delightful piece, containing the praises of Britain ; which is itself a kind of digression, though a very apt and seasonable one. The latter has no other connexion with the part at which it is inserted, than the very forced and distant one, that as reading may be reckoned among the amusements appropriated to Winter, such subjects as these will naturally offer themselves to the studious mind.

There is another source of sentiment to the poet of the seasons, which, while it is superior to the last in real elevation, is also stnctly connected with the nature of his work. The genuine philosopher, while he sur- veys the grand and beautiful objects every where sur- rounding him, will be prompted to lift his eye to the great Cause of all these wondei-s; the Planner and Architect of this mighty fabric, every minute part of which so much awakens his curiosity and admiiation. The laws by which this Being acts, the ends which He seems to have pursued, must excite his humble re- searches; and in proportion as he discovers infinite power in the means, directed by infinite goodness in

THE SEASONS. li

the intention, his soul must be rapt in astonishment, and expanded with gratitude. The economy of nature will, to such an observer, be the perfect scheme of an all-wise and beneficent mind; and every part of the wide creation will appear to proclaim the praise of its great Author. Thus a new connexion will manifest itself between the several parts of the universe; and a new order and design will be traced through the pro- gress of its various revolutions,

Thomson's Seasons is as eminently a religious as it is a descriptive poem. Thoroughly impressed with sen- timents of veneration for the Author of that assemblage of order and beauty which it was his province to paint, he takes every proper occasion to excite similar emo- tions in the breasts of his readers. Entirely fi-ee from the gloom of superstition and the narrowness of bigotry, he every where represents the Deity as the kind and beneficent Parent of all his works, always watchful over their best interests, and from seeming evil still educing the greatest possible good to all his creatures. In every appearance of nature he beholds the operation of a di- vine hand ; and regards, according to his own empha- tical phrase, each change throughout the revolving year as " but the varied God." This spirit, which breaks forth at intervals in each division of his poem, shines full and concentred in that noble HjTnn which crowns the work. This piece, the sublimest production of its kind since the days of Milton, should be considered as the winding up of all the variety of matter and design

lii AN ESSAY ON THE SEASONS.

contained in the preceding parts ; and thus is not only admirable as a separate composition, but is contrived with masterly skill to strengthen the unity and con- nexion of the great whole.

Thus is planned and constructed a poem which, founded as it is upon the unfading beauties of nature, will live as long as the language in which it is written shall be read. If the perusal of it be in any respect renderec' more interesting or instructive by this im- perfect Essay, the purpose of the writer will be fully answered.

THE SEASONS.

SPRING.

THE ARGUMENT.

.'he Subjoct proposed. Inscribed to the Countess of Hartford. Tlie Season is described as it aftects tlie varions parts of nature, ascending from the lower to the Wither; withdip^ressious arising from tlie subject. Its influence on inanimate Matter, on Vege- tables, on bnite Animals, and last on Man ; concluding with a dissuasive from the wild and irregulai" passion of Love, opposed to that of a pure and happy kind.

SPRING

C^OME, 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 Hartford, 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.

And see where surly Winter passes off. Far to the north, and calls his niffian blasts 3 His 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.

4 THE SEASONS.

And Winter oft at e\c resumes the breeze. Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day dclightless; so that scarce The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulfed To shake the sounding marsh j or, from the shore. The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath, And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.

At last from Aries rolls the bounteous Sun, And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more The expansive atmosphere is cramped with cold j But, full of life and vivifying soul. Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads them thin^ Fleecy and white, o'er all-surrovinding heaven.

Forth fly the tepid airs ; and unconfmed. 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. Thei-c, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke They lend their shouldei", and begin their toil. Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark. Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share The master leans, removes the obstructing clay. Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.

SPRING.

VVhile through the neighbouiing fields the sower stalks. With measured step ; and liberal throws the grain Into the faithful bosom of the ground: The han'ovv follows harsh, and shuts the scene.

Be gracious. Heaven ! for now laborious man Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow ! Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend ! And temper all, thou world-reviving Sun, Into the perfect year ! Nor ye who live In liLsury and ease, in pomp and pride. Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear : Such themes as these the rui-al 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, Have lield 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, venei-ate the plough ; And o'er your hills and long-withdmwing vales, Let Autumn spread his treasures to the sun.

6 THE SEASONS.

LxTxuriant and unbounded ! As the Sea Far through his azure turbulent domain Your empire o\vns, and from a thousand shores Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports j So with superior boon may your rich soil. Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour O'er every land, the naked nations clothe. And be the exhaustless gi-anary of a world.

Nor only through the lenient air this change Delicious breathes : the penetrative Sun, His force deep-darting to the dark retreat Of vegetation, sets the steaming Power At large, to wander o'er the ^ernant earth. In various hues ; but chiefly thee, gay green ! Thou smiling Nature's universal robe ! United light and shade ! 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. Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed. In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales ; Where the deer rustle through the twining brake.

SPRING. 7

And the birds sing concealed. At once, arrayed

In all the colours of the flushing year

By Nature's swift and secret-workuig hand.

The garden glows, and fills the liberal air

With lavish fragi-ance ; while the promised fruit

Lies yet a little embrjo, unpercei\ ed.

Within its crimson folds. Now from the town.

Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps.

Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,

\A' here 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 blush, one white-empurpled shower

Of mingled blossoms, where the laptured eye

Hurries from joy to joy ; and, hid beneath

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 foliage shrinlxs Joyless and dead, a wide-dejected waste.

8 THE SEASONS.

For oft, engendered by the hazy north.

Myriads on myiiads, insect armies warp

Keen in the poisoned breeze : and wasteful eat.

Through buds and bark, into the blackened core.

Their eager way. A feeble race ! yet oft

The sacred sons of vengeance ; on whose course

Corrosive Famine waits, and kiUs the year.

To check this plague, the skilful farmer chaff

And blazing straw before his orchard burns ;

Till, all involved in smoke, the latent foe

From every cranny suffocated falls :

Or scatters o'er the blooms the pungent dust

Of pepper, fatal to the frosty tribe :

Or, when the envenomed leaf begins to curl.

With sprinkled water drowns them in their nest 5

Nor, while they pick them up with busy bill.

The little trooping birds unwisely scares.

Be patient, swains ; these cruel-seeming \\'inds 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 In endless train, would quench the summer blaze. And, cheerless, drown the CI^lde unripened year.

The North-east spends his rage j he now shut up Within his iron cave, the effusive Soutli

SPRING.

Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven

Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.

At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise.

Scarce staining ether ; but by swift degrees.

In heaps on heaps the doubling vapour sails

Along the loaded skyj and mingling deep.

Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom :

Not such as wintjy storms on mortals shed.

Oppressing life j 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 aspin tall. The uncurling floods, diffused

In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse

Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all.

And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks

Drop the dry sprig, and, mute-imploring, eye

The falUng verdure. Hushed in short suspense.

The plumy people streak their wings with oil.

To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;

And wait the approaching sign to strike, at once.

Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales.

And forests, seem, impatient, to demantl

10 THE SEASONS.

The promised sweetness. Man superior walks

Amid the glad creation, musing praise.

And looking li\cly gratitude. At last.

The clouds consign their treasures to the field ;

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 scaice to patter heard.

By such as wander through the forest-walks.

Beneath the umbrageous multitude of leaves.

But who can hold the shade, while heaven descends

In universal bounty, shedding herbs.

And fruits, and flowers, on Nature's ample lap.^

Swift fancy fired anticipates their growth j

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 the western sky the downward Sun Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush Of broken clouds, gay-sliifting to his beam. The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes Tlie illumined mountain j through the forest streams | Shakes on the floods ; and in a yellow mist.

SPRING, 11

Far smoking o'er the inteniiinable plain.

In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around.

FiUl 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.

Whence, blending all, the sweetened zephyr springs.

Meantime refracted from yon eastern cloud.

Bestriding Earth, the grand ethereal bow

Shoots up immense, and every hue unfolds.

In fair proportion i-unning from the red.

To where the violet fades into the sky.

Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds

Fonn, fronting on the sun, thy showeiy prism ;

And, to the sage-inst meted eye, unfold

The various twine of light, by thee disclosed

From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy :

He wondering views the bright enchantment bend,

Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, an runs

To catch the falling gloiy ; but amazed

Beholds the amusive arch before him fly,

Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,

A softened shade, and saturated Earth

Awaits the morning beam, to give to light.

n THE SEASONS.

liaised through tea thousand diiFerent plastic tubca. The balmy treasures of the former day.

Then spring the living herbs, profusely wild. O'er all the deep-green earth, beyond the power Of botanist to number up their tribes : Whetlicr he steals along the lonely dale. In silent search ; or through the forest, rank With what the dull incurious weeds account. Bursts his blind wayj or climbs the mountain-rock. Fired by the nodding verdure of its brow. With such a liberal hand has Nature flung 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 ? — the food of man. While yet he lived in innocence, and told A length of golden years, imfleshed in blood } A stranger to the savage arts of life. Death, rapine, carnage, surfeit, and disease ; The lord, and not the tyrant, of the world.

The first fresh dawn then waked the gladdened I'ace Of uncorruptcd man, nor blushed lo see The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam :

SPRING. 13

For their liglit slumbers gently fumed away;

And up they rose as vigoroiis as the Sun,

Or to the culture of the wilUng glebe.

Or to the cheerful tendance of the flock.

Meantime the song went round ; and dance and sport.

Wisdom, and friendly talk, successive, stole

Their hours aw ay : while in the ro.-y vale

Love breathed his infant sighs from anguish ft'ee.

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 bcne^ olence were law.

Harmonious Nature too looked smiling on ;

Clear shone the skies, cooled with eternal gales.

And balmy spirit all. The youthful Sun

Shot his best rays; and still the gracious clouds

Dropped fatness down; as o'er the swelling mead

The herds and flocks, commixing, jdayed 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

14 THE SEASONS.

Applied their choir; and winds and waters flowed In consonance. Sucli were those prime of days.

But now those white unblemished manners^ whence The fabling poets took their golden age. Are found no more amid these iron times. These dregs of life ! Now the distempered mind Has lost that concord of harmonious powers. Which forms the soul of happiness j and all Is ofif 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. 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 reach. Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full. Weak and unmanly, loosens every power. Even love itself is bitterness of soul, A pensive anguish, pining at the heart ; Oi', sunk to sordid interest, feels no more That noble wish, that never-cloyed desire. Which, selfish joy disdaining, seeks alone To bless the dearer object of its flame. Hope sickens with extravagance ; and giief.

SPRING. 15

Of life impatient^ into madness swells.

Or in dead silence wastes the weeping hours.

These, and a thousand mixed emotions more.

Prom ever-clianging views of good and ill

Fonxicd infinitely various, vex the mind

With endless stoi'm ; whence, deeply-rankling, grows

The partial thought, a listless unconcern.

Cold, and a\ erting from our neighbour's good.

Then dark disgust, and hatred, winding wiles.

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 changed lier course.

Hence, in old dusky time, a deluge came : When the deep-cleft disparting orb, that arched The centi-al waters round, impetuous nished. With universal burst, into the gulf j And o'er the high-piled hills of fractured Earth Wide dashed the waves in undulation vast 5 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 foilh his waste of snows > and Summer shot

16 THE SEASONS.

His pestilential heats. Great Spring, before. Greened all the year j and fruits and blossoms blushed In social sweetness on the self-same bough. Pure was the temperate air 5 an even calm Perjjetual reigned, save what the Zephyrs bland Breathed o'er the blue expanse ; for then nor storms Were taught to blow, nor hurricanes to ragej Sound slept the waters j 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. 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 j Though with the pure exhilarating soul Of nutriment and health, and vital powers Beyond the search of art, 'tis copious blest. For, with hot ravin fired, ensanguined man 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.

SPRING. 17

At whose strong chest the deadly tiger hangs. E'er ploughed for him. They too are tempered high. 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 laeart. And taught alone to weep ; while from her lap She pours ten thousand delicacies, herbs. And fruits, as numerous as the drops of ram. 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 ! The beast of prey. Blood-stained, deserves to bleed ; but you, ye flocks. What have ye done ? ye peaceful people, what. To merit death ? you who have given us milk In luscious streams, and lent us your orni coat Against the winter's cold. And the plain ox. That harmless, honest, guileless animal. In what has he offended ? he, whose toil. Patient, and ever ready, clothes the land With all the pomp of hai-vest ; shall he bleed. And struggUng groan beneath the cruel hands Even of the clown he feeds? and that, perhaps. To swell the riots of th' autumnal feast

c

18 THE SEASONS.

Won by his labour ? Thus the feeling heart

Would tenderly suggest ; but 'tis enough.

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 j now is the time. While yet the dark-brown water aids the guile. To tempt the trout. The well-dissembled fly. The rod, fine-tapering with elastic spring. Snatched from the hoary steed the floating line. And all thy slender watery stores, prepare. But let not on thy hook the tortured worm Convulsive twist in agonising folds j Which, by rapacious hunger swallowed deep. Gives, as you tear it from the bleeding breast Of the weak, helpless, uncomplaining wretch. Harsh pain and horror to the tender hand.

When with his lively ray the potent Sun Has pierced the streams, and roused the finny race. Then, issuing cheerful, to thy sport repair j

SPRING. 19

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 ;

And next pursue their rocky-channeled maze, ■

Down to the river, in whose ample wave

Their little naiads love to sport at large.

Just in the dubious point where with the pool

Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils

Around the stone, or firom the hollowed bank

Reverted plays in undulating flow.

There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly ;

And as you lead it round in artful cui-ve.

With eye attentive mark the springing game.

Straight as above the surface of the flood

Tliey wanton rise, or, urged by hunger, leap.

Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook :

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

He has enjoyed the vital light of heaven.

Soft disengage, and back into the stream

20 THE SEASONS.

The speckled captive throw. But should you lure From his dark haunt^ beneath the tangled roots Of pendent trees, the monarch 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-stnick, and runs out all the lengthened line ; Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed. The caverned bank, his old secure abode; And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool. Indignant of tlie guile. With yielding liand. That feels him still, yet to his furious course Gives way, you, now retiring, following now Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage. TUl, floating broad upon his breatliless 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 nooa-day throne the scattering clouds. Even shooting listless languor through the deeps ; Then seek the bank where flowering elders crowd.

SPRING. 21

Wiere, scattered w'Ad, the lUy of the vale

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 wmg,

Tlie sounding culver shoots, or where the hawk

High in the beetling cliff his aerie builds.

There let the classic page thy fancy lead

Through rural scenes, such as the Mantuan swain

Paints in the matchless harmony of song :

Or catch thyself the landscape, gliding swift

Athwart imagination's vivid eye :

Or, by the vocal woods and waters lulled.

And lost in lonely musing, in the dream.

Confused, of careless sohtude, where mbc

Ten thousand wandering images of things.

Soothe every gust of passion into peace j

All but the swelhngs of the softened heart,

Tliat waken, not di^urb, the tranquil mind.

Behold, yon breathing prospect bids the muse Throw 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.

22 THE SEASONS.

And lose them in each otlier, as appeai-s In every bud tliat blows ? If fancy then Unequal fails beneath the pleasing task, Ahj what shall language do ? ahj where find words Tinged with so many coloui-s; and whose power. To life approaching, may perfume my lays \A'ith that fine oil, those aromatic gales, Tliat inexhaustive flow continual round ?

Yet, though successless, will the toil delight. Come then, ye virgins and ye youths whose hearts Have felt the raptures of refining love ; And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song ! 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 mixed. Shines lively fancy, and the feeling heart : Oh come, 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 loved bosom, that improves their sweets.

See, where the winding vale its lavish stores, Irriguous, spreads. Sec, how the lily drinks The latent rill, scarce oozing through the grass.

SPRING. 23

Of growth luxuriant ; or the humid bank

In fair profusion decks. Long let us walk.

Where 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.

Full of fresh verdure, and unnumbered flowers.

The negligence of Nature, wide and wild.

Where, undisguised by mimic Art, she spreads

Unbounded beauty to the roving eye.

Here their deUcious task the fervent bees.

In swarming millions, tend : around, athwart,

Tlu-ough the soft air the busy nations fly.

Cling to the bud, and with inserted tube

Suck its pure essence, its ethereal soul 3

And oft, with bolder wing, they soaring dare

The purple heath, or where the wild thyme grows.

And yellow load them with the luscious spoU.

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 j now the bowery walk Of covert close, where scarce a speck of day Falls on the lengthened gloom, protracted sweeps j

24 THE SEASONS.

Now meets the bending sky; the river now

Dimpling along, the breezy-ruflled lake.

The forest darkening round, the glittering spire.

The ethereal mountain, and the distant main.

But why so far excursive ? when, at hand.

Along these blushing borders, bright with dew.

And in yon mingled wilderness of flowers.

Fair-handed Spring unbosoms every grace ;

Throws out the snovv-droj) and the crocus first ;

The daisy, primrose, %'iolct darkly blue.

And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes ;

The yello\v wall-flower, stained with iron-brown

And lavish stock, that scents the garden round ;

From the soft wing of \ ernal breezes shed,

Anemonies; auriculas, enriched

With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves;

And full ranunculas, 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 charmed eye, the exulting florist marks.

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 ;

SPRING. 25

Nor hyacinths^ of purest virgin-white, Low-bent, and blushing inward ; nor jonquils. Of potent fragrance j nor Narcissus fair. As o'er the fabled fountain hanging still ; Nor broad carnations, nor gay-spotted pinks; Nor, showered from every bush, the dani^k rose ; Infinite numbers, delicacies, smells. With hues on hues expression cannot paint. The breath of Nature, and her endless bloom.

Hail, Source of Being j Universal Soul Of heaven and earth j 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. Draw the live ether, and imbibe the dew : By Thee disposed into congenial soils. Stands each attractive plant, and sucks, and swells The juicy tide; a twining mass of tubes. At Thy command the vernal sun awakes The torpid sap, detruded to the root By wintery winds, that now in fluent dance. And lively fermentation, mounting, spreads All tliis innumerous-coloured scene of things.

26 THE SEASONS.

As, rising from the vegetable world. My theme ascends, with equal wing ascend. My panting muse ! And hark, how loud the woods Invite you forth in all your gayest trim. Lend me your song, ye nightingales 3 oh poui- The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse j 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.

When first the soul of love is sent abroad. Warm through the vital air, and on the heart Harmonious seizes, the ^ay troops begin. In gallant thought, to plume the painted wing, And try again the long-forgotten strain ; At first faint- warbled : but no sooner grows The soft infusion prevalent, and wide. Than, all alive, at once their joy o'erflows In music unconfined. Up springs the lark. Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn : Ere yet the shadows fly, he mounted sings Amid the dawning clouds, and flrom their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations. Every copse Deep-tangled, tree irregular, and bush Bending with dewy moisture o'er the heads

SPRING. 2r

Of the coy choristers that lodge witliin.

Are prodigal of harmony. The thrush

And wood-lark, o'er the kind-contending throng

Superior heard^ run through the sweetest length

Of notes ; when listening Philomela deigns

To let them joy, and purposes, in thought

Elate, to make her night excel their day.

The blackbird whistles from the thorny brake ;

The mellow bullfinch answers from the grove ;

Nor are the linnets, o'er the flowering furze

Poured out pi'ofusely, silent. Joined to these,

Innumerous song-sters, in the freshening shade

Of new-spnmg leaves, their modulations mix

Mellifluous. The jay, the rook, the daw.

And each harsh pipe, discordant heard alone.

Aid the full concert ; while the stock-dove breathes

A melancholy murmur through the whole.

'Tis love creates their melody, and all

This waste of music is the voice of love j

That even to birds and beasts the tender arts

Of pleasing teaches. Hence the glossy kind

Tiy every winning way inventive love

Can dictate, and in courtship to their mates

Pour forth their little souls. First, wide around.

With distant awe, in airy rings they rove.

28 THE SEASONS.

Endeavouring by a thousand tricks to catcii The cunning, conscious, half-averted glance Of their regardless charmer. Shovdd she seem. Softening, the least approvance to bestow, Theii- colours burnish, and, by hope inspired. They brisk advance ; then on a sudden stnack. 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 ; 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. Othei-s, apart, far in the grassy dale. 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.

SPRING. 29

Whose murmurs soothe them all the livelong day. When by kind duty fixed. Among the roots Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive stream. They frame the first foundation of their domes j Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid. And bound with clay together. Now 'tis nought But restless hurry through the busy air. 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 unobserved. Steal from the barn a straw ; till soft and \\'arm. 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. Though the whole loosened Spring around her blows, Her sympathising lover takes his stand High on the 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. The appointed time With pious toil fulfilled, the callow young, Warmed and expanded into perfect life,

so THE SEASONS.

Their brittle bondage break, and come to light,

A helpless family, demanding food

With constant clamour. Oh, 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 j

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.

Sustained alone by providential Heaven,

Oft, as they weeping ej'e the infant train.

Check their own appetites, and give them aU.

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 The unfeeling school-boy. Hence, around the head Of wandering swain, the white-winged plover wheela Her sounding flight, and then directly on.

SPRING. 81

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 !), to lead The hot-pursuing spaniel far astray.

Be not the muse ashamed, here to bemoan Her brothers of the grove, by tyrant man Inhimaan caught, and in the narrow cage From liberty confined, and boundless air. Dull are the pretty slaves, their plumage dull^ Ragged, and all its brightening lustre lost ; Nor is that sprightly wildness in their notes. Which, clear and vigorous, waibles from the beech. Oh then, ye friends of love, and love-taught song. Spare the soft tribes j this barbarous art forbear ; If on your bosom innocence can win. Music engage, or piety persuade.

But let not chief the nightingale lament Her mined care, too delicately framed To brook the harsh confinement of the cage. Oft when, returning with her loaded bill. The astonished mother finds a vacant nest. By the hard hand of unrelenting clowns Robbed, to the ground the vain provision falls; Her pinions ruffle, and, low-drooping, scarce

32 THE SEASONS.

Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade j

Where, all abandoned to despair, she sings

Her sorrows through the night : and, on the bough

Sole sitting, still at every dying fall

Takes up again her lamentable strain

Of winding woe ; till, wide around, the woods

Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.

But now the feathered youth their former bounds. Ardent, disdain j and, weighing oft their wings, Demand the free possession of the sky : This one glad office more, and then dissolves Parental love at once, now needless grown. Unlavished Wisdom never works in vain. 'Tis on some evening, sunny, gi'ateful, mild. When nought but balm is breathing through the woods. With yellow lustre bright, that the new tribes ^ Visit the spacious heavens, and 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, TrembUng refuse ; till down before them fly The parent-guides, antl chide, exhort, command. Or push them oif. The surging air receives

SPRING.

Its plumy burden J and their self-taught wings Winnow the waving element. On ground Alighted, bolder up again they lead. Farther and farther on, the lengthening flight j Till, vanished every fear, and every power Roused into life and action, light in air The acquitted parents see their soaring race. 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 voung, Strong-pounced, and ardent with parental fae. Now fit to raise a kingdom of their own. He drives them from his fort, the towering seat. For ages, of his empire ; which, in peace. Unstained he holds, while many a league to sea He wings his course, and preys in distant isles.

Should I my steps turn to the rural scat. Whose lofty elms and ^enel•able oaks Invite the rook, who, high amid the boughs. In early spring his airy city builds, And ceaseless caws amusive ; there well plea.'=od

' The farthest of the western islands of Scotland.

D

34 THE SEASONS.

I might the various poUly survey

Of the mixed household kind. The careful hen

Calls all her chirping family around.

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 chequered duck before her train

Rows garrulous. The stately-sailing swan

Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale ;

And, arching proud his neck, with oaiy feet

Bears forward fierce, and guards his ozier-isle.

Protective of his young. The turkey nigh.

Loud threatening, reddens ; while the peacock spreads

His every-coloured glory to the sun.

And swims in radiant majesty along.

O'er the whole homely scene, the cooing dove

Flies thick in amorous chase, and wanton rolls

The glancing eye, and turns the changeful neck.

While thus the gentle tenants of the shade 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 pastm'e sick, and negligent of food, Scaice seen, he wades among the yellow broom.

SPRING. 35

While o'er his ample sides the rambling sprays

Luxuriant shoot ; or through the mazy wood

Dejected wanders, nor the enticing bud

Crops, though it presses on his careless sense.

And oft, in jealous maddening fancy rapt.

He seeks the fight ; and, idly butting, feigns

His rival gored in every knotty trunk.

Him should he meet, the bellowing war begins :

Their eyes flash furyj to the hollowed earth.

Whence the sand flies, they mutter bloody deeds.

And groaning deep the impetuous battle mix ;

While the fair heifer, balmy-breathing, near.

Stands kindling up their rage. The trembling steed.

With this hot impulse seized in eveiy nerve.

Nor heeds the reJn, nor hears the sounding thong ;

Blows arc not felt ; but, tossing high his head.

And by the well-known joy to distant plains

Atti-acted strong, all wild he bursts away ;

O'er rocks, and woods, and craggy mountains, flies ;

And, neighing, on the aerial summit takes

The exciting gale ; then, steep-descending, cleaves

The headlong torrents foaming down the hills.

Even where the madness of the straitened stream

Turns in black eddies round : such is the force

With which his frantic heart and sinews swell.

3G THE SEASONS.

Nor undelighted by the boundless Spring Are the broad monsters of the foaming deep : From the deep ooze and gelid cavern roused, They flounce and tumble in unwieldy joy.

Dire were the strain, and dissonant^ to !:ing The ci'uel raptures of the savage kind : How, by this flame their native wrath sublimed. 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-biow. Where sits the shepherd on the grassy turf. Inhaling, healthful, the descending sun. Around him feeds his many-bleating flock. Of various cadence; and his sportive lambs. This way and that con^■olved, in friskful glee Their froUcs play. And now the sprightly race Invites them forth 3 when swift, the signal given. They start away, and sweep the mossy mound That runs around the hill ; the rampart once Of iron war, in ancient barbarous times. When disunited Britain ever bled. Lost in eternal broil : ere yet she grew To this deep-laid indissoluble state.

SPRING. 37

VVliere Wealth and Commerce lift their golden heads. And o'er our labours Liberty and Law, Impartial, watch ; the wonder of the world !

What is this mighty Breath, yc sages, say. That iri a powerful language, felt, not heard. Instructs the fowls of heaven ; and through their breasts These arts of love diffuses ? What, but God, Inspiring God ! who, boundless Sjnrit all. And unremitting Energy, pervades. Adjusts, sustains, and agitates, the whole. He ceaseless works alone j 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 The informing Author in his works appeai-s : Chief, lovely Spring, in thee, and thy soft scenes. The smiling God is seen ; while water, earth. And air, attest his bounty j which exalts 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 the infusive force of Spring on man .- When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie To raise his being, and serene his soul,

3S THE SEASONS.

Can he forbear to join the general suiile

Of Nature ? Can fierce passions vex his breast.

While every gale is peace^ and every grove

Is melody ? Hence from the bounteous walks

Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth.

Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe j

Or only lavish to yourselves j away !

But come, ye generous minds, in whose wide thouglit.

Of all his works, creative Bounty burns

With warmest beam, and on your open front

And liberal eye sits, from his dark i-etreat

Inviting modest Want. Nor till invoked

Can restless goodness wait : your active search

Leaves no cold wintry corner unexplored 3

Like silent-working Heaven, surprising oft

The lonely heart with unexpected good.

For you the roving spuit 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 ! In these green days.

Reviving Sickness lifts her languid head ;

Life flows afresh ; and yoxing-eycd Health exalts

The whole creation round. Contentment walks

The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss

SPRING. 39

Spring o'er her heart, 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. We feel the present Deity, and taste The joy of God — to see a happy world !

These are the sacred feelings of thy heart. Thy heart informed by reason's purer ray, O Lyttelton, the friend ! thy passions thus And meditations vary, as at large. Courting the muse, through Hagley Park thou strayest ; Thy British Tempc ! There along the dale. With woods o'erhung, and shagged with mossy rocks, Wlience 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 j or sit beneath the shade Of solemn oaks, that tuft the swelUng mounts Thrown graceful round by Nature's careless hand. And pensive listen to the various voice Of x-ural peace : the herds, the flocks, the birds. The hollow-whispering breeze, the plaints of rills That, purhng down amid the twisted roots

40 THE SEASONS.

Which creep around^ their dewy murmurs shake

On the soothed car. From these abstracted, oft

You wander through the philosophic \\orld ;

Where in briglit 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.

And honest zeal, un warped 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 luuses charm ; while, with sure taste refined.

You draw the inspiring breath of ancient song.

Till nobly rises, emulous, thy own.

Perhaps thy loAcd Lucinda shares thy walk. With soul to thine attuned. Then Nature all Wears to the lover's eye a look of love 3 And all the tumult of a guilty world. Tossed by ungenerous passions, sinks away. Tlie tender heart is animated peace ; And as it pours its copious treasures forth In varied converse, softening every theme. You, frequent pausing, turn, and from her eyes. Where meekened sense, and amiable grace.

SPRING. 41

And lively sweetness, dwell, enraptured diink

That nameless spirit of ethereal joy.

Unutterable happiness, wliich Love

Alone bestows, and on a favoured few.

Meantime you gain the height., from whose fair brow

The bursting prospect spreads immense around :

And snatched o'er hill and dale, and wood and lawn.

And vei'dant field, and darkening heath between.

And villages embosomed soft in trees.

And spiry towns by surging columns marked

Of household smoke, your eye excursive roams ;

Wide-stretching from the hall in whose kind haunt

The hospitable Genius lingers still.

To where the broken landscape, by degi-ees

Ascending, roughens into rigid hills ;

O'er which the Cambrian mountains, like far clouds

That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.

Flushed by the spirit of the genial year. Now from the virgin's cheek a fresher bloom Shoots, less and less, the live carnation round ; Her lips blush deeper sweets , she breathes of youth ; The shining moisture swells into her eyes In brighter flow; her wishing bosom heaves With palpitations wild ; kind tumults seize Her veins, and all her yielding soul is love.

42 THE SEASONS.

From the keen gaze her lover turns a\vay. Full of the dear ecstatic power, and sick With sighing languishmcnt. Ah then, ye fair ! Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts : Dare not the infectious sigh ; the pleading look. Downcast and low, in meek submission drest, * But full of guile. Let not the fei*vent tongue, Pi'ompt 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, Tioist your soft minutes with betraying man. And let the aspiring youth beware of love. Of the smooth glance beware ; for 'tis too late. When on his heart the torrent-softness pours. Then wisdom prostrate lies, and fading fame Dissolves in air away ; while the fond soul. Rapt in gay visions of unreal bliss. Still paints the illusi\'e form ; the kindling grace ; The 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. Her siren-voice, enchanting, draws him on To guileful shores, and meads of fatal joy.

SPRING. 43

Even present, in the ^'ery lap of Love Inglorious laid ; while music flows around. Perfumes, and oils, and wine, and wanton hours j Amid the roses, fierce Repentance rears Her snaky crest : a quick-returning pang Shoots through the conscious heart, where honour still. And great design, against the oppressive load Of luxury, by fits^ impatient heave.

But absent, what fantastic woes, aroused. Rage in each thought, by restless musing fed. Chill the warm cheek, and blast the bloom of life I Neglected Fortune flies ; and, sliding swift. Prone into ruin, fall his scorned affairs. 'Tis nought but gloom around : the darkened sua Loses his light 5 the rosy-bosomed Spring To weeping Fancy pines ; and yon bright arch. Contracted, bends into a dusky vault. All nature fades extinct j and she alone 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 unattentive. From his tongue The unfinished period falls : while, borne away On swelUng thought, his wasted spirit flies

44 THE SEASONS.

To the vain bosom of his distant fair; And leaves the semblance of a lover, fixed In melancholy site, with head declined. And love-dejected eyes. Sudden he starts. Shook from his tender trance, and restless runs To glimmering shades, and sympathetic glooms j Where the dun umbrage o'er the falling stream. Romantic, hangs : there through the pensive dusk Strays, in heart-thrilling 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 ; 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 j then forth he \valks. Beneath the trembling languish of her beam. With softened soul, and woos the bird of eve To mingle woes with his j or, while the world. And all the sons of Care, lie hushed in sleep, Associates with the midnight shadows drear ; And, sighing to the lonely taper, pours His idly-tortured heart into the page Meant for the moving messenger of love ;

SPRING. 45

Where rapture burns on rapture, every line

With rising frenzy fired. But if on bed

Delirious flung, Sleep from his pillow flies ;

All night he tosses, nor the balmy Power

In any posture finds ; till the grey Morn

Lifts her pale lustre on the paler wretch.

Exanimate by love ; and then perhaps

Exhausted Nature sinks awhile to rest.

Still intermpted by distracted dreams

That o'er the sick unagination rise.

And in black colours paint the mimic scene.

Oft with the enchantress of his soul he talks ;

Sometimes in crowds distressed j or if retired

To secret winding flowcr-enwoven bowers.

Far from the dull impertinence of man.

Just as he, credulous, his endless cares

Begins to lose in blind oblivious love.

Snatched from her yielded hand, he knows not how.

Through forests huge, and long untravelled heaths

With desolation brown, he wanders waste.

In night and tempest wrapt; or shrinks aghast.

Back fi'om the bending precipice ; or wades

The turbid stream below, and strives to reach

The farther shore 3 where, succourlcss and sad.

She with extended arms his aid implores ;

46 THE SEASONS.

But strives in ^ ain ; borne by the outrageous flood To distance down^ he lides the ridgy wave. Or whehned beneath the boiling eddy sinks.

These are the charming agonies of love, Wiiose misery delights. But through the heart Should jealousy its venom once diffuse, 'Tis then delightful 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 Of livid gloom imagination wraps. Ah ! then, instead of love-enlivened cheeks. Of sunny features, and of ardent eyes With flowing rapture bright, dark looks succeed, Sufftised, 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 Of horrid rivals, hanging on the charms For which he melts in fondness, eat him up

SPRING. 47

With fei-vent anguitli, ami 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.

Her first endearments, twining round the soul

With all the witchcraft of ensnaring love.

Straight the fierce storm involves his mind anew.

Flames through the nerves, and boils along the veins;

While anxious doubt distracts the tortui'ed heart :

For even the sad assurance of his fears

Were ease to what he feels. Thus the waraa youth

Wliom Love deludes into his thorny wilds

Through flowery-tempting paths, or leads a life

Of fevered rapture, or of cruel care ;

His brightest flames extinguished all, and all

His lively moments running down to waste.

But happy they, the happiest of their kind, W' horn gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their being, blend. 'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws. Unnatural oft, and foreign to Ihe mind. That binds their peace ; but harmony itself. Attuning all their passions into love ; Where Friendship full exerts her softest power,

48 THE SEASONS.

Perfect esteeni, enlivened by desire

Ineffable, and sympathy of soul j

Thought meeting thought, and will prevculing 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

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 hea\ en

Seclude their bosom-slaves, meanly possessed

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 the\' look

Or on the mind, or mind-illumined face ;

Truth, goodness, honour, harmony, and love»

The richest bounty of indulgent Heaven ?

Meantime a smiling offspring rises round.

SPRING. 49

And mingles both their graces. By degrees^ The human blossom blows ; and eveiy day. Soft as it roUs along, 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 ! to rear the tender thought. To teach tlie young idea how to shoot. To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind. To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix The generous purpose in the glowing breast. Oh speak the joy ! 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, books. Ease and alternate labovir, useful life. 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 ;

B

60 THE SEASONS.

When, after the long vernal day of life. Enamoured more, as more remembrance swells With many a proof of recollected love. Together down they sink in social sleep ; Together freed, their gentle spirits fly To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign.

THE SEASONS.

SUMMER.

THE ARGUMENT.

The subject proposed. Invocation. Address to Mr. Dodington. An introductory reflection on the motion of the heavenly bodies; whence the succession of the Seasons. As the face of Nature in this season is almost uniform, tlie prog^ress of the poem is a Description of a Summer's Day. The dawn. Sun- rising. Hjmn to the Sun. Forenoon. Summer insects de- scribed. Hay-making. Sheep-shearing. Noon-day. A wood- land 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 tiumder and lightning. A tale. The storm over, a serene afternoon. Bathing. Hour of walking. Transition to the prospect fif a rich well-cultivated 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.

S U M M E R.

-T ROM brightening fields of ether fair disclosed.

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.

All-smiling, to liis hot dominion leaves.

Hence, let me haste into the mid-wood shade. Where scarce a sun-beam wandei-s through the gloom ; And on the dark-gi-een grass, beside the brink 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 ! from thy hermit-seat, By mortal seldom found : may Fancy dare. From thy fixed serious eye, and raptured glance Shot on surrounding hecnen, to steal one look

54 THE SEASONS.

Creative of the Poet, cveiy power Exalting to an ecstasy of sonl ?

And tliou, my youthful muse's early friend. In whom the human graces all unite : 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 combined 3 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. And teach me to deserve thy just applause.

With what an awful world-revoh'ing power Were first the unwieldy planets lautiched along The illimitable void ! 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. Minutely faithful : such the all-perfect Hand That poised, impels, and rules, the steady whole,

■\Vhen now no more the alternate Twins are fired.

SUMMER. 5;

And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze.

Short is the doubtful empire of the night ;

And soon, obser\ant of approaching day.

The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews.

At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east :

Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow ;

And, from before the lustre of her face.

White break the clouds away. With quickened step.

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 tlie 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

The native voice of undissembled joy j

And thick around the woodland hymns arise.

Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves

His mossy cottage, whore with Peace he dwells ;

And from the crowded fold, in order, drives

His fiock, to taste the verdure of the morn.

Falsely luxurious, will not man awake. And, springing from tlie bed of sloth, enjoy

56 THE SEASONS.

The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,

To meditation due and sacred song ?

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 the enlightened soul :

Or else to feverish vanity alive,

Wildered, and tossing through distempered 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 ?

But yonder comes the powerful king of day. Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud. The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow Ilhmicd with fluid gold, his near approach Betoken glad. Lo ! now, apparent all. Aslant the dew-bright earth, and coloured air. He looks in boundless majesty abroad ; And sheds the shining day, tliat burnished pla\s On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams. High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer Light, Of all material beings fii-st and best ! Efflux divine ! Nature's resplendent robe ; Without whose vesting beauty, all were wrapt

SUMMER. 57

In unessential gloom! And thou, O Sun, Soul of surrounding worlds, in whom best seen Shines out thy Maker ! may I sing of thee ?

'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force. As with a chain indissoluble bound. Thy system rolls entire j from the far bourn Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round Of thirty years ; to Mercury, whose disk Can scarce be caught by pliilosophic eye. Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze. Informer of the planetary train ; \^'^ithout whose quickening glance, their cumbrous orbs ^Vere bnite unlovely mass, inert and dead. And not, as now, the green abodes of life! How many forms of being wait on thee. Inhaling spirit! from the unfettered mind. By thee sublimed, down to the daily race. 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. INIeantime, the expecting nations, circled gay With all the vainous tribes of foodful earth.

58 THE SEASONS.

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,

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 laA ish hand.

Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower.

Herbs, flowers, and finits; till, kindling at thy touch.

From land to land is flushed the vernal year.

Nor to the surface of enlivened earth. Graceful with hills and dales, and leafy woods. Her liberal tresses, is thy force confined j But, to the bowelled cavern darting deep. The mineral kinds confess thy mighty jiower. Effulgent hence the veiny marble shines ; Hence Labour draws his tools ; hence burnished War Gleams on the day ; the nobler works of Peace Hence bless mankind, and generous Commerce binds The round of nations in a golden chain.

The unfiTiitful rock itself, imi)regned by thee. In dark retirement forms the lucid stone. The lively Diamond diinks thy purest rays. Collected light, compact; that, polished bright.

SUMMER. 59

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.

The purple-streaming Amethyst is thine.

With tliy 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 site varies in the gazer's hand.

The very dead creation, from thy toucli Assumes a mimic life. By thee refined. In brighter mazes the reluctant stream Plays o'er the mead. The precipice abnjj)t. Projecting horror on the blackened flood, 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 toj),

60 THE SEASONS.

Far to the blue horizon's vitmost verge> Restless, reflects a floating gleam. But this. And aU the much transported muse can sing, Are to thy beauty, dignity, and use. Unequal fur j great delegated source Of light, and life, and grace, and joy, below !

How then shall I attempt to sing of Him 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. That beam for ever through the boundless sky. But, should He hide his face, the astonished Sun,| And all the extinguished stars, would loosening reel Wide from their spheres, and chaos come again.

And yet was every falteiing tongue of man. Almighty Father, silent in thy praise, Tliy works themselves would raise a general \oicc : Even in the depth of solitary woods, By human foot untrod, proclaim thy power. And to the choir celestial Thee resound. The eternal cause, support, and end, of all !

To me be Nature's volume broad displayed i And to peruse its all-instructing page.

SUMMER. 61

Or, haply catching inspiration thence. Some easy passage raptui-ed 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, iiiiming uy) the heavens, the potent Sun IMelts into limpid air the high-raised clouds. And moniiiig togs, that hovered round the hills In pai-ticoloured bands 3 till wide unveiled The face of Nature shines, from where earth seems. Far-stretched around, to meet the bending si)liere.

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, disjjreading through the sky. With rapid sway, his burning intluence darts On man, and beast, and herb, and tepid stream.

Who can uniiitying see the flowery race. Shed by the Morn, their new-flushed bloom resign. Before the parching beam ? So fhric 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 j and, when he warm returns.

62 THE SEASONS.

Points her enamoured bosom to his ray.

Home, from his morning task, tlie swain retreats j His flock before him stepping to the fold : While the full-uddered mother lows around The checrfid cottage, then expecting food. The food of innocence and health. The daw. The rook, and magpie, to the grey-grown oaks That the calm village in their verdant aims Sheltering embrace, direct their lazy flight ; Where on the mingling boughs they sit embowered. All the hot noon, till cooler hours aiise. Faint, underneath, the household fowls convene j And, in a coi-ner of the buzzing shade. The house-dog, with the vacant greyhound, lies. Out-stretched and sleepy. In his slumbers one Attacks the nightly thief, and one exults O'er hill and dale j till, wakened by the wasp. They starting snap. Nor shall the muse disdain To let the little noisy summer-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.

Waked by his warmer ray, the reptile young Come winged abroad -, by the light air upborne. Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink.

SUMMER. 65

And secret corner, where they slept away

The wintry storms ; or rising- from their tombs.

To higher Ufe ; 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

By fatal instinct fl)- ; wliere on the pool

They spoilive wheel ; or, sailing down the stream.

Are snatched immecUate by the quick-eyed trout.

Or darting salmon. Through the gieehvvood glade

Some love to stray ; there lodged, amused, and ted.

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.

Employs their tender care. Some to the house.

The fold, and dairy, hungry, bend their flight j

Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese :

Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream

They meet their fatej or, weltering in the bowl.

With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.

But chief to heedless flies the window proves A constant death 3 whei-e, gloomily retired.

64 THE SEASONS.

The villain spider lives, cunning and fierce.

Mixture abhorred ! Amid a mangled heap

Of carcasses, in eager watch he sits,

O'erlooking all his waving snares around.

Near the dire cell the dreadless wanderer oft

Passes ; as oft the ruffian shows his front :

The prey at last ensnared, he dreadful darts.

With rapid glide, along the leaning line 5

And, fixing in the wretch his cruel fangs.

Strikes backward grimly pleased : the fluttering wing.

And shriller sound, declare extreme distress.

And ask the helping hospitable hand.

Resounds the living surface of the ground : Nor undelightful 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, fi'om these what numerous kinds descend. Evading even the microscopic eye ! Full Nature swarms with life ; one wondrous mass Of animals, or atoms organised. Waiting the vital breath, when parent Heaven Sliall bki his spirit blow. The hoary fen. In putrid steams, emits the living cloud

SUMMER. 65

Of pestilence. Through subterraneous cells. Where searching sun-beams 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. 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 hquid too, whether it pierces, soothes. Inflames, refreshes, or exalts the taste. With various forms abounds. Nor is tlic stream Of purest crystal, nor the lucid air. Though one transparent vacancy it seems. 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 nectaied bowl. He would abhorrent turn 3 and in dead night. When silence sleeps o'er all, be stunned with noise. Let no presuming impious railcr tax

T

66 THE SEASONS.

Creative Wisdom, as if aught were formed

In vain, or not for admirable ends.

Shall little hauglity Ignorance pronounce

His works unwise, of which the smallest part

Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind ?

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, vrith bhnd presumption bold.

Shall dare to tax the stmcture of the whole !

And lives the man, whose universal eye

Has swept at once the unbounded scheme of things:

Marked their dependence so, and firm accord.

As with unfaltering accent to conclude

That this availeth nought ? Has any seen

The mighty chain of beings, lessening down

From Infinite Perfection to the brink

Of dreary Nothing, desolate abyss.

From which astonished thought, recoiling, turns ?

Till then, alone let zealous praise ascend.

And hymns of holy wonder, to that Power

Whose wisdom shines as lovely on our minds,

As on our smiling eyes his servant-sun.

Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways. Upward, and downward, thwarting and convolved.

SUMMER.

The quivering nations sport j till, tempest-wing( d. Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day. Even so luxurious men, unheeding, pass An idle summer-life in fortune's shine, A season's glitter ! thus they flutter on From toy to toy, from vanity to vice; Till, lilown away by death, oblivion conies Behind, and strikes them from the book of life.

Now swarms the village o'er the joyful mead : The iTistic youth, brown with meridian toil. Healthful and strong j full as the summer- rose Blown by prevailing suns, the iTiddy maid. Half naked, swelling on the sight, and all Her kindled graces burning o'er her cheek. Even stooping age is herej and infant hands Trail the long rake, or, with the fragrant load O'ercharged, amid the kind oppression roll. Wide flies the tedded grain ; all in a row Advancing broad, or wheeling round the field. They spread their breathing harvest to the sun. That throws refreshful round a rural smell : Or, as they rake the green-appearing ground. And drive the dusky wave along the mead. The russet hay-cock rises thick behind. In order gay : while heard from dal-^ to dale.

68 THE SEASONS.

Waking the breeze, resounds the blended ^oice Of happy labour, love, and social glee.

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 in 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 woolly sides. And oft the swain. On some impatient seizing, hurls them in : Emboldened then, nor hesitating more. Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave. And panting labour to the farthest shore. Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece Has drunk the flood, and from his lively haunt Tlie trout is banished by the sordid stream j Heavy, and dripping, to the breezy bi-ow Slow move the harmless race : where, as they spread Their swelHng treasures to the sunny ray. Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints The country fill ; and, tossed from rock to rock;, Incessant bleatings run around the hills.

SUMMER. 69

At last, of sno\vy white, the gathered flocks Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed. Head above head : and ranged in lusty rows. The shepherds sit, and whet tlie sounding shears. The housewife waits to roll her fleecy stores. With all her gay-di-est maids attending roiuid. One, chief, in gracious dignity enthroned. Shines o'er the rest, the pastoral queen, and rays Her smiles, sweet- beaming, on her shepherd-king ; WTiile the glad circle round them yield their souls To festive mirth, and \\dt that knows no gall. Meantime, theii- joyous task goes on apace : Some mingling stir the melted tar, and some. Deep on the new-shorn vagrant's heaving side. To stamp his master's cipher ready stand : Others the unwilling wether drag along ; And glorying in liis might, the sturdy boy Holds by the twisted horns the indignant ram. Behold where bound, and of its robe bereft. By needy man, that aU-depending lord. How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies ! What softness in its melancholy face. What dumb complaining innocence, appears ! Fear not, ye gentle tribes, 'tis not the knife Of horrid slaughter that is o'er you waved ;

70 THE SEASONS.

No, 'tis the tender swain's well-guided shears. Who having now, to pay his annual care. Borrowed your fleece, to you a cumbrous load. Will send you bounding to your hills again.

A simple scene ! yet hence Britannia sees Her solid grandeur rise : hence she commands The exalted stores of every blighter clime. The treasures of the Sun without his rage : Hence, fervent all with cultui'e, toil, and arts. Wide glows her land : her dreadful thunder hence Rides o'er the waves sublime, and now,, even now. Impending hangs o'er Gallia's humbled coast ; Hence rules the circling deep, and awes the world.

'Tis raging noon ; and, vertical, the Sun Darts on the head direct his forceful i-ays. O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns ; and all From pole to pole is undistinguished blaze. In vain the sight, dejected, to the gTOund Stoops for relief 3 thence hot-ascending steams And keen reflection pain. Deep to the root Of vegetation parched, the cleaving fields And slippery lawn an arid hue disclose. Blast Fancy's bloom, and ^\■ither e\'en the soul. Echo no more retm'ns the cheerful sound

SUMMER. 71

Of sharpening scythe : the mower, sinking, heaps O'er him the hmnid hay, with flowers perfumed j And scarce a chirping grass-hopper is heard Through the dumb mead. Distressful Nature pants : The very streams look languid from afar ; Or, through the unsheltered glade, impatient seem To hurl into the covert of the grove.

All-conquering Heat, oh, intermit thy ^^'rath, And on my throbbing temples potent thus Beam not so fierce ! 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"j and hotter hours approach. Thrice happy he who on the sunless side Of a romantic mountain, forest-crowned. Beneath the whole collected shade i"eclines ; Or in the gelid caverns, woodbine-wiought. And fresh bedewed with ever-spouting streams. Sits coolly calm j while all the world without. Unsatisfied, and sick, tosses in noon ! Emblem instructive of the ^-iituous man. Who keeps his tempered mind serene and pure. And every passion aptly harmonised. Amid a jarring world with vice inflamed.

72 THE SEASONS.

Welcome^ ye shades ! ye bowery thickets, hail ! Ye lofty ])ines ! ye venei-able oaks ! Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep ! Delicious is your shelter to the soul. As to the hunted hart the salljing spring. Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides Laves, as he floats along the herbaged brink. Cool, through the nerves, your pleasing comfort glides ; The heart beats glad ; the fresh expanded eye And ear resume their watch ; the sinews knit j And life shoots swift through all the lightened limbs.

Around the adjoining brook, that purls along The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock. Now scarcely mo\ ing through a reedy jjooI, Now stalling 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 j while others stand Half in the flood, and often bending sip The circling surface. In the middle droops The strong laborious ox, of honest front. Which incomposed he shakes ; and from his sides The troublous insects lashes with his tail. Returning still. Amid his subjects safe.

SUMMER. 73

Slumbers the mouarcli swain ; his careless arm Thi'own round his head^ on downy mois sustained ; Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands filled} There, listening eveiy noise, his watchful dog.

Light fly his slumbers, if perchance a flight Of angry gad-flies fasten on the herd j That startling scatters from the shallow brook. In search of lavish stream. Tossing the foam. They scorn the keeper's voice, and scour the plain, Tlu'ough all the bright severity of noon ; While, from their labouring breasts, a hollow moan Proceeding, inns low-bellowing round the hills.

Oft in this season too the horse, pro\"okod. While his big sinews full of spirits swell. Trembling \vith vigour, in the heat of blood. Springs the high fence ; and, o'er the field effused. Darts on the gloomy flood, with steadfast eye. And heait estranged to fear : his nervous chest. Luxuriant and erect, tlie seat of strengt h. Bears down the opposing stream : quenchless his thirst ; He takes the river at redoubled draughts j And with wide nostrils, snorting, skims the wave.

Still let me pierce into the midnight depth Of yonder grove, of wildest, largest growl h ; riiat forming high in ail* a woodland choir.

74 THE SEASONS.

Nods o'er the mount beneath. At every step. Solemn and slow, the shadows blacker fall. And all is awful listening gloom around.

These are the haunts of Meditation, tliese The scenes where ancient bards the inspiring breath Ecstatic felt ; and, from this world retired. Conversed with angels, and immortal forms. On gracious errands 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 j 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 ; And numberless such offices of love. Daily and nightly, zealous to perform.

Shook sudden from the bosom of the sky, A thousand shapes or glide athwart the dusk. Or stalk majestic on. Deep-roused, I feel A sacred terror, a severe dehght. Creep through my mortal frame ; and thus, methinks, A voice, than human more, the abstracted ear

SUMMER. 75

Of fancy strikes : " Be not of us afraid. Poor kindred man ! 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. Where purity and peace immingle cliarnis. 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 arc in full concert heard. And voices chanting from the wood-crowned hill. The deepening dale, or inmost sylvan glade : A privilege bestowed by us, alone On Contemplation, or the hallowed ear Of poet, swelling to seraphic strain."

And art thou, Stanley*, of that sacred hand ? Alas, for us too soon ! though raised aljove The reach of human pain, above the flight

• A young lady, well known to tlic aiitlior, who did at tlic age of (ii;Iitcen, in the year 1738.

76 THE SEASONS.

Of human joy; yet, with a mingled ray Of sadly pleased remembrance, must thou feel A mother's love, a mother's tender woe ; Who seel^ thee still, in many a former scene ; Seeks thy fair fomi, thy lovely-beaming eyes. Thy pleasing 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 ! 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 mind and gentle worth. Believe the muse : the wintry blast of death Kills not the buds of virtue ; no, they sj)read. Beneath the heavenly beam of bnghter suns. Through endless ages, into higher powers.

Thus up the mount, in aiiy vision rapt, I stray, regardless whither ; till the sound Of a near fall of water every sense Wakes from the charm of thought: swift-shrinki

back, I check my steps, and view the broken scene.

Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood

SUMMER. 77

Rolls fail*, and placid ; where collected all^ In one impetuous torrent, down the steep It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round. At first an azui'e sheet, it mshes 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 hoarj' mist, and forms a ceaseless shower. Nor can the tortured wave here find repose : But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks. Now flashes o'er the scattered fragments, now Aslant the hollow 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 li\st. Along the mazes of the quiet vale.

In\ itcd from the cliff, to whose dark brow He clings, the steep-ascending eagle soars. With upward pinions, through the flood of day ; And, giving full his bosom to the blaze. Gains on the sun; while all the tuneful race, Smit by the afflictive noon, disordered droop, Deep in the thicket ; or, from bower to bower Responsive, force an interrupted strain. The stock-dove onlv tlirou^h the forest coos.

7S THE SEASONS.

Mournfully hoarse ; oft Ceasing from its plaint.

Short interval of weary woe ! again

The sad idea of his murdered mate.

Struck fi'om his side by savage fowler's guile.

Across his fancy comes ; and then resounds

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, giotcsque and wild. An ample chair, moss-lined, and over head By flowering umbrage shaded ; where the Ijee Strays diligent, and with the extracted bahn Of fragrant woodbine loads his Uttle thigh.

Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade. While Nature lies around deep-lulled in noon. Now come, bold Fancy, spread a daring fliglit. And view the wonders of the torrid zone : Climes unrelenting ! with whose rage compared. Yon blaze is feeble, and yon skies are cool.

See, how at once the bright eiFulgent 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 send; Issuing from out the portals of the morn.

SUMMER. 79

The general breeze*, to mitigate his fire.

And breathe refreshment on a fainting world.

Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crowned

And barbarous wealth, that see, each circling year.

Returning suns and double seasons f 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 woods, of every vigorous green.

Stage above stage, high waving o'er the hills ;

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 gloom. Here, in eternal prime.

Unnumbered fruits of keen delicious taste

• Which blows constantly bctwcon the tropics fVoni llic cast, or the collateral points, the north-east ajid south-east : caused by the pressure of the rarefied air on that before it, according to the diurnal motion of the sun from east to west.

t In all cUmates between the tropics, the sun, as he passes and repasses in his annual motion, is twice a ycai- vertical, which pro- duces this effect.

80 THE SEASONS.

And vital spirit, diink amid the cliffs.

And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales.

Redoubled day, yet in their nigged 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, Quench my hot limbs j or lead me through the maze. Embowering endless, of the Indian fig ; Or thrown at gayer ease, on some fair brow. Let me behold, by breezy mui-murs cooled. Broad o'er my head the verdant cedar wave. And high palmettos lift their graceful shade. Oh, 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 Which Bacchus pours ! Nor, on its slender twigs Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scorned ; Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race Of benies. Oft in humble station dwells

SUMMER. 81

Unboastful worth, abu\e fiiatidious 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. And A ast savannas, w here the wandering eye, Unfixt, is in a verdant ocean lost. Another Flora there, of bolder hues. And richer sweets, beyond our gardens' pride. Plays o'er the fields, and showers with sudden hand Exuberant spring : for oft these valleys shift Their green- embroidered robe to fiery brown. And swift to green again, as scorching suns. Or streaming dews and torrent rains, prevail.

Along these lonely regions, where, retiied From little scenes of art, gi-eat Nature dwells In awfid solitude, and nought is seen But the wild herds that own no master's stall. Prodigious rivers roll their fattening seas : On whose luxuriant herbage, half- concealed Like a fallen cedar, far dift'used his«tiiiin, Cased in green scales, the crocodile extent!;.

82 THE SEASONS.

The flood disparts : behold, in plaited mail. Behemoth* rears his head. Glanced from his side. The darted steel in idle shivers flies : He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills ; Where as he crops the varied fare, the lieids. 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 ; Leans the huge elephant, wisest of brutes. O truly wise ! with gentle might endowed. Though poweifiil, not destructive. Here he sees Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth. And empires rise and fall ; regardless he Of what the never-resting 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, The pride of kings; or else his strength pervert. And bid him rage amid the mortal fray. Astonished at the madness of mankind. * The hippopotamus, or river-horsa-

SUMMER. S.'i

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 plumy 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*. Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent Proud Montezuma's realm, whose legions cast A boundless radiance waving on the sun. While Pliilomel 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 w ide expanse of lifeless sand and sky : And swifter than the toiling caravan. Shoot o'er the vale of Sennar ; ardent climb The Nubian mountains, and the secret bounds Of jealous Abyssinia boldly pierce. Thou art no ruffian, who beneath the mask Of social commerce comest to rob their w oalth :

• In all the regions of tlie torrid zone, the hirtis, tliou;.'li more beautiful in their phmiage, are observed to be loss melodious than oiirs.

64 THE SEASONS.

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 harmless bee, mayest freely range. From mead to mead bright with exalted flowers. From jasmine grove to grove mayest wander gay. Through palmy shades and aromatic woods. 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 j or on stupendous rocks. That from the sun-redoubling valley lift. Cool to the middle air, their lawny tops ; Where palaces, and fanes, and villas, rise ; And gardens smile around, and cultured fields ; And fountains gush ; and careless herds and flocks Securely stray 5 a world within itself. Disdaining all assault : there let me draw Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales. Profusely breathing from the spicy groves, And vales of fragrance : there at distance hear I'he roaring floods, and cataracts that sweep From disembowelled Earth the vii-gin gold ; And o'er the varied landscape, restless, rove.

SUMMER. 85

Fervent with life of every fairer kind : A land of wonders ! which the vSun 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. 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 Dissolved, the whole precipitated mass Unbroken floods and sohd torrents pours.

The treasures these, hid from the bounded search Of ancient knowledge, whence, with annual pomp.

86 THE SEASONS.

Rich king of floodsj o'erflows the swelling Nile.

From his two springs, in Gojam's sunny realm,

Fure-welling out, he through the lucid lake

Of fair Dambca rolls his infant stream.

There, by the naiads nursed, he sj)orts away

His playful youth, amid the fragrant isles

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.

His brother Niger too, and all the floods In which the full-formed maids of Afric lave Their jetty limbs ; and all that from the tract Of woody mountains stretched through gorgeous Ind Fall on Cormandcl's coast, or Malabar ; From Menam's* orient stream, that nightly shines

* Tlie river that nins through Siam ; on whose banks a vast number of those insects called fire-tties make a beautiful appear- ance in the nirlit.

SUMMER. 87

With insect-lamps, to where Aurora sheds On Indus' smiling banks the rosy sliower; All, at this bounteous season, ope their urns. 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 Rolls a brown deluge ; and the native drives To dwell aloft on hfe-sufficing trees. At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms. Swelled by a thousand streams, impetuous hurled From aU the roaring Andes, huge descends The mighty Orellana*. Scarce the muse Dares stretch her wing o'er this enormous mass Of rushing water : scarce she dares attempt The sea-like Plata ; to whose dread expanse. Continuous depth, and wondrous length of course. Our floods are rills. With unabated force. In silent dignity they sweep along. And traverse realms unknown, and blooming wilds. And fruitful deserts, worlds of solitude. Where the Sun smiles and Seasons teem in vain. Unseen and unenjoyed. Forsaking these. O'er peopled plains they far-diflfusive flow, • The river of the Amazons.

S8 THE SEASONS.

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 Europe's cruel sons. Thus pouring on, they proudly seek the deep. Whose vanquished tide, recoiling from the shock. Yields to this liquid weight of half the globe ; And Ocean trembles for his green domain.

But what avails this wondrous \\'aste of wealtli. This gay profusion of luxurious bliss. This pomp of Nature ? what their balmy meads^ Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain ? By vagrant birds dispersed, and wafting winds. What their unplanted fniits ? what the cool draughts. The ambrosial food, i-ich 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, Golconda's gems, and sad Potosi's mines ; Where dwelt the gentlest children of the Sun ! What all that Afric's golden rivers roll. Her odorous woods, and shining ivory stores ? Ill-fated race ! the softening arts of peace, W^hate'er the humanising muses teach ;

SUMMER. 89

The godlike wisdom of the tempered breast ; Progressive truth, tlie patient force of thought ; Investigation cahn, whose silent powers Command the world ; the Light that leads to heaven ; Kind equal rule, the government of laws. 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. Their fervid spirit fires. Love dwells not there ; The soft regards, the tenderness of life. The heart-shed tear, the ineffable delight 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 ! the green sci-jjent, from liis dark abode. Which even Imagination fears to tread. At noon forth issuing, gathers up his train In orbs immense ; then, darting out anew.

90 THE SEASONS.

Seeks the refreshing fount ; by which diffused.

He throws his folds 3 and while with threatening tongue.

And deathful jaws erect, the monster curls

His flaming crest, aU other thirst appalled.

Or shivering flies, or checked at distance stands.

Nor dares approach. But still more direful he.

The small close-lurking minister of Fate,

Whose high-concocted venom through the veins

A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift

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 3

The lively-shining leopard, speckled o'er

With many a spot, the beauty of the waste ;

And, scorning all the taming arts of man.

The keen hyena, fellest of the fell ;

These, rushing from the inhospitable woods

Of Mauritania, or the tufty isles

That verdant rise amid the Libyan wild,

Innumerous glare around their shaggy king.

Majestic, stalking o'er the printed sand ;

SUMMER. 91

And, with imperious and repeated roars, Demand tlieir fated fot;d. The fearful flocks Crowd near the guardian swain ; the nobler herds, Where, round their lordly bull, in rural ease They ruminating lie, with horror hear The coming rage. The 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. The 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 first of joys. Society, cut off, is left alone Amid t his world of death. Day after day. Sad on the jutting eminence he sits. And views the main that ever toils below ) Still fondly fonaaing in the farthest verge. Where the round ether mixes with the wave. Ships, dim-discovered, dropping from the clouds. At evening, to the setting 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. Yet here, even here, into these black abodes

92 THE SEASONS.

Of monsters, unappalled, from stooping Rome, And guilty Caesar, Liberty retired, Her Cato 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 robber's boon. Nor stop the terrors of these regions here. Commissioned demons oft, angels of \vi'ath. 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 tlie pilgrim smites With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil. Son of the Desert, even the camel feels. Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blast. Or from the black-red ether, bui'sting broad. Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands, Commoved around, in gathering eddies play : Nearer and nearer still 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. Beneath descending hills, the caravan

SUMMER. 93

Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets

The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain.

And Mecca saddens at the long delay.

But chief at sea, whose every flexile wave Obeys the blast, the aerial tumult swells. In the dread ocean, undulating wide. Beneath the radiant line that gu'ts 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 spcckf Compressed, the mighty Tempest brooding dwells : Of no regard, save to the skilful eye. Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs 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.

* Typhon and Ecnephia, names of particular storms or hun i- canes, kD0^vn only between the tropics.

t Called by sailors the ox-eye. being in appearance at fust no bigger.

94 THE SEASONS.

Art is too slow : by rapid Fate oppressed.

His broad-winged vessel drinks the whelming tide.

Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.

With such mad seas the daring Gama* fought

For many a day, and many a dreadful niglit,

Incessant labouring 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 princef ; who, heaven-inspired.

To love of useful glory roused mankind.

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 scent Of steaming crowds, of rank disease and death. Behold, he i-ushing cuts the briny flood,

• Vasco de Gama, flie first who sailed round Africa, by the Cape of Good Hope, to the East Indies,

t Don Henry, third son to John the First, kins; of Portup;al. His stronsT ^cn'i's to the discover},' of new countries was the chief source of all the modern inipiovenieuLs in navigation.

SUMMER. 95

Swift as the gale can bear the ship along ; And from the partners of that cruel trade Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons. Demands his share of prey ; demands themselves. The stormy Fate descend : one death involves Tyrants and s]a^•es ; when straight, their mangled limbs Crashing at once, he dyes 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 Ufe ferments. And breathes destnictive myriads ; or from woods. Impenetrable shades, recesses foul. In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt. Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot Has ever dared to pierce 3 then, wasteful, forth Walks the dire Power of pestilent disease. A thousand hideous fiends her course attend. Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless woe. And feeble desolation, casting down The towering hopes and all the pride of man. Such as, of late, at Carthagena quenched The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw The miserable scene ; you, pitying, saw

96 THE SEASONS.

To infant weakness sunk the warrior's arm j Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form. The lip pale-quivering, and the beaniless 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. Silent, to ask, whom Fate would next demand. What need I mention those inclement skies 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, and fetid fields With locust-armies putrefying heaped. This great destroyer sprung*. Her awful rage The brutes escape : man is her destined prey. Intemperate man ; and o'er his guilty domes 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, suflVised Of angry aspect. Princely Wisdom then

• Those are the causes supposed to be the first origin of the plague, in Dr. Mead's elegant book on that sulycct.

SUMMER. 9/

Dejects his watcliful 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 verdure clad j

Into the 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 w ild, breaks loose ; and loud to heaven

Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns.

Inhuman and unwise. The sullen door.

Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge

Fearing to turn, abhors society :

Dependants, friends, relations. Love himself;,

Savaged by woe, 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, stnick by turns, in solitary pang-s

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,

9S THE SEASONS.

And give the flying wretch a better death.

Much yet remains unsung : the rage intense Of brazcn-vaultcd skies, of iron fields, Where drought and famine starve the blasted year Fired by the torch of noon to tenfold rage. The infuriate hill that shoots the pillai-ed flame ; And roused within the subterranean world. The expanding earthquake, that resistless shakes Aspiring cities from their solid base. And buries mountains in the flaming gulf. 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. Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day. With various-tinctured trains of latent flattie Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud, A reddening 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 ealm below.

SUMMER. 99

They furious spiing. A boding silence reigns. Dread through the dun expanse; save tlie 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. Prone, to the lowest vale, the aerial ti'ibcs 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 dowhward cave.

'Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement, all : Wlien to the startled eye the sudden glance Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud ; And following slower, in explosion vast. The Thunder raises his tremendous voice. At fir?t, heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven. The tempest growls ; but as it nearer comes. And aoUs its awful burden on the wind. The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more The noise astounds : till over head a sheet Of livid flame discloses wide ; then shuts. And opens %vider; shuts and opens still Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.

100 THE SEASONS.

Follows the loosened aggravated roar. Enlarging, deepening, mingling j 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. The unconquerable lightning struggles through. Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls. And fires the mountain with redoubled rage. Black from the stroke, above, the smouldering pine Stands a sad shattered trunk ; and stretched below, A lifeless group, the blasted cattle lie : Here the soft flocks, with that same hai-mless look They wore alive, and ruminating still In fancy's eye ; and there the frowning bull. And 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 trembUng inmates shake. Amid Caernarvon's mountains rages loud The repercussive roar : with mighty crush. Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks Of Penmanmaur heaped hideous to the sky. Tumble the smitten cliffs ; and Snowdeu's peak.

SUMMER. 101

Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load. Far-seen, the heiglits 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 matclUess 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 ladiance 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. The enchanting hope, and sympathetic glow. Beamed from the mutual eye. Devoting all To love, each was to each a dearer self ; Supremely happy in the 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 unixiflBedi till, in evil hour.

102 THE SEASONS.

The tempest caught them on the tender walk. Heedless how far, and where, its mazes strayed. While, with each other blest, creative Love Still bade eternal Eden smile aroujid. Presaging instant fate, her bosom heaved UnvkOnted 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 In Heaven, repressed her fear ; it grew, and shook Her fi'ame near dissolution. He perceived The unequal conflict j and, as angels look On dying saints, his eyes compassion shed. With love illumined high. " Fear not," he said, " Sweet innocence ; thou stranger to offence. And 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 the undreaded hour Of noon, flies harmless ; and that very voice Which thunders teiTor 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 en^.brace. Mysterious Heaven ! that moment, to the ground,

SUMMER. 103

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 woe ! So, faint resemblance, on the marble tomb The well-dissembled mourner stooping stands. For ever silent, and for ever sad.

As from the fece of heaven the shattered clouds Tumultuous rove, the 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 abimdant by the yellow ray. Invests the fields j 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 ? Shall he, so soon forgetful of the hand That hushed the thunder, and serenes the sky. Extinguished feel that spark the tempest waked.

104 THE SEASONS.

That sense of powers exceeding far his own. Ere yet his feeble heart has lost its fears ?

Cheered by the milder beam, the sprightly youth Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth A sandy bottom shews. Awhile he stands Gazing the inverted landscape, half afraid To meditate the blue profound below j Then plunges headlong down the circling flood. His ebon tresses and his rosy cheek Instant emerge ; and through the obedient wave. At each short breathing by his lip repelled. With arms and legs according well, he makes. As humour leads, an easy winding path ; While 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 j Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood. Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink. Thus life redoubles j and is oft preserved. By the bold swimmer, in the swift illapse Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs Knit into force j and the same Roman arm That rose victorious o'er the conquered earth. First learned, while tender, to subdue the wave.

SUMMER. 105

Even, from the body's purity, the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid.

Close in the covert of a hazel copse. Where winding into pleasing solitudes Runs out the rambling dale, young Damon sat. 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. The soft return concealed j save when it stole In sidelong glances from her downcast eye. Or fi-om her swelling soul in stifled sighs. Touched by the scene, no stranger to his vows. He fi-amed 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! conducted by the laughing Loves, This cool retreat his Musidora sought : \A'arm in her cheek the sultry season glowed ; And, robed in loose array, she came to bathe

106 THE SEASONS.

Her fervent limbs 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 The banks surveying, 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. Than, Damon, thou ; as from the snowy leg. And slender foot, the inverted silk she drew ; As the soft touch dissolved the virgin zone ; And through the parting robe the 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.

SUMMER. 107

In folds loose-floating, fell the fainter lawn ;

And fair-exposed she stood, shrunk from herself,

^V'ith fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze

Alarmed, and starting like the fearful fawn ?

Then to the, flood she rushed ; the parted flood

Its lovely guest with closing waves received ;

And, every beauty softening, eveiy grace

Flushing anew, a mellow lustre shed :

As shines the lily through the crystal mild ;

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 veil.

Rising again j the latent Damon drew

Such maddening draughts of beauty to the soul.

As for a while o'erwhelmed his raptured tiiought

With luxury too daring. Checked, at la^t.

By love's respectful modesty, he deemed

The theft profane, if aught profane to love

Can e'er be deemed ; and, struggling, from the shade

With headlong huny fled : but first these lines.

Traced by his ready pencil, on the bank

With trembling hand he threw: " Bathe on, my fair.

Yet uiibehcld save by the sacred eye

lOS THE SEASONS.

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 find those robes Which blissful Eden knew not ; and, arrayed In careless haste, the alarming paper snatched. But when her Damon's well-known hand she saw. Her terrors vanished, and a softer train Of mixed 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 j even a sense Of self-approving beauty stole across Her busy thought. At length, a tender calm Hushed by degrees the tumult of her soul ; And on the spreading beech, that o'er the stream Incumbent hung, she with the sylvan pen Of rural lovers this confession carved, * The Venus of Medicis.

SUMMER. 109

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 ! not favoured less, be still as now Discreet; the time may come you need not fly." The Sun has lost his rage : his downward orb Shoots nothing now but anuuating warmth. And vital lustre ; that, with various ray. Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of heaven, Inc&ssant 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 : for him who lonely loves To seek the distant hills, and there converse With Nature j there to harmonize his heart, And in pathetic song to breathe araund The harmony to others. Social ft'iends. Attuned to happy unison of soul ; To whose exalting eye a fairer world. Of which the vule^ar never had a glin)pse. Displays its charms j whose minds are nchlv fraught With philosophic stores, superior light ; And in wliose brea'^t, eiilliusiastic, burn?

110 THE SEASONS.

Virtue, the sons of Interest deem romance ;

Now called abroad, enjoy the falling day :

Now to the verdant Portico of woods.

To Nature's vast Lyceum, forth they w alk ;

Ey that kind School where no proud niivater reigns.

The full free converse of the friendly heart.

Improving and improved. Now fi'om the world.

Sacred to sweet retirement, lovers steal.

And pom* their souls in transport, which the Siie

Of love approving hears, and calls it good.

Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course ?

The choice perplexes. Wherefore should wc choose ?

All is the same with thee. Say, shall we wind

Along the stream ? or walk the smiling mead ?

Or court the forest-glade ? or wander uild

Among the waving harvest ? or ascend.

While radiant Summer opens all its p]idc,

Thy hill, delightful Shene* ? Here let us sweep

The boundless landscape : now the rajjtured eye.

Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send.

Now to the sister-hillsf that skirt her plain.

To lofty Harrow now, and now to v\hcre

• The old nanu! of Richinoiul, signifyiii'j in Saxou sliining, or splf>iulor.

t Highgate and Hampstcad.

SUMMER. HI

Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow. In lovely contrast to this glorious view, Calnily magnificent, then will we turn To where the siber Thames first rural grows. There let the feasted eye unwearied stray : Luxurious, there, rove through 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. The worthy Queensbury 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 Twitnam'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 By the soft windings of the silent Mole, From courts and senates Pelham finds lepose. Enchanting vale, beyond whate'er the niu-.o Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung ! O vale of bliss! O softly-swelHng hills. On which the Power of cultivation lies, ♦ In his la'^t sicknts?.

112 THE SEASONS.

And joys to see the wonders of his toil !

Heavens ! what a goodly prospect spreads around. Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires. And glittering towns, and gilded streams, tiU all The stretching landscape into smoke decays ! Happy Britannia ! where the queen of arts. Inspiring vigour, Liberty, abroad Walks, unconfined, even to thy farthest cots. And scatters plenty with unsparing hand.

Rich 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 Iheir sides^ Bellow the blackening herds in lusty di-oves. Beneath, thy meadows glow, and rise unquelled Against the mower's scythe. On eveiy 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 eveiy busy street. Mingling, are heard : even Drudgery himself, As at the car he sweats, or dusty hews The palace-stone, looks gay. Thy crowded ports.

SUMMER. 1

Where rising masts an endless prospect yield, With labour burn, and echo to the shouts Of hurried sailor, as he liearty waves His last adieu, and, loosening every sheet. Resigns the spreading vessel to the wind.

Bold, finn, and graceful, are thy generous youth. By hardship sinewed, and by danger fired. Scattering the nations where they go ; and first Or on the listed plain, or stormy seas. Mild are thy glories too, as o'er the plans Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside : In genius and substantial learning high ; For every virtue, every worth, renowned j Sincere, plain-hearted, hospitable, kind j Yet, like the mustering thunder, when provoked, Tlic dread of tyrants, and the sole resource Of those that under grim Oppression groan.

Thy sons of Glory many. Alfred thine. In whom the splendor of heroic war. And more heroic peace when governed well. Combine ; whose hallowed name the Virtues saint. And his own muses love ; the best of kings. With him thy Edwards and thy Henries shine. Names dear to Fame ; the first who deep impressed On haughty Gaul the terror of thy ai-ms.

Hi THE SEASONS.

That awes her Genius still. In statesmen tliou.

And patriots, fertile. Thine a steady More,

Who, with a generous though unshaken zeal.

Withstood a brutal tyrant's useful rage :

Like Cato firm, like Aristides just.

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 ;

Raleigh, the scourge of Spain ; whose breast with all

The sage, the patriot, and the hero, burned.

Nor sunk his vigour when a coward reign

The warrior fettered, and at last resigned.

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.

SUMMER. 115

The plume of war ; with eaiiy laurels crouned. The lover's myrtle, and the poet's bay.

A Hampden too is thine, illustrious land. Wise, strenuous, firm, of unsubmitting soul. Who stemmed the torrent of a downward age. To sla^'ery prone, and bade thee rise again. In all thy native pomp of freedom bold. Bright, at his call, the 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 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 inglorious luxury. With him His friend, the British Cassius*, fearless bled ; Of high- determined spirit, roughly brave. By ancient learning to the enlightened love Of ancient freedom warmed. Fair thy renown In awful sages and in noble bards ; Soon as the light of dawning Science spread Her orient ray, and waked the muses' song. Thine is a Bacon, hapless in his choice j • Algemou Sidney.

116 THE SEASONS.

Unfit to stand the civil storm of state.

And through the smooth barbarity of courts.

With firm but phant 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,

Plato, the Stagyrite, and TuUy, joined.

The great deliverer he ; who from the gloom

Of cloistered monks, and jargon-teaching schools.

Led forth the true Philosophy, there long

Held in the magic chains 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.

The generous Ashley* thine, the friend of man j

Who scanned his nature with a biother's eye.

His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim.

To touch the finer movements of the mind.

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 ? And why thy Locke,

Who made the whole internal world liis own ?

* Antony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury.

SUMMER. 117

Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God To mortals lent, to trace His boundless works 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 } Is not each great, each amiable muse Of classic ages, in thy Milton met ? A genius univei-sal as his theme ; Astonishing as Chaos, as the bloom Of blowing Eden fair, as Heaven sublime. Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget. The gentle Spenser, Fancy's pleasing son ; Who, like a copious river, poured his song O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground : Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage, Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse. Well-moralised, 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. The feeling heart, simplicity of life. And elegance, and taste : the faultless form, Shaped by the hand of Harmony j the cheek.

lis THE SEASONS.

Where the live crimson, through the native white Soft-shooting, o'er tlie face diffuses bloom. And every nameless grace j the parted li{). Like the red rose-bud moist with morning dew. Breathing delight ; and under flowing jet. Or sunny ringlets, or of circling brown. The neck slight-shaded, and the swelling breast ; The look resistless, piercing to the soul. And by the Soul informed, when drest in love She sits high-smiling in the conscious eye.

Island of bliss ! amid the subject seas. That thunder round thy rocky coast, set up. At once the wonder, terror, and delight. Of distant nations ; whose remotest shores 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,

O Thou by whose almighty nod the scale Of empire rises, or alternate falls. Send forth the saving Virtues round the land. In bright patrol • white 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,

SUMMER. 110

Healthful in heart and look ; clear Chastity, With blushes reddening as she moves along. Disordered at the deep regard she draws ; Rough Industry ; Activity untired, With copious life informed, and all awake ; While, in the radiant front, superior shines That first paternal virtue. Public Zeal ; Wlio throws o'er all an equal wide survey. And, ever musing on the common weal. Still laboui-s glorious with some great design.

Low walks the Sun, and broadens by degrees. Just o'er the verge of day. Tiie shifting Clouds Assembled gay, a richly-gorgeous train. In all their pomp attend his setting throne. Air, earth, and ocean, smile immense. And now. As if his weaiy chariot sought the boweis Of Amphitrite and her tending nymplis, (So Grecian fable sung,) he dips his orb; Now half immersed ; anrf now, a golden curve. Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.

For ever running an enchanted round, Passes the day, deceitful, vain, and void ; As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain, Tliis moment hurrying wild the impassioned soul. The next in nothing lost. 'Tis so to him.

120 THE SEASONS.

The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank ;

A sight of horror to the cmel 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

That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy.

Diffusing kind beneficence around,

Boastless, as now descends the silent dew j

To bun 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 aii- ; A thousand shadows at her beck. First this She sends on earth 3 then that of deeper dye Steals soft behind ; and then a deeper stiU, 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 gusts the fields of corn j Wliile the quail clamours for his running mate. Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze, A whitening shower of vegetable down

SUMMER. 121

Amusive floats. The kind impartial care Of Nature nought disdains : thoughtful to feed Her lowest sons, and clothe the coining year. From field to field the featheied seeds she wings.

His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies, merry-hearted ; and by turns relieves The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail j The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart. Unknowing what the joy-mixed anguish means. Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances and obliging deeds. Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height. And valley sunk, and unfrequented ; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng. In various game and revelry to pass The summer-night, as village-stories tell. But far about they wander from the graxe Of him whom his ungentle fortune urged. Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower Is also shunned, whose mournful chambers hold (So night-struck Fancy dreams) the yelling ghost.

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge. The glow-worm lights his gem ; and through the dark A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yield*

122 THE SEASONS.

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 the imperfect surfaces of things.

Flings half an image on the straining eye ;

While wavering woods, and villages, and streams.

And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retained

The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene.

Uncertain if beheld. Sudden to heaven

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.

As thus the effulgence tremulous I drink

With cherished gaze, the lambent lightnings shoot

Across the sky ; or horizontal dart

In wondrous shapes ; by fearful murmuring crowds

Portentous deemed. Amid the radiant orbs

That more than deck, that animate the sky.

The life-infusing suns 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 sliadins earth.

SUMMER. 123

With awful train projected o'er the heavens.

The guilty nations tremble. But, above

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

Di^•incly great ; they in their povpers exult.

That wondrous force of thought which mounting spurns

This dusky spot, and measures all the sky :

While, from his far excursion through the wilds

Of barren ether, faithful to his time.

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 vapouiy train perhaps to shake

Reviving moistui'e on the numerous orbs

Through which his long ellipsis winds ; perhaps

To lend new fuel to declining suns.

To light up worlds, and feed the eternal fire.

With thee, serene Philosophy, with thee. And thy bright garland, let me crown my song ; Effusive source of evidence, and truth : A lustre shedding o'er tlie ennobled mind. Stronger than summer-noon ; and pure as that

121 THE SEASONS.

Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted Soul,

New to the dawning of celestial day.

Hence through her nourished powers, enlai'ged by thee.

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.

Where all is calm and clear; with nature round.

Or in the starry regions, or the abyss.

To Reason's and to Fancy's eye displayed :

The fiist up-tracing, from the di'cary 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

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. Never to die 3 the treasure of mankind. Their highest honour, and their truest joy.

Without thee, what were unenlightened man > A savage, roaming through the woods and wilds

SUMMER. 125

In quest of prey j and with the unfashioned fur

Rough-clad ; devoid of every finer art.

And elegance of life. Nor liappiness

Domestic^ mixtd 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 heaven-conducted prow

Of Na\ igation bold, that fearless braves

The burning line, or dares the wintry pole ;

Mother severe of infinite delights.

Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile.

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 j

To live like brothers, and conjunctive all

Embellish life. While thus laborious crowds

Ply the tough oar. Philosophy directs

The niling helm ; or, Uke the liberal breath

Of potent Heaven, invisible, the sail ■

Swells out, and bears the inferior world along.

Nor to this evanescent speck of earth Poorly confined, the radiant tracts on high Are her exalted range 3 intent to gaze

126 THE SEASOxNS,

Creation through ; and from that full complex Of never-ending wonders, to conceive Of the Sole Being right, who spoke the word. And Nature moved complete. With inWard view. Thence on the ideal kingdom swift she turns Her eye ; and instant, at her powerful glance. The obedient phantoms vanish or appear ; Compound, divide, and into order shift. Each to his rank j from plain perception, up To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train : To Reason then, deducing tmth from tmth ; And notion quite abstract j 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. 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.

THE SEASONS.

AUTUMN.

THE ARGUMENT.

Tlie Subject proposed. Addressed to Mr. Onslow. A prospect of the fields ready for Harvest. Reflections in praise of In- dustry, raised by that view. Reaping. A Tale relative to it. A harvest Storm. Sliooting and Hunting ; their barbarity. A ludicrous account of Fox-hunting. A vieve of an Orchard. Wall-fruit. A Vineyard. A description of Fogs, frequent in the latter part of Autumn ; whence a digression, inquiring into the rise of fountains and rivers. Buds 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 country. A prospect of the discoloured, fading woods. After a gentle dusky day, Moon-light. Autum- nal Meteors. Momuig : to which succeeds a calm, pure, sun- shiny day, such as usually shuts up the season. The harvest l^eing gathered in, the countiy dissolved in Joy. The whole concludes with a panegyric on a philosophical Country-life.

AUTUMN.

OROWNED with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf, WTiile Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain. Comes jovial on ; the Doric reed once more. Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost Nitrous prejjared, the various-blossomed Spring Put in white promise forth, and Summer suns Concocted strong, loish boundless now to view. Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme. Onslow ! the muse, ambitious of thy name. To grace, inspire, and dignify her song. Would from the public voice thy gentle ear Awhile engage. Thy noble cares she knows. The patriot virtues that distend thy thought. Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glowj While listening senates hang upon thy tongvic. Devolving through the maze of eloquence A roll of periods sweeter than her song. But she too pants for public virtue ; she,

K

130 THE SEASONS.

Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will. Whene'er her country rushes on her heart. Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.

When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days. And Libra weighs in equal scales the year j From heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook Of parting Summer, a serener blue. With golden light enlivened, wide invests The happy woi-ld. Attempered Suns arise. Sweet-beamed, and shedding oft through lucid clouds A pleasing calm j while broad, and brown, below 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 j 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 different ; and the sudden Sun By fits effulgent gilds the illumined field. And black by fits the shadows sweep along. A gaUy-chequered, heart-expanding view. Far as the circling eye can shoot around. Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.

These are thy blessings. Industry, rough power !

AUTUMN. 131

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 \v00d3 And wilds, to rude inclement elements ; With vaiious seeds of art deep in the mind Implanted, and profusely poured around l\Iaterials infinite ; but idle all. Still unexerted, in the 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-mfeal Fought the fierce tusky boar ; a shivering wretch. Aghast, and comfortless, when the bleak north. 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.

132 THE SEASONS.

But this the rugged savage never felt, Evea desolate in crowds ; and thus his days Rolled hea^y, dark, and unenjoyed, along, A waste of time : till Industry approached. And roused him from his miserable sloth 5 His faculties unfolded ; pointed out. Where lavish Nature the directing hand Of Art demanded ; shewed him how to raise His feeble force by the mechanic powers j 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} 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 j Tore from his limbs the blood-polluted fur. And wTapt 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 w-ake The life-refining soul of decent wit : Nor stopped at barren bare necessity ; But, still advancing bolder, led him on To pomp, to pleasure, elegance, and grace j And, breathing high ambition through his soul.

AUTUMN. 133

Set science, wisdom, glory, in his view. And bade him be the lord of all below.

Then gathering men their natural powers combined. And formed a Public ; to the general good Submitting, aiming, and conducting, all. For this the patriot- council met, the full, The free, the feirly represented whole ; 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 toihng millions must resign their weal. And all the honey of their search, to such As for themselves alone themselves have raised.

Hence every form of cultivated life In order set, protected, and inspired. Into perfection wrought. Uniting all. Society giew numerous, high, polite. And happy. Nurse of art, the City reai'ed In beauteous pride her tower-enciicled 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

134 THE SEASONS.

The busy merchant j the big warehouse built ;

Raised the strong crane j choaked up the loaded street

With foreign plenty; and thy stream, O Thames,

Large, gentle, deep, majestic, king of floods.

Chose for his grand resort. On either hand.

Like a long wintry forest, groves of miists

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, light-skimming, stretched its oary wings j

While deep the various voice of fervent toil

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 pillared dome, magnific, heaved Its ample roof j and Luxury within Poured out her glittering stores : the canvas smooth. With glowing life protuberant, to the view Embodied rose j the statue seemed to breathe. And soften into flesh, beneath the touch Of forming Art, imagination-flushed.

All is the gift of Industry; whute'er Exalts, embellishes, and renders life Delightful. Pensive Winter, cheered by him.

AUTUMN. 135

Sits at the social fire, and happy hears

The excluded tempest idly rave along :

His hardened fingers deck the gaudy Spring :

Without liim. Summer were an arid waste ;

Nor to the autumnal months could thus transmit

Those full, mature, immeasurable stores.

That, waving round, recal my wandering song.

Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky. And, unperceived, vmfolds the spreading day ; Before the ripened field the reapers stand. In fair array j each by the lass he loves. To bear the rougher part, and mitigate By nameless gentle offices her toil. At once they stoop, an d swell the lusty sheaves ; While through their cheerful band the rural talk, The rural scandsd, and the rural jest. Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time. And steal unfelt the siUtiy 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. The gleaners spread around j and here and thtMe, Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick. Be not too nanow, husbandmen ; but fling From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth.

136 THE SEASONS.

The liberal handful. Think, oh ! grateful think. How good the God of harvest is to you j 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 saA e innocence and Heaven, She, with her widowed mother, feeble, old. And poor, .lived in a cottage, far retired Among the windings of a woody vale j .By solitude and deep-surrounding shades. But moi-e by bashful modesty, concealed. Together thus they shunned the cruel scorn Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet From giddy fashion and low-minded pride: Almost on Nature's common bounty fed 3 Like the gay birds that sung them to repose. 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.

AUTUMN. 137

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 faitliless fortune promised once. Thrilled in her thought, they, like the dewy star Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace Sat fair-proportioned on her pohshed Umbs, 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 Appenine, Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, A myrtle rises, far from human eye. And breathes its balmy fi-agrance o'er the wild : So flourished blooming, and unseen by all. The sweet Lavinia ; till at length compelled By strong Necessity's supreme command, U ith smiling patience in her looks, she went To glean Palemon's iields. The pride of swains Palemon was, the generous, and the rich ;

138 THE SEASONS.

Who led the rural life in all its joy And elegance^, such as Arcadian song Transmits from ancient uncornipted times 3 When tyrant Custom had not shackled man. 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 La\'inia drew his eye ; Unconscious of her power, and turning qvdck With unaffected blushes from his gaze : He saw her charming, but he saw not half The charms her downcast modesty concealed. That very moment love and chaste desire , Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown ; For still the world prevailed} and its dread laugh, Wliich scarce the firm philosopher 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 Of some indecent clown ! She looks, methinks. Of old Acasto's line ; and to my mind Recalls that patron of my happy life,

AUTUMN. 139

From whom my libeml fortune took its lise :

Now to the dust gone down ; his houses, lands.

And once fau'-spreading family, dissolved.

'Tis said that in some lone obscure retreat.

Urged by remembrance sad, and decent pride.

Far from tliose scenes which knew their better days.

His aged widow and his daughter live.

Whom yet my fruitless search could never find.

Romantic wish, would this the daughter were!"

Wlien, strict inquiring, from herself he foimd She was the same, the daughter of his friend. Of bountifiU Acasto j 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 j And as he viewed her, ardent, o'er and o'er. Love, gratitude, and pitj', wept at once. Confused, and frightened at his sudden tears. Her rising beauties flushed a higher bloom. As thus PiUemon, passionate and just. Poured out the pious rapture of his soul :

" And art thou then Acasto's dear remains ; She whom my restless gratitude has sought So long in vain ? O lieavcns ! the very same, riic softened image of my noble friend ;

140 THE SEASONS.

Alive his every look ; his every feature.

More elegantly touched. Sweeter than Sjjring !

Thou sole surviving blossom from the root

Tliat 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 j

Though poverty's cold wind, and crushing rain.

Beat keen, and heavy, on thy tender years ?

O, let me now, into a richer soil.

Transplant thee safe ! where vernal suns and showers

Diffuse their warmest, largest influence ;

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 fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine ;

If to the various blessings which thy house

Has on me lavished, thou wilt add that bliss.

That deai-est bliss, the power of blessing thee !"

AUTUMN. 141

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 i-eply. Won by the charm Of goodness irresistible, and all In sweet disorder lost, she blushed consent. 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 blight gleam Of setting life shone on her evening hours : Not less enraptured than the hapj)y pair ; Who flourished long in tender bliss, and reared A numerous offspring, lovely like themselves. And good, the grace of all the country round.

Defeating oft the labours of the year. The sultry south collects a potent blast. At first, the groves are scarcely seen to stir Their trembling tops ; and a still murmur runs Along the soft-inclining fields of corn : But as the aJerial tempest fuller swells. And in one mighty stream, invisible. Immense, the whole excited atmosphere

142 THE SEASONS.

Impetuous ruslies o'er the sounding world ; Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves. High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in. From the bai-e 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 pliant to the blast, its seizing force ; Or whii'led in air, or into vacant chaff 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 waves its gloom, and still The deluge deepens ; till the fields around Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave. Sudden, the ditches swell j the meadows swim. Red, from the hills, innumerable streams Tumultuous roar ; and high above its banks The river liftj before whose rushing tide. Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains. Roll mingled down ; all that the winds had spared. In one wild moment ruined ; the big hopes. And well-earned treasures, of the painful year.

AUTUMN. 143

Fled to some eminence, the husbandman Helpless beholds the misemble wreck Driving along : his drowning ox at once Descending, with his labours scattered round. He sees J and instant o'er his shivering thought Comes Winter unprovided, and a train Of clamant children dear. Ye masters, then Be mindful of the rough laborious hand. That sinks you soft in elegance and ease j Be mindful of those limbs in russet clad. Whose toil to yours is warmth and graceful pride j And, oh, be mindful of that sparing board. Which covers yours with luxury profuse. Makes your glass sparkle, and yom- sense rejoice ! Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains And all-involving winds have swept away.

Here the nide clamour of the sportsman's joy. The gun fast-thundering, and the winded hoi n. Would tempt the muse to sing the rural game : How in his mid-career, the spaniel struck. Stiff, by the tainted gale, with open nose. Outstretched, and finely 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.

144 THE SEASONS.

Througli the rough stubble turn the secret eye. Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat 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 ^vide-dispersed, Wounded, and wheeling various, do\^ n the wind.

These are not subjects for the peaceful muse. Nor will she stain with such her spotless song; Then most delighted, when she social sees The whole mixed animal creation round Alive and happy. 'Tis not joy to her. This 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 night long. Urged by necessity, had ranged the dark. As if their conscious ravage shunned the light. Ashamed. Not so the steady tyrant Man, Who, with the thoughtless insolence of power Inflamed, beyond the most infuriate WTath Of the worst monster that e'er roamed the waste.

AUTUMN. 143

For sport, alone pursues the cruel chase.

Amid the beamings of the gentle days.

Upbraid, ye ra\ening 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. 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 ; the stubble chapped ;

The thistly lawn ; the thick-entangled broom ;

Of the same fiiendly hue, the witliered fern j 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 Concealed, with folded ears ; unsleeping eyes. By Nature i-aised to take the horizon in j 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 t

146 THE SEASONS.

The sighing gale, she springs amazed, and all The savage soul of game is up at once : The pack full-opening, various ; the shrlU horn Resounded from the hills ; the neighing steed. Wild for the chase ; and the loud hunter's bhout ; 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 monarch of the shades. Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed He sprightly puts his faith j and, roused by fear. Gives all his swift aerial soul to flight ; 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 The inhuman rout, and from the shady depth Expel him, circling through his every shift. He sweeps the forest oft ; and sobbing sees The glades, mild-opening to the golden day. Where, in kind contest, with his butting friends

AUTUMN. ur

He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy. Oft in the full-descending flood he tries To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides ; Oft seeks the herd j the watchful herd, alarmed. With selfish care avoid a brother's woe. VA'hat shall he do ? His once so vivid nerves. So full of buoyant spirit, now no more Inspire the course j but fainting breathless toil, Sick, seizes on his heart ; he stands at bay. And puts his last weak refuge in despair. The big round tears run down his dappled face ; He groans in anguish ; while the growling pack. Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chesf. And mark his beauteous chequered sides \.ith gore.

Of this enough. But if the sylvan youth. Whose fervent blood boils into violence. Must have the chase ; behold, despising flight, Tlie roused up lion, resolute and slow. Advancing full on the protended spear, And coward band, that circling wheel aloof. Slunk from the cavern, and the troubled wood. See the giim 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

148 THE SEASONS.

Let the dart lighten from the nervous arm.

These Britain knows not ; give, ye Britons, then Your sportive fury, pitiless to pom- Loose on the nightly robber of the fold: Him, 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, bu. through the shaking wilderness Pick your nice way ; into the perilous flood Bear fearless, of the raging instinct full ; And, as you ride the torrent, to the banks 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 j who knows the merits of the pack; Who saw the villain seized, and dying hard. Without complaint, though by a hundred moutlis Relentless torn : O glorious he, beyond His daring peers ! when the retreating horn

AUTUMN. 149

Calls them to ghostly halls of grey renown. With woodland honours gi-aced ; the fox's fur. Depending de<;ent from the roof j 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. And their repeated wonders shake 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 Into the pasty plunged, at intervals. If stomach keen can intervals allow. Relating all the glories of the chace. Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thii-st 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-sick shepherdess. On violets diffused, while soft she hears Her panting shepherd stealing to her arms.

150 THE SEASONS.

Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn.

Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat

Of thirty years ; and now his honest front

Flames in the Hght refulgent, not afraid

Even with the vineyard's best produce to vie.

To cheat the thirsty moments. Whist awhile

Walks his dull round, beneath a cloud of smoke

Wreathed, fragrant, from the pipe ; or the quick dice.

In tlmnder leaping from the box, awake

The sounding gammon : while romp-loving miss

Is hauled about, in gallantry robust.

At last, these puling idlenesses laid Aside, frequent and full, the dry divan Close in firm circle ; and set, ai'dent, 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. And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot. Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk. Vociferous at once from twenty tongues. 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.

AUTUMN. 151

The 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 kenneled hounds

Mix in the music of the day again.

As when the tempest, that has vexed the deep

The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls ;

So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,

Unable to take up the 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, sliding soft, they drop. Confused above.

Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers.

As if the table even itself was drunk,

Lie a wet broken scene : and, wide, below

Is heaped the social slaughter } where astride

The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits.

Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side.

And steeps them drenched in potent sleep till morn.

Perhaps some Doctor, of tremendous paunch,

Awfiil and deep, a black abyss of drink.

Outlives them all ; and from his buried flock

Retiring, full of rumination sad.

152 THE SEASONS.

Laments the weakness of these latter times. But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy E'er stain the bosom of the British fair. Far be the spirit of the chase from them 5 Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill ; To spring the fence, to rein the prancing steed 3 The cap, the whip, the masculine attire ; In which they roughen to the sense, and all The winning softness of their sex is lost. In them 'tis graceful to dissolve at woe j With every motion, every word, to wave Quick o'er the kindling cheek the ready blush 5 And from the smallest violence to shrink Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears ; And by this silent adulation, soft. To theii- protection more engaging man. O, may their eyes no miserable sight. Save weeping lovers, see ! 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 ! And, fashioned all to harmony, alone JCnow they to seize the captivated soul, Jn rapture warbled from love-breathing lips ;

AUTUMN. 153

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 sno\vy lawn ;

To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful pagej

To lend new flavour to the fruitful jear.

And heighten Nature's dainties : in their race.

To rear their graces into second Ufe ;

To give society its highest taste ;

Well-ordered home, man's best delight to make ;

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 life :

This be the female dignity, and praise.

Ye swains, now hasten to the hazel bank ; Where down yon vale the wildly- winding brook Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close airay. Fit for the thickets and the tangling shi-ub, 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 burnbh on the topmost bough. With active vigour crushes down the tree; Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk.

154 THE SEASONS.

A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown. As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair : MeUnda, foi-mcd with every grace complete. Yet these neglecting, above beauty wise. And far 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 fi'uit. Obedient to the breeze and beating ray, From the deep-loaded bough a mellow shower Incessant melts away. The juicy pear Lies, in a soft profusion, scattered rourid. A various sweetness swells the gentle race ; By Nature's all-refining hand prepared ; Of tempered sun, and 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, Innumerous, 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.

AUTUMN. 155

Phillips, Pomona's bard, the second thou Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfettered verse. With British freedom sing 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.

In this glad season, while his sweetest beams The Sun sheds equal o'er the meekened day j Oh ! lose me 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 j 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. New beauties rise with each revolving day ; New columns swell ; and still the fresh Spring find?? New plants to quicken, and new groves to green. Full of thy genius all, the muses' seat : Where in the secret bower, and winding walk. For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay. Here wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst Of thy applause, I solitaiy court

156 THE SEASONS.

The insi)iring breeze ; and meditate the book

Of Nature, e\ er open ; aiming thence.

Warm from the heart, to learn 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 j and, dark

Beneath his ample leaf, the luscious fig.

The vine too here her curling tendrils shoots ;

Hangs out her clusters glowing to the south.

And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.

Turn we a moment Fancy's rapid flight To vigorous soils, and climes of fair extent j 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 3 and drinks amid the sunny rocks. From cliff to cliff 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. As thus they brighten with exalted juice. Touched into flavour by the mingling ray j

AUTUMN. 157

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 j the country floats^

And foams unbounded with the mashy flood j

That by degrees fermented, and refined.

Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy :

The claret smooth, red as the lip we press

In sparkling fancy, while we drain the bowl ;

The mellow-tasted Bui'gundy ; and, quick

As is the wit it gives, the gay Champaign.

Now, by the cool declining year condensed. Descend the copious exhalations, checked As up the middle sky unseen they stole. And roll the doubling fogs aiound the hill. No more the mountain, hoiTid, vast, sublime. Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides. And high between contending kingdoms reai-s The rocky long division, fills the view With great variety j but, in a night Of gathering n apour, 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 seems Sullen, and slow, to roll the misty wave.

158 THE SEASONS.

Even in the height of noon oppressed, tlic Sun Sheds weak, and hhint, his wide-refractf-tl lay; Whence gluring oft, with many a broadened orb. He frights the nations. Indistinct on eaith. Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life Objects appear J 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 Ijard) Light, uncollected, through the chaos urged Its infant way ; nor Order yet had dvLiwn His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.

These roving mists, that constant now begin To smoke along the hilly countiy, these. With weighty rains, and melted Al})ine snows. The mountain-cisterns fill ; those ample stores Of water, scooped among the hollow rocks. Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains play. And theu- unfailing wealth the rivers draw. Some sages say, that, where the numerous wave For ever lashes the resounding shore. Drilled through the sandy stratum, every way.

AUTUMN. 159

The waters with the sandy sti-atum rise ;

Amid whose angles infinitely strained.

They joyful leave their jaggy salts hehind.

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.

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 ! why should the waters love

To take so far a journey to the hills,

When the sweet valleys offer to their toil

In\ iting quiet, and a nearer bed ?

Or if, by blind ambition led astray.

They must aspire, why should they sudden stop

Among the broken mountain's rushy dells.

And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert

The attractive sand that charmed their course so long ?

Besides, the hai-d agglomerating salts.

The spoil of ages, would impen'ious choke

Their secret channels ; or, by blow degrees.

High as the hills protrude the swelling vales :

Old Ocean too, sucked througli the porous globe.

160 THE. SEASONS.

Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed. And brought Deucalion's watery times again <

Say then, where lurk the vast eternal springs^ That, like creating Wisdom, 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. Oh lay the mountains barej and wide display Their hidden structure to the astonished view ! Strip from the branching Alps their jjiny load ; The huge incumbrance of horrific woods From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretched Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds j Give opening Hemus to my searching eye. And high Olympus pouring many a stream. Oh, from the sounding summits of the north. The Dofrine hills, through Scandinavia rolled To farthest 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 ;

* The Muscovites call the Riphean nioiintains Weliki Came- nypoys, that is, the great stony girdle; because they suppose them to encompass the whole earth.

AUTUMN. 161

And all the dreadful mountains, \vraj)ped in storm,

Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods ;

Oh, sweep the eternal snows ! Hung o'er the deep,

That ever works beneath his sounding base.

Bid Atlas, propping heaven, as poets feign.

His subterranean wonders spread ; unveil

The miny caverns, blazing on the day,

Of Abyssinia's cloud-compelling cliffs.

And of the bending Mountains of the Moon* ;

O'ertopping all these giant sons of Earth,

Let the dire Andes, from the radiant Line

Stretched to the stormy seas that thunder round

The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold.

Amazing scene ! Behold, the glooms disclose :

I see the rivers in their infant beds :

Deep, deep I hear them, labouring to get free.

I see the leaning strata, artful ranged j

The gaping fissures to receive the rains.

The melting snows, and ever-dripping fog>.

Strewed bibulous above I see the sands.

The pebbly gravel next, the layers then

Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths.

The guttered rocks, and mazy-running clefts j

• A ranj'e of mountains in Africa, tliat surround almost all ^lunoniotapa.

M

162 THE SEASONS.

That, while the steahng moisture they transmit.

Retard its motion, and forbid its waste.

Beneath the incessant weeping of these drains,

I see the rocky siplions stretched immense,

The mighty reservoirs ; of hardened chalk,

Or stiff-compacted clay, capacious formed.

O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores.

The crystal treasures of the liquid world,

Through the stirred sands a bubbling passage burst j

And welling out, around the middle steep.

Or from the bottoms of the bosomed hills,

In pure effusion How. United, thus.

The 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 eartii.

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 aiound. O'er the calm sky, in convolution swift. The feathered eddy floats : rejoicing once. Ere to Iheir wintry slumbers they retire j

AUTUMN. 1G3

In clusters clung, beneath the moulderinc: banlc. And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats. Or rather, into warmer climes conveyed With other kindred birds of season, there They t^vitter cheeiful, till the vernal months Invite them welcome back ; for, thronging, now Innumerous wings are in commotion all.

Where the Rhine loses his majestic force In Belgian plains, won from the laging deep By diligence amazing, and the strong Unconquerable hand of Liberty, 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 wlniU, Boils round the naked melancholy isles Of farthest Thule, and the Atlantic surge Pours in among tlic stormy Hebrides ; Who can recount what transmicnation? tlure

164 THE SEASONS.

Are annual made ? what nations come and go ? And how tlie living clouds on clouds arise ? Infinite wings j 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. Tends on the little 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 j or treasures up The plumage, rising full, to form the bed 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 difi\is1ve sky. Breathing the soul acute ; her forests huge, Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand Planted of old ; her azure lakes between. Poured out extensive, and of watry wealth Full J winding deep, and green, her fertile vales. With many a cool translucent brimming flood Washed lovely, from the Tweed (pure parent- stream. Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed, With, sylvan Jed, thj tributaiy brook).

AUTUMN. 165

To where the north-inflated tempest foams

O'er Orca's or Betubium's highest peak :

Nurse of a people, in misfortune's school

Trained up to hardy deeds j soon visited

By Learning, when before the Gothic rage

She took her western flight. A manly race.

Of unsubmitting spirit, wise and bi-ave;

VVTio still through bleeding ages struggled hard

(As well unhappy Wallace can attest-.

Great patriot hero, ill-requited chief)

To hold a generous undiminished state;

Too much in vain 1 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.

And swelled the pomp of peace their faithfid toil ; ^

As from their own clear north, in i-adiant streams.

Bright over Europe bursts the Boreal Morn.

Oh, is there not some patriot, in whose po^vcr That best, that godlike luxury is placed, Of blessing thousands, thousands yet unborn. Through late posterity? some, large of soul. To cheer dejected industry ; to give A double hanest to the pining swain. And teach tlie laboui-inc: hand the sweets of toil?

166 THE SEASONS.

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.

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, /irgyle. Her hope, her stay, her darling, and her boast. From her first patriots and her heroes sprung. Thy fond-imploring Country turns her eye ; In thee, with all a mother's triumph, sees Her every virtue, every grace combined. Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn. Her pride of honour, and her courage tried. Calm, and intrepid, in the veiy throat Of sulphurous war, on Tenier s dreadful field. Nor less the palm of peace enwTeathes thy brow : For, powerful as thy sword, from thy rich tongue Persuasion flows, and wins the high debate ;

AUTUMN. 167

While mixed in thee combine the charm of youtli. The force of manhood, and the depth of age. Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends, As Truth sincere, as weeping Friendship kind, Thee, tinily 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. Of every hue, from wan-declining green To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse. Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks, And give the season in its latest view.

Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm Fleeces unbounded ether . whose least wave Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn The gentle current : whUe, illumined wide. The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the Sun, And through their lucid veil his softened force Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time. For those whom wisdom and whom nature charm. To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd. And soar above this Httle scene of things ;

168 THE SEASONS.

To tread lo w- thought ed Vice beneath their feet, To soothe the thiobbing passions into peace. And woo lone jQuiet in her silent walks.

Thus solitary, and in pensive guise. 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. 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. Oh, let not, aimed from some inhuman eye. 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 gi-ove ; Oft startling such as, studiou?, walk below.

AUTUMN. K

And slowly circles through the \va\ing air. But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs 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 floweiy race Their sunny robes resign. Even what remained Of stronger fruits fells from the naked tree ; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around The desolated prospect thrills the soul.

He comes ! he comes ! in every breeze the Power Of philosophic melancholy comes ! 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 j Inflames imagination 3 through the breast Infuses every tenderness ; and far 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.

170 THE SEASONS,

As fast the correspondent passions rise.

As varied, and as high : devotion raised

To rapture, and divine astonishment j

The love of nature unconfined, and, chief,

Of human race 3 the large ambitious wish.

To make them blest ; the sigh for suflering worth

Lost in obscurity ; the noble scorn

Of tyrant-pride ; the fearless great resolve ;

The v.'onder which the dying patriot draws.

Inspiring glory through remotest time ;

The awaliened throb for virtue, and for fame j

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 j Where angel-forms athwart the solemn dusk. Tremendous, sweep, or seem to sweep, along ; And voices more than human, through tlie void Deep-sounding, seize the enthusiastic ear.

Or is this gloom too much ? Then lead, ye Powei-: That o'er the garden and the rural seat Preside, which shining through the cheerful land In countless numbers blest Britannia sees ; Oh ! lead me to the wide-extended walks.

AUTUMN. 171

The fair majestic paradise of Stovve*.

Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia's shore

E'er saw such sylvan scenes j such various art

By genius fired, such ardent genius tamed

By cool judicious art ; that, in the strife.

All-bounteous Nature fears to be outdone.

And there, O Pitt ! thy country's early boast.

There let me sit beneath the sheltered slopes.

Or in that templef where, in future times.

Thou well shalt merit a distinguished name j

And, with thy converse blest, catch the last smiles

Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.

While there with thee the enchanted round I walk.

The regulated wild, gay Fancy then

Will tread in thought the groves of Attic land j

Will from thy standard taste refine her own.

Correct her pencil to the purest truth

Of Nature, or, the 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,

Wliat every decent character requires,

• The scat of tlie Lord Viscount Cobliani. t The temple of Virtue, in Stowe i^ardcn.s.

172 THE SEASONS.

And every passion speaks. Oh ! through her strain Breathe thy pathetic eloquence, that moulds The attentive senate, channs, persuades, exalts. Of honest zeal the indignant lightning throws. And shakes Corruption on her venal throne. While thus we talk, and through Elysian vales Dt'lighted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes : Wliat pity, Cobham, thou thy verdant files 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 Gaid, haa roused the world to war ; When keen, once more, within their bounds to press 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. In her chill progress, to the ground condensed The vapours throws. WTiere creeping waters ooze, W^here marshes stagnate, and where rivers v.ind. Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the Moon, Full-orbed, and breaking through the scattered clouds.

AUTUMN. 1

Shows her broad visage in the crimsoned east.

Turned to the Sun direct, her spotted disk,

Where mountains rise, umbiiigeous dales descend.

And caverns deep, as optic tube descries,

A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again.

Void of its flame, and sheds a softer dc;y.

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 skied mountain to the shadowy vale.

While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam.

The whole air whitens with a boundless tide

Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.

But when half-blotted from the sky her light. Fainting, permits the &tany fires to burn With keener lustre through the depth of heaven } Or near extinct her deadened orb a]»{)ears. And scarce appears, of sickly beamless white ; Oft in this season, silent from the north A blaze of meteors shoots : 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. And mix, ahd thwart, extinguish, and renew. All ether coursing in a maze of liglit.

174 THE SEASONS.

From look to look, contagious through the ciowd, The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes The 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 commixed, the sanguine flood Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of heaven. As thus they scan the visionary scene. On all sides swells the superstitious din. Incontinent; and busy frenzy talks Of blood and battle ; cities overturned, And late at night in swallowing earthquake sunk. Or hideous wrapped in fierce-ascending flame ;

Of sallow famine, immdation, storm ;

Of pestilence, and every great distress ;

Empires subversed, when ruling Fate has struck

The unalterable hour : even Nature's self

Is deemed to totter on the brink of time.

Not so the man of philosophic eye.

And inspect sage ; the waving brightness he

Curious surveys, inquisitive to know

The causes, and materials, yet unfixed.

Of this appearance beautiful and new.

Now black, and deep, the night begins to fall,

A shade immense. Sunk in the quenching gloom.

AUTUMN.

■Magnificent and \ast, are heaven and earth.

Order confounded lies ; all beauty void ;

Distinction lost ; and gay variety

One universal blot : such the fair power

Of light, to kindle and create the whole.

Drear is the state of the benighted wretch,

V\Tio then, bewildered, wandei-s through the dark.

Full of pale fancies, and chimeras huge j

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 wild-fire scatters round, or gathered trails

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 j

While still, from day to day, his pining wife.

And plaintive children, his return await.

In wild conjecture lost. At other time*.

Sent by the better Genius of the night.

Innoxious, gleaming on the horse's mane,

Tlie meteor sits; and shows tlic narrow path,

That winding leads through pits of death, or else

Instructs him how to take the daniroroiis ford.

176 THE SEASONS.

Tlie lengthened night elapsed, the Morning shines Serene, in all her dewy beauty bright^ Unfolding fair the last autumnal day. And now the mounting Sun dispels the fog : The rigid hoar-frost melts before his beam ; And hung on every spray, on every blade 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 public 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 donieS;, Convolved and agonising in the dust. 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.

AUTUMN. 177

Shall prostrate Nature groan beneath your rage. Awaiting renovation ? When obliged. Must you destroy ? Of their ambrosial food Can you not borrow ; and, in just return. Afford them shelter from the wintiy winds ; Or, as the shai-p year pinches, with their own Again regale them on some smilmg day ? See where the stony bottom of their town Looks desolate, and wild ; with here and there A helpless number, who the ruined state Survive, lamenting weak, cast out to death. Thus a proud city, populous and rich. Full of the works of peace, and high in joy. At theatre or feast, or sunk 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 ! for now the day. O'er heaven and earth diffused, grows warm and high. Infinite splendor ! wide-investing all. How still the breeze ! save what the filmy threads Of dew evaporate brushes from the plain. How clear the cloudless sky ! how deeply tinged With a peculiar blue ! the ethereal arch

17S THE SEASONS.

How swelled immense ! amid whose azure throned

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 ;

And instant Winter's utmost rage defied :

While, loose to festive joy, the countiy round

Laughs with the loud sincerity of mirth.

Shook to the wind their cares. The toil-strung 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 foice

The cudgel rattles, and the wrestler twines.

Age too shines out , and, garrulous, recounts

The feats of youth. Thus they rejoice j nor think

That, with to-morrow's sun, their annual toil

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 ! What though the dome be wanting, whose proud gate.

AUTUMN. 179

Eacli morning vomits out the sneaking crowd

Of flatterers felse, and in their turn abused ?

Vile intercourse ! What though the glittering robe.

Of every hue reflected light can give.

Or floating loose, or stiff with mazy gold.

The pride and gaze of fools, ojjpress him not ?

What though, from utmost land and sea purveyed.

For him each rarer tributary life

Bleeds not, and his insatiate table heaps

^Vith luxury and death ? What though his bowl

Flames not with costly juice j nor, simk in beds.

Oft of gay care, he tosses out the night.

Or melts the thoughtless hours in idle state ?

What though he knows not those fantastic joys.

That still amuse the wanton, still deceive ;

A face of pleasure, but a heart of pain ;

Their hollow moments undeliglited all ?

Sme peace is his 3 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 showei"s ; or bends the bough

W^hen Summer reddens, and when Autumn beams ;

Or in the wintry glebe whatever lies

Concealed, and fattens with the richest sap:

180 THE SEASONS.

These are not wanting ; nor the milky drove,

Luxui'iant, spread o'er all the lowing vale ;

Nor bleating mountains ; nor the chide of streams,

And hum of bees, inviting sleep sincere

Into the guiltless breast, beneath the shade.

Or thrown at large amid the fragrant hay j

Nor aught besides of prospect, grove, or song.

Dim grottos, gleaming lakes, and fountain clear.

Here too dwells simple truth ; plain innocence ;

Unsullied beauty ; sound unbroken youth.

Patient of labour, with a little pleased ;

Health ever blooming j 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 gloiy to destroy. Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek ; Unpierced, exulting in the widow's wail, 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

AUTUMN. 181

Mad into tumult the seditious herd.

Or melt them down to slavery. Lot these

Ensnare the wretched in the toils of law.

Fomenting discord, and perplexing right.

An iron race : and those of fairer front.

But equal inhumanity, in courts.

Delusive pomp, and dark cabals, delight ;

Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the Ijing 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. Tlie fall of kings.

The rage of nations, and the crush of states.

Move not the man who, from the world escaped.

In still retreats, and flowery solitudes.

To Nature's voice attends, from month to month.

And day to day, through the revolving year ;

Admiring, sees her in her every shape ;

Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart ;

Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more.

He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting gems,

Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale

Into his freshened soul ; her genial hours

He full enjoys J and not a beauty blows.

182 THE SEASONS.

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 5 and oft, an eye

Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.

When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world.

And tempts the sicklcd 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.

Even Winter wild to him is full of bliss.

The mighty tempest, and the hoaiy waste.

Abrupt, and deep, stretched o'er the buried earth.

Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies.

Disclosed, and kindled, by refining frost.

Pour every lustre on the exalted eye,

A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure.

And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing.

O'er land and sea imagination roams ;

Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind.

Elates his being, and unfolds his powers j

Or in his breast heroic virtue burns.

The touch of kindred too and love he feels :

AUTUMN. 183

The modest eye, whose beams on his alone Ecstatic shine; the little strong embrace Of prattling children, twined around his neck. 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 stiU, and smiling kind. This is the hfe wliich those who fi-et in guilt. And guilty cities, never knew ; the life Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt. When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man.

O Nature, all-suflficient, over all ! 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'er that the rising system, more complex. Of annuals ; and higher still, the mind. The varied scene of quick-compounded thought. And where the mixing passions endless shift •

1S4 THE SEASONS.

These ever open to my ravished eye ;

A searcli;, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust.

But if to that unequal ; if the blood.

In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid

That best ambition j under closing 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 !

THE SEASONS.

WINTER.

THE ARGUMENT.

The Subject proposed. Address to the Earl of Wihnington. First approach of Winter. According to tlie natural coarse of the season, various Storms desciibed. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the snows. A Man perishing among them ; whence reflections on the Wants and Miseries of human life. The Wolves descending from the Alps and Apennines. A Winter-evening- described : as spent by philosophers ; by the country-people ; in the city. Frost. A view of Winter within the Polar Circle. A Tliaw. The whole concluding with moral reflections on a Future State.

WINTER.

»^EE, Winter canies, to rule the varied year.

Sullen and sad, with all his rising train ;

Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme j

These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought.

And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms !

Gingenial horrors, hail ! with frequent foot.

Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life.

When nursed hy careless solitude I lived.

And sang of Nature with unceasing joy.

Pleased have I wandered through your rough domain j

Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure ;

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 mu?e, O Wilmington ! renews her song.

188 THE SEASONS.

Since has she rounded the revolving year : Skimmed the gay Spring 5 on eagle-pinions borne^ Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rise ; Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale ; And now among the wintry clouds again. Rolled in the doubling storm, she tiies to soar j To swell her note with all the rushing winds 5 To suit her sounding cadence to the floods ; As is her theme, Iier 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. And how to make a mighty people thrive : But equal goodness, sound integrity, A firm, unshaken, uncorrupted soul Amid a sliding age ; and burning strong. Not vainly blazing, for thy country's weal, A steady spirit, regularly freej These, each exalting each, the statesman light Into the patriot ; these, the public hope And eye to thee converting, bid the muse Record what envy dares not flattery call.

Now when the cheerless empire of the sky To Capricorn the centaur-Archer yields. And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year ;

WINTER. , ISO

Hung o'er the farthest verge of heaven, the Sun Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day. Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot His struggling rays, in horizontal lines. Through the thick air j as, clothed in cloudy storm. Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky 5 And, soon descending, to the long dark night. Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns. Nor Ls the night unwished ; while vital licat. Light, life, and joy, the dubious day 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. 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 floclts,

Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.

Along the woods, along the moorish fens.

Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm ;

And uj) among the loose disjointed cliffsi.

J90 THE SEASONS.

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

Then comes the father of the tempest forth. Wrapt in black glooms. First, joyless rains obscure Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul ; Dash on the mountain's brow 3 and shake tlie woods. That grumbling wave below. The unsightly plain Lies a brown deluge ; as the low-bent clouds Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still Combine, and deepening into night shut up The day's fair face. The wanderers of heaven. Each to his home, retire j save those that love To take their pastime in the troubled air. Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool. The cattle from the untasted fields return. And ask, with meaning low, their wonted stalls. Or ruminate in the contiguous shade. Thither the household feathery people crowd ; The crested cock, with all his fenjale train. Pensive and dripping j while the cottage-hind Hangs o'er the enli\^ening blaze, and taleful there Recounts his simple frolic : much he talks. And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows Without, and i-attles on his humble roof.

WINTER. 191

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swelled. And the mixed ruin of its bank 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 ^■alley floating spieads. Calm, sluggish, silent ; till again constrained Between two meeting hills, it bui-sts away. Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream j There gathering triple force, rapid and deep. It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through, r Nature, great parent, whose unceasing hand Rolls round the Seasons of the changeful } eai'. How mighty, how majestic, are thy works ! With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul. That sees astonished, and astonished sings ! Ye too, ye winds, that now begin to blow. With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you. Where are your stores, ye powerful beings, say } \Miere your aerial magazines, resen'ed To swell the brooding tenors of the stonn; In what far-distant region of the sky, Hushed in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm "r

When from the pallid sky the Sun dcsccndti,

lO^ THE SEASONS.

With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb Uncertain wanders, stained ; red fiery streaks Begin to flash around. The reeUng 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. With broadened nostrils to the sky up-turned. The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale. Even as the matron, at her nightly task. With pensive labour draws the flaxen thread. The wasted taper and the crackling flame Foretell the blast. But chief the plumy race. The tenants of the sky, its changes speak. Retiring from the downs, where all day long They picked their scanty fare, a blackening train Of clamorous roolcs thick urge their weary flight. And seek the closing shelter of the grove. Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl

WINTER. 103

Plies his sad song, Tlie 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 commotion heaves 3 while from the sliore. Eat into caverns by the restless wave. And forest-rustling mountains, comes a voice. That solemn-sounding bids the world prepare. Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst. And hurls the whole precipitated air Down in a tonent. On the passive main Descends the ethereal force, and with strong gust Turns from its bottom the discoloured deep. Through the black night that sits immense around. Lashed into foam, the fierce-conflicting brine Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn. Meantime the mountain-billows, to the clouds In dreadful tumult swelled, surge above svugc, Burst into chaos with tremendous roar. And anchored navies from their stations drive. Wild as the winds, across the liowling waste Of mighty waters : now the ijiHated wave Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot Into the secret chambers of the deep,

194 THE SEASONS.

The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head. Emerging thence again, before the breath Of full-exerted heaven they wing their course. And dart on distant coasts ; if some sharp rock, Or shoal insidious, break not their career. And in loose fragments fling them floating round.

Nor less at hand the loosened tempest reigns. The mountain thunders j and its sturdy sons Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade. Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast. The dark wayfaring stranger breathless toils. And, often falling, climbs against the blast. 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, its 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 j^se. Sleep frighted flies j and round the rocking dome. For entrance eager, howls the savage blast. Then too, they say, through all the burdened air. Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant siglis. That, uttered by the demon of the night.

WINTER. 195

Warn the devoted wTetch of woe and death.

Huge Uproar lords it wide. The clouds, coir.mixed With stars swift-gliding, sweep along the sky. All nature reels : till nature's King, who oft Amitl tempestuous darkness dwells alone, And on the wings of the careering wind Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm ; Then straight air, sea, and earth, are hushed at once.

As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds. Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom. Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep. Let me associate with the serious Night, And Contemplation her sedate compeer; Let me shake off the intrusive cares of day. And lay the meddling senses all aside.

Where now, ye lying vanities of life. Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train, Where are you now ? and what is your ammmt ? 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 hope?, to run the giddy round.

Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme ! O, teach me what is good ; teach me Thyself!

19G • THE SEASONS.

Save me fifom folly, vanity, and vice. From every low pursuit : and feed my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure ; Sacred, substantial, never-feding bliss.

The keener tempests rise : and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north. Thick clouds ascend ; in whose capacious womb A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along ; And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends^ At first thin-wavering ; till at last the flakes Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day. With a continual flow. The cherished fields Put on their winter-robe of purest white. 'Tis brightness all j 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 The works of man. I>rooping, the labourer-ox Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of hea\ en, Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around

WINTER. 197

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 Against the window beats ; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth j then, hopping o'er the floor. Eyes all the smiling family askance. And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he Is : TiU, more familiar grown, the table-cinimbs Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare. Though timorous of heart, and liard beset By death in various forms, daik snares, and dogs. And more unpitying men, the garden seeks. Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth, With looks of diunb despair ; then, sad dispereed. Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.

Now, shepherds, to yom' helpless charge be kind j Baflfle the raging year, and fill their pens With food at will j lodge them below the storm. And watch them strict j for from the bello\ving east.

19S THE SEASONS.

In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks. Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills. The billowy tempest whelms; till, upward urged, The valley to a shining mountain swells. Tipped with a wreath high-curling in the sky.

As thus the snows arise ; and foid, and fierce. All Winter drives along the darkened air j In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain Disastered stands ; sees other hills ascend. Of unknown joyless brow ; and other scenes. Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain ; Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid Beneath the formless wild j 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 from the dusky spot, which Fancy feigneil His tufted cottage rising through the snow. He meets the roughness of the middle waste. Far from the track and blest abode of man ;

WINTER. 109

While round liim night resistless closes fast,

And every tempest, howling o'er his head.

Renders tlie savage wilderness more wild !

Then throng the bnsy shapes into liis mind.

Of covered pits, unfathomably deep,

A dire descent, beyond the power of frost j

Of faitlrless bogs ; of precipices huge.

Smoothed up with snowj and, what is land unknown.

What water, of the still unfrozen spring.

In the loose marsh or solitaiy 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 deatli.

Mixed with the tender anguish Nature shools

Tlu'ough the wrung bosom of the dying man.

His wife, his children, and his friends, unseen.

In vain for him the officious wife prepares

The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm ;

In vain his little children, peeping out

Into the mingling storm, demand their sii*e.

With tears of artless innocence. Alas !

Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,

Nor friends, nor sacred home. On evciy mrve

The deadly winter seizes ; shuts up sense ;

200 THE SEASONS.

And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold. Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse. Stretched out, and bleaching in the nortliern blast.

Ah ! little think the gay licentious proud. Whom pleasure, power, and affluence, surround ; Tliey who their thoughtless hours in giddy mii-th. And wanton, often cruel, riot waste ; Ah ! little think they, while they dance along. How many feel this very moment death. And aU the sad variety of pain. How many sink in the devouring flood. Or more devouring flame. How many bleed. By shameful variance betwixt man and man. How many pine in want, and dungeon-glooms ; Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bi-ead Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds. How many shrink into the sordid hut Of cheeiiess poverty. How many shake With all the fiercer tortures of the mind. Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse ; Whence tuinbled headlong from the heiglit of life. They fiirnish matter for the tragic muse. Even in the vale where Wisdom loves to dwell.

WINTER. «01

With Friendship^ Peace, and Contemplation, joined. How many, racked with honest passions, droop In deep- retired distress. Hmv many stand Around the death-bed of their dearest friends. And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills That one incessant struggle render life. One scene of toil, of suffeiing, and of fate. Vice in his high career would stand appalled. And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think i 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 woe, redressive searched Into the horrors of the gloomy jail? Unpitied, and unheard, where misery moans ; Where sickness pines ; where thirst and hunger burn. And poor Misfortune feels the lash of Vice. While in the land of liberty, the land Whose every street and pubUc meeting glow With open freedom, little tyrants raged j

• The Jail Committee, in the year 1729.

202 THE SEASOiNS.

Snatched the lean morsel from the starving mouth Tore from cold wintry limbs the tattered weed j Even robbed them of the last of comforts, sleep ; The free-born Briton to the dungeon chained. Or, as the lust of cruelty prevailed. At pleasure marked him with inglorious stripes ; And crushed out lives, by secret barbarous ways. That for their country would have toiled or bled. O great design ! if executed well. With patient care, and wisdom-tempered zeal. Ye sons of Mercy, yet yesume the search j Drag forth the legal monsters into light. Wrench from their hands Oppression's iron rod. And bid the cruel feel the pains they give. Much still untouched remains ; in this rank age. Much is the patriot's weeding hand required. The toils of law (what dark insidious men Have cumbrous added to perplex the tmth. And lengthen simple justice into trade). How glorious were the day that saw these broke. And every man within the reach of right !

By wintry famine roused, from all the tract Of horrid mountains which the shining Alps, And wavy Apennine, and Pyrenees, Branch out stupendous into distant lands 5

WINTER. 203

Cruel as Deatli, and hungry as the grave.

Burning for blood, bony, and gaunt, and grim.

Assembling wolves in i*aging tioops descend ;

And, pouring o'er the country, bear along.

Keen as the north-wind sweeps the glossy snow.

All is their prize. They fasten on the steed,

Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.

Nor can the bull his awful front defend.

Or shake the murdering savages away.

Rapacious, at the mother's thi-oat they fly.

And tear the screaming infant from her breast.

The godlike face of man avails him nought.

Even beauty, force divine, at whose bright glance

The generous lion stands in softened gaze.

Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguished prey.

But if, apprised of the severe attack.

The country be shut up ; lured by the scent,

On church-yards drear (inhuman to relate !)

The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig

The shrouded body from the grave j o'er which.

Mixed with foul Shades, and frighted ghosts, they howl.

Among those hilly regions where, embraced In peaceful vales, the happy Grisons dwell ; Oft, rushing sudden from the loaded cliffs. Mountains of snow their gathering terrors roll.

204 THE SEASONS.

From steep to steep, loud-thundering down they come,

A wintry waste in dire commotion all ;

And herds, and flocks, and travellers, and swains.

And sometimes whole brigades of marching troops.

Or hamlets sleeping in the dead of night.

Are deep beneath the smothering ruin 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 i-ural, sheltered, solitary scene ; Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join. To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit. And hold high converse with the mighty dead ; Sages of ancient time, as gods I'evered, As gods beneficent, who blessed mankind With arts, with arms, and humanised a world. Roused at the 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. Against the rage of tyrants single stood. Invincible ; calm Reason's holy law^

WINTER. 505

That voice of God within the attentive mind, Obeying, fearless, or in life or death : Great moral teacher, wisest of mankind. Solon the next, who built his commonweal 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. And of bold freedom, they unequalled shone. The pride of smiling Greece, and human-kind. Lycurgus then, who bowed beneath the force Of strictest discipline, severely wise. All human passions. Following him, I see. As at Thermopylae he glorious fell. The firm devoted chief* who proved by deeds The liardest lesson which the other taught. Then Aristides lifts his honest front ; Spotless of heart, to whom the unflattering voice Of Freedom gave the noblest name of Just ; In pure majestic poverty revered ; Who, even his glorj' to his country's weal Submitting, swelled a haughty rival'sf fame. Reared by his care, of softer ray appeals Cimon swcet-souled 3 whoie genius, rising strong.. • Leobidas + Tbemistocles.

206 THE SEASONS.

Shook off the load of young debauch -, abroad The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend Of every woi'th and every splendid art ; Modest, and simple, in the pomp of wealth. Then the last worthies of declining Greece, Late called to glory, in unequal times. Pensive, appear. The fair Corinthian boast, Timoleon, happy temper, mild and firm. Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled. And, equal to the best, the Theban pair*. Whose virtues, in heroic concord joined. Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame. He too, with whom Athenian honour sunk, And left a mass of sordid lees behind, Phocion the goodj in public life severe. To virtue still inexorably firm j 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 Even Sparta's self to servile avarice sunk. The two Achaian heroes close the train : • Pelopidas and Ei)amiuonda9.

WINTER. 207

Aratus, who awhile relumed the soul Of fondly-lingering Liberty in Greece : And he her darling as her latest hope. The gallant Philopccmen ; who to arras Turned the luxurious pomp he could not curej Or, toiling in his farm, a simple swain ; Or, bold and skilful, thundering in the field. Of rougher front, a mighty people come 3 A race of heroes j in those virtuous times Which knew no stain, save that with partial flame Their dearest country they too fondly loved. Her better founder first, the light of Rome, Numa, who softened her rapacious sons. Servius, the king who laid the sohd base On which o'er earth the vast republic spread. Then the great consuls venerable rise. The public father*, who the private quelled. As on the dread tribunal sternly sad. He whom his thankless country could not lose, Camillus, only vengeful to her foes. Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold ; And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough. Thy willing victimf, Carthage, birrsting loose From all that pleading Nature could oppose ; • Marcus Junius Brutus. t Reiruliu.

208 THE SEASONS.

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. TuUy, whose powerful eloquence awhile Reetrained the rapid fate of rushing Rome. Unconquered 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 j but who can count the stars of heaven ? Who sing their influence on this lower world ? Behold, who yonder comes ! in sober state. Fair, mild, and strong, as is a \ernal sun : 'Tis Phosbus' self, or else the Mantuan swain. Great Homer too appears, of daiing wing, Parent of song ; and equal by his side. The British musej joined hand in hand they walk. Darkling, full up the middle steep to Fame. Nor absent are those Shades whose skilful touch Pathetic drew the impassioned heart, and charmed Transported Athens with the moral scene;

WINTER. 209

Nor those who, tuneful, waked the enchanting lyre.

First of your kind, society divine. 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 haUowed hour that none intrude. Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deign To bless my humble roof, with sense refined. Learning digested well, exalted faith. Unstudied wit, and humour ever gay. Or from the muses' hill will Pope descend. To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile. And with the social spirit waim 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. Thou 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 hopes so soon ? What now avails that noble thirst of fame. Which stung thy fervent breast ? that treasured store Of knowledge, early gained ? that eager zeal To serve thy Country, glowing in the band t

210 THE SEASONS,

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 light thy virtue smile r Ah ! only shewed, to check our fond pursuits. And teach our humble hopes that life is vain ! Thus in some deep retirement would I pass The winter 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 the Eternal Mind ; Its life, its laws, its progress, and its end. Hence larger prospects of the bounteous whole Would gradual open on our opening minds ; And each diffusive harmony unite In full perfection to the 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 depths of time : Shew us how empire grew, declined, and fell.

WINTER. 211

In scattered states; what makes the nations smile.

Improves their soil, and gi\ cs them double suns ;

And why they pine beneath the brightest skies.

In Nature's richest lap. As thus we talked.

Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale

That portion of divinity, that 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, even superior to ambition, we

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 spaces of futurity.

With earnest eye anticipate those scenes

Of happiness, and wonder, where the nlind.

In endless gi'owth 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 ply the shapes

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 :

212 THE SEASONS.

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 ; Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all. Or frequent in the sounding hall, they wake The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round j The simple joke, that takes the shepherd's heart. Easily pleased j the long loud laugh sincere 3 The kiss, snatched hasty from the sidelong maid. On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep : 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. 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.

WINTER. 213

The glittering court effuses eveiy pomp j

The circle deepens : beamed from gaudy robes,

Tapersj 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 j And Belvidera pours her soul in love. Terror alarms the breast ; the comely tear Steals o'er the cheek : or else the comic muse Holds to the world a picture of itself. And itiises sly the fau* impartial laugh. Sometimes she lifts her strain, and paints the scenes Of beauteous lifej whate'er can deck mankind. Or charm the heart, in generous Bevil* shewed.

O thou 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 animating fire. Give thee, with pleasing dignity, to shine. At once the guardian, ornament, and joy. Of polbhed life ! permit the rural muse, • A character in the Conscious Lovers, written by sir R. Steele,

214 THE SEASONS.

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 the allurements of corrupted power;

That elegant politeness, which excels.

Even 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.

And kind well-tempered satire, smoothly keen.

Steals through the soul, and without pain corrects.

Or, rising thence, with yet a brighter flame.

Oh ! let me hail thee on some glorious day.

When to the listening senate, ardent, crowd

Britannia's sons to hear her pleaded cause.

Then drest by thee, more amiably fair.

Truth the soft robe of mild Persuasion wears :

Thou to assenting Reason givest again

Her own enlightened thoughts ; called from the heart.

The obedient passions on thy voice attend ;

And even reluctant party feels awhile

Thy gracious power, as through the varied maze

WINTER. 215

Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now strong, Profound and clear, you roll the copious flood. To thy loved haunt return, my happy muse : For now, behold, the joyous winter-days. Frosty, succeed ; and through the blue serene. For sight too fine, the ethereal nitre flies ; Killing infectious damps, and the spent air Storing afresh with elemental life. Close crowds the shining atmosphere ; and binds Our strengthened bodies in its cold embracf. Constringent 3 feeds and animates our blood j Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves. In swifter sallies, darting to the brain ; Where sits the Soul, intense, collected, cool. Bright as the skies, and as the season keen. All nature feels the renovating force Of winter, only to the thoughtless eye In 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 The purer rivers flow 5 their sullen deeps, Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze. And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.

216 THE SEASONS.

What art thou. Frost ? and whence are thy keen stores Derived, thou secret all-invading Power, Whom even the illusive fluid cannot fly ? 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. 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 j till, seized from shore to shore. The whole imprisoned river growls below. Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects A double noise ; while, at his evening watch. The village-dog deters the nightly thief j 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. The full ethereal round.

WINTER. 217

Infinite worlds disclosing^ to the view.

Shines out intensely keen ; and, all one cope

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 (he silent night :

Prone from the dripping cave, and dumb cascade.

Whose idle torrents only seem to roar.

The pendent icicle ; the frost-work fair.

Where transient hues, and fancied figures, rise ;

Wide-spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook,

A livid tract, cold-gleaming on the morn ;

The forest bent beneath the plumy wave ;

And by the frost refined the whiter snow,

Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread

Of early shepherd, as he peasive seeks

His pining flock, or from the mountain-top,

Pleased with the slippery surface, swift descends.

On blithesome frolics bent, the youthful swains. While every work of man is laid at rest. Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport And reveliy dissolved ; where mixing glad.

21S THE SEASONS.

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 pro\ ince swarming, void of caie, Batavia rushes forth ; and as they sweep, On sounding skates, a thousand different ways. In circling poise, swift as the winds, along. 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 cliarms. Flushed by the season, Scandinavia's dames. Or Russia's buxom daughters, glow around.

Puie, quick, and sportful, is the wholesome day But soon elapsed. The horizontal Sun, 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 the 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

WINTER. 219

Thunders the sport of those who with the gun. And dog impatient bounding at the shot, Worse than the season, desolate the fields j And, adding to the ruins of the year. Distress the footed or the feathered game.

But what is this ? Our infant Winter sinks, Divested of his grandeur, should our eye Astonished shoot into the Frigid Zone j 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 Natiu-e from escape. Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around Strikes his sad eye, but deserts lost in snow; And heavy-loaded groves j and solid floods. That stretch, athwart the soUtary vast. Their icy hoiTors to the fi-ozen 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 j Yet cherished there, beneath the shining waste. The furry nations harbour: tipped with jet. Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press j * The old name for China.

220 THE SEASONS.

Sables, of glossy black; and dark-embrowned. Or beauteous freaked with many a mingled hue. Thousands 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 Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss. The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils. 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 pietous bray. He lays them quivering on the ensanguined snows. And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home. There through the piny forest, half-absorbed. 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 the inclement drift. 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, • The north-west wind.

WINTER. 221

Who little pleasure know, and fear no pain. Prolific swarm. They once relumed the flame Of lost mankind in pohshed slavery sunk j Drove martial horde on horde*, with dreadful sweep Resistless rushing o'er the enfeebled south. And gave the vanquished world another form. Not such the sons of Lapland ; wisely they Despise the insensate barbarous trade of war ; They ask no more than simple Nature gives. They love their mountains and enjoy their storms. No false desires, no pride-created wants. Disturb the peaceful cun'ent of their time ; And^ through the restless ever-tortured maze Of pleasure and ambition, bid it rage. Their rein-deer form their riches. These their tents. Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth. Supply, their wholesome fare, and checiful 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 expanse Of marbled snow, as far as cje 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, • The wandering- Scvtliiau chins.

2^2 THE SEASONS.

And vivid moons, and stars that keener play

With doubled lustre from the glossy waste.

Even 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 Auroi'a slowly moves before.

The welcome Sun, just verging up at first.

By small degrees extends the swelling curve j

Till seen at last for gay rejoicing months.

Still round and round his spiral course he winds.

And, as he nearly dips his flaming orb.

Wheels up again, and re-ascends the sky.

In that glad season, from the lakes and floods

Where pure Niemi's* fairy mountains rise.

And fxinged wdth roses Tengliof rolls his stream,

• M. de Maupertuis, in liis book on the fig'ure of the earth, after having described the beautiful lake and nioiuitain of Niemi in Lapland, says : " From this height we had opportunity several times to see those vapours rise from the lake which the people of the country call Haltios, and wliich 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 seemed 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 (theTenglio) roses of as lively a red as any that are in our gardens."

WINTER- ^23

They draw the copious fiy. With these, at eve.

They cheerful loaded to their tents repair ;

Where all day long in useful caies employed.

Their kind unblemished wives the fire prepare.

Thrice-happy race ! 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 woe.

Still pressing on, beyond Tornea's lake, And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow. And farthest Greenland, to the pole itself. Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out. The muse expands her solitary flight ; And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene, Beholds new seas beneath another sky-. Throned in his palace of cendean ice. Here Winter holds his unrcjoicing court ; And through his airy hall the loud misrule Of driving tempest is for ever heard : Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath j Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost ; Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his snow5, • The oilier Lenii'-[iliere.

324 THE SEASONS.

With which he now oppresses half the globe.

Thence winding eastward to the Tailar'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 5 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'ei- the surge, Alps frown on Alps ; or rushing hideous down. As if old Chaos was again returned, Wide-rend the deep, and shake the solid jx>le. Ocean itself no longer can resist The binding furyj but, in all its rage Of tempest, taken by the boundless frost. Is many a fathom to the bottom chained. And bid to roar no more : a bleak expanse, Shagged o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void Of every life, that from the dreary months Flies conscious southward. Miserable they Who, here entangled in the gathering ice. Take their last look of the descending Sun ; While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost. The long long night, incumbent o'er their heads. Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's fate.

WINTER. 225

As with first prow (what have not Britons dared ?) He* for the passage sought, attenjpted since So much in vain, and seeming to be shut By jealous Nature with eternal bars. In these fell regions, in Arzina caught. And to the stony deep his idle ship Immediate sealed, he with his hapless crew. Each full-exerted at his several task, Fioze into statues j 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-enlivened by the distant Sun, That rears and ripens man, as well as plants. Here human nature wears its rudest form. 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 gi'oss race. Nor sprightly jest, nor song, Nor tenderness, they know ; nor aught of hfe. Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without. Till Morn at length, her roses drooping all. Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their fields,

• Sir Hugh Willouglil)y, sent by Queen Elizabetli to discover the norlli east passage.

226 THE SEASONS.

And calls the quivered savage to the chase. What cannot active government perform, New-moulding man ? 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, first of monarchs. 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 Through long successive ages to build up A labouring plan of state, behold at once The wonder done : 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 j And roaming every land, in every port His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand Unwearied plying the mechanic tool j Gathered the seeds of trade, of useful arts. Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill. Charged with the stores of Europe, home he goes : Then cities rise amid the illumined waste ;

WINTER. 227

O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign 3 Far-distant flood to flood is social joined: The astonished Euxine hears the Baltic roar; Proud na\ ies ride on seas that never foamed With daring keel before; and armies stretch Each way their dazzling files, repressing here The frantic Alexander of the north. And awing there stern 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 shewed.

Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point. Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdued, The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. 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 toirents shoot at once ; And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas. That washed the ungenial pole, will rest no more

22S THE SEASONS.

Beneath the shackles of the mighty North ;

But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave.

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 trembUng wretches chaigcd.

That, tossed amid the floating fragments, moors

Beneath the shelter of an icy isle.

While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks

More horrible. Can human force endure

The assembled mischiefs that besiege them round ?

Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness.

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 fi'om the bleak inhospitable shore.

Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl

Of famished monsters, there awaiting wrecks.

Yet Providence, that ever-waking eye.

Looks down with pity on the feeble toil

Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe

Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.

WINTER. 229

'Tis done ! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms. And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies ! How dumb the tuneful ! Horror wide extends His desolate domain. Behold, fond man, See here thy pictured life, pass some few years ; Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength. Thy sober Autumn fading into age. And pale concluding Winter comes at last. And shuts the scene. Ah, whither now are fled Those dreams of greatness ; those unsolid hopes Of happiness ; those longings after fame j Those restless cares ; those busy bustling days ; Those gay-spent, festive nights ; those veering thoughts, Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life 3 All now are vanished : Virtue sole survives. Immortal, never- failing friend of man. His guide to happiness on high. And see ! 'Tis come, the glorious morn, the second birth Of heaven and earth : awakening Nature hears The new-creating word, and starts to life. In eveiy 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,

530 THE SEASONS.

To Reason's eye refined clears up apace.

Ye vainly wise, ye blind presumptuous, now.

Confounded in the dust, adore that Power

And Wisdom 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 j while Luxury,

In palaces, lay straining her low thought.

To form unreal wants : why heaven-born Truth,

And Moderation fiair, wore the red marks

Of Superstition's scoiu-ge : why licensed Pain,

That cruel spoiler, that embosomed foe.

Embittered all our bliss. Ye good distressed.

Ye noble few, who here unbending stand

Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile ;

And what your bounded view, which only saw

A little part, deemed evil, is no more :

The storms of Wintry time will quickly pass.

And one unbounded Spring encircle all.

A HYMN.

1 HESE, as they change. Almighty Father, these. Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Foith 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 j 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 through the swelling year: And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks j 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 aU that lives. In Winter, awful Thou, with clouds and storms Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled.

232 A HYMN.

Majestic darkness, on the whirlwind's wing Riding sublime. Thou bidd'st the world adore. And humblest nature with thy northern blast.

Mysterious round ! wliat skill, what force divine. Deep-felt, in these appear ! 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 an harmonious whole j 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 j 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 5 and ardent raise One general song. To Him, ye vocal gales. Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes;

A HYMN. 233

Oh ! talk of Him in solitary glooms.

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 the astonished world, lift high to heaven

The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.

His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembUng 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 j and thou, majestic main,

A secret world of wonders in thyself,

Sound his stupendous pi-aise whose greater voice

Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.

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 Him ;

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.

234 A HYMN.

Great source of day, best image here below

Of tliy 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 j ye mossy rocks.

Retain the sound j the broad responsive low.

Ye valleys, raise ; for the great Shepherd reigns.

And his unsufifering kingdom yet will come.

Ye woodlands all, awake : a boundless song

Burst from the groves ; and where the restless day.

Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep.

Sweetest of birds, sweet Philomela, charm

The listening 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 gi'eat 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 basej

And, as each mingling flame increases each.

In one united ardour rise to heaven.

Or if you rather choose the rural shade.,

A HYMN. 235

And find a fane in eveiy sacred grove ; There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay. The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre. Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll. For me, when I forget the darling theme. Whether the Blossom blows, the Sumraer-ray Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams ; Or Winter rises in the blackening east ; Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more. And, dead 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 songj where first the Sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles j 'tis nought to me : Since God is ever present, ever felt. In the void waste as in the city full ; And w here He vital breathes, there must be joy. When even at last the solemn hour shall come. And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers. Will rising wonders sing : I cannot go Where univei-sal Lo\ e not smiles around. Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their sons j

236 A HYMN.

From seeming evil still educing good.

And better thence again-r^and bettei still.

In infimlt proglessi<fr Put I los

Mys«lf in Hiin, in Li|?ft ineffable ;

iJome then, exjHFessive?i«ieiace, isasc His praise.

THE END.

528

Printed by S. Hamilton, Weybridge.

* n.	ihomson, James
3732	The seasons
S4
1811

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