When Sunnmer reddens, and when Autumn beams; 1 Disclos’d, and kindled, by refining frost, Pours lustre on th' exalted eye. Conceal'd, aod fattens with the richest sap : A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure, 'These are not wanting ; nor the milky drove, And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing, Luxuriant, spread o'er all the lowing vale ; O'er land and sea imagination roams; Nor bleating mountains ; nor the chide of streams, Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind, And hum of bees, inviting sleep sincere Elates his being, and unfolds his powers; Or in his breast heroic virtue burns. The touch of kindred too and love he feels; The modest eye, whose beams on his alone Dim grottnes, gleaming lakes, and fountains clear. Ecstatic shine ; the little strong embrace Here too dwells simple truth ; plain innocence; Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck, unsullied beauty ; sound unbroken youth, And emulous to please him, calling forth Patient of labour, with a little pleas'd ; The fond paternal soul. Nor purpose gay, Health ever blooming; unambitious toil ; Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns; Calm contemplation, and poetic ease. For happiness and true philosophy Let others brave the flood in quest of gain, Are of the social still, and siniling kind. And beat, for joyless months, the gloomy wave. This is the life which those who fret in guilt, Let such as deem it glory to destroy, And guilty cities, never knew; the life, Rush into blood, the sack of cities scek; Led by primeral ages, uncorrupt, l'npierc'd, exulting in the widow's wail, When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man! The virgin's shriek, and infant's trembling cry. Oh, Nature ! all-sufficient! over all ! Let some, far distant from their native soil, Enrich me with tlıe knowledge of thy works ! Urg'd or by want or harden'd avarice, Snatch ine to fleaven; thy rolling wonder there, Find other lands beneath another Sun. Worl.i beyond world, in infinite extent, Let this through cities work his eager way, Profusely scatterid o'er the blue immense, By regal outrage and establish'd guile, Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws, The social sense extinct; and that ferment Give me to scan; through the disclosing deep Mlad into tumult the seditious herd, Light my blind way; the mineral strata there; Or melt them down to slavery. Let these Thrust, blooming, thence the vegetable world ; Insnare the wretched in the toils of law, O'er that the rising system, more complex, Fomenting discord, and perplexing right, Of animals; and higher still, the mind, An iron race! and those of fairer frunt, The varied scene of quick-compounded thought, But equal inhumanity, in courts, And where the inixing passions endless shift ; Delusive pomp, and dark cabals delight; Tnese ever open to my ravish'd eye; Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying smile, A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust! And tread the weary labyrinth of state. But if to that unequal; if the blood, While he, from all the stormy passions free In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid That restless men involve, hcars, and but hears, That best ambition ; under closing shades, At distance safe, the human tempest roar, Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook, WINTER. 1726. gems, The subject proposed. Address to the earl of Wilmington. First approach of Winter. AcInto his freshen'd soul, her genial hours coreling to the natural course of the Season, vaHe !ull enjoys; and not it beauty blows, rious storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow, And not an opening blosson breathes in vain. 'The driving of the snows: a man perishing In Summer he, beneath the living shade, among them; whence reflections on the wants Such as v'er frigid Teinpe wont to wave, and miscrics of human life. The polsis des Or Hemus cool, read's what the Mose, of these, Perhaps, has in iinmortal numbers sung; cending from the Alps and Apennincs. A winter crcning described: as spent by philosophers; Or what she dictates writes: and oft, an eye Shot round, rejuices in the vigorous year. hy the country people; in the city. Frost.-- A view of Winter within the polar circle. А When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world, thaw. The whole concluding with moral reAnd ternpts the sickled swain into the field, flections on a future state. Sce, Winter comes, to rule the varied year, The mighty tempest, and the hoary waste, Sullen aud say, with all his rising train, Abrupt, añit deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth, Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my Awake to colpen thought. At vight the skies, thenie. ARGUMEXT. These! that exalt the soul to solenn thought, Wrapt in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure And Heavenly in using. Welcome, kindred glooms! | Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul; Congenial horrours, bail! with frequent foot, Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods, Pleas'd have I, in my cheerful morn of life, That grumbling wave below. Th’unsightly plain When nurs'd by careless solitude I liv'd, Lies a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds And sung of Nature with uncrasing joy, Pour flood on floori, yet unexhausted still Pleas'd have I wander'd through your rough Combine, and deepening into night shut up domain; The day's fair face. The wanderers of Heaven, Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure; Fach to his home', retire; save those that love Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst; To take their pastime in the troubled air, Or seen the deep fermenting tempest brew'd Or skimming slutter round the dimply pool. In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time, The cattle from th' untasted fields return, Till through the lucid chambers of the south And ask, with meaning lowe, their wonted stalls, Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and Or ruminate in the contiguous shade. To thee, the pation of her first essay, (smil'd. Thither the houshold feathery people crowd, The Muse, o Wilinington! renews her song. The crested cock, with all his female train, Since has she rounded the revolving year: Pensive, and dripping; while the cottage-bind Skimm'd the gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne, Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful there Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rise ; Recounts his simple frolic: much he talks, Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale ; And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that And now among the Wintery clouds again, blows Roll'd in the doubling storm, she tries to soar; Without, and rattles on his humble roof. To swell her note with all the rushing winds; Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swellid, To suit her sounding cadence to the Hoods ; And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'erspread, As is her theme, her numbers wildly great: At last the rous'd up river pours along: Thrice happy! could she fill thy jurging car Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes, With bold description, and with manly thought. From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild, Nor art thou skill'd in aweful schemes alone, Tuinbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far; And how to make a mighty people thrive: Then o'er the sanded valley Hoating spreads, But equal goodness, sound integrity, Calin, sluggish, silent; till again, constrain'd A firm unshaken uncorrupted soul Between tho meeting hills, it bursts away, Amid a sliding age, and burning strong, Where rocks and wools o’erhang the turbid stream; Not vainly blazing for thy country's wcal, There gathering triple force, rapid, and deep, A steady spirit regularly free; It buils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders These, each exalting each, the statesman light through. Into the patriot; these, the public hope Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand And eye to them converting, bid the Muse Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year, Record what envy dares nut fiattery call. How nighty, how majestic, are thy works ! Now when the cheerless empire of the sky With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul ! To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields, That sees astonish'd! and astonish'd sings ! And fierce Aquarius stains th' inverted year; Ye too, ye winds ! that' now begin to blow, Hung o'er the farthest verge of Heaven, the Sun With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you. Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day. Where are your stores, ye powerful beings ! say, Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot Where your aërial magazines reserv'd, His struggling rays, in horizontal lines, To swell the brooding terrours of the storm ? Through the thick air; as, cioth'd in cloudy storm, In what far distant region of the sky, Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky; Ilusu'd in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm? And, soon-descending, to the long dark night, When from the pallid sky the Sun descends, Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns. With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb Nor is the night unwish'd; while vital heat, Uncertain wanders, stain'd; red fiery streaks Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake. Begin to push around. The reeling clouds Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast, Starger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet Deep-ting'd and damp, and congregated clouds, Which master to obey: while rising slow, And all the vapoury turbulence of Heaven, Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the Moon Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls, W'cars a wan circle round her blanted horns. A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the worid, Seen through the turbid fluctuating air, Through Nature shedding influence malign, The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray; And rouses up the sceds of dark discasc. Or frequent seen to shoot athwart the gloom, The soul of man dies in him, loathing life, And long behind them trail the whitening blaze. And black with inore than melancholy views. Snatch'd in short eddies, plays the wither'd leaf; The cattle droop; and o'ur the furrow'd land, And on the food the dancing feather floats. Fresh from the plough, the dun discolour'd flocks, With broaden'd nostrils to the sky up-turn'd, Untended spreading, crop the wholesomne root. The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale. Along the woods, along the moorislı fens, Ev'n as the matron, at her nightly task, Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm; With pensive labour draws the flaxen thread, And up among the loose disjointed cliffs, The wasted taper and the crackling flame And fractur'd mountains wild, the brawling brook Foretell the blast. But chief the plumy race, And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan, The tenants of the sky, its changes speak. Resounding long in listening Fancy's ear. Retiring froin the downs, where all day long Then comes the father of the tempest forth, They pick'd their scanty fare, a blackening train Of clamorons rooks thick ůrge their weary flight, Where now, ye lying vånities of life! Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train ! Where are you now? and what is your amount ? Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high Vexation, disappointment, and reinorse. Wheels from the deep, and screams along the Sad, sickening thought! and yet deluded man, land. A scene of crude disjointed visions past, Loud shrieks the soaring hern; and with wild wing And bruken slumbers, rises still resolv'd, The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds. With new-flush'd hopes, to run the giddy round. Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide Father of light and life ! thou good Supreme ! And blind commotion heavés; while from the O, teach me what is good ! teach me Thyself! shore, Save me froin folly, vanity, and vice, Eat into caverns by the restless wave, From every low pursuit ! and feed my soul And forest-rustling mountains, comes a voice, With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure; That solemy sounding bids the world prepare. Sacreu, substantial, never-fading bliss ! Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst, The kerner tempests rise: and fuming dun And burls the whole precipitated air, From all the livid east, or piercing liorth, Down, in a torrent. On the passive main Thick clouds ascend ; in whose capacious womb Descends th'ethereal force, and with strong gust A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congcal'd. Turns from its bottom the discolour'd deep. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; Through the black night that sits immense around, And the sky saddens with the gather'd storm. Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine Through the hush'd air the whitening shower Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn : descends, Meantime the mountain-billows to the clouds At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge, Fall broad, and wide, and fast, diinming the day, Burst into chaos with tremendous roar, With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields And anchor'd navies from their stations drive, Put on their winter-robe of purest white. Wild as the winds across the howling waste 'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts Of mighty waters : now th' inflated wave Along the mazy current Low, the woods Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid Sun Into the secret chambers of the decp, Faint from the west emits his evening ray, The wintery Baltic thundering o'er their head. Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill, Emerging thence again, before the breath Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide Of full-exerted Heaven they wing their course, The works of man. Droopi the labourer-ox And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock, Stands coler'd o'er with snow, and then demands Or shoal insidious break not their career, The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of Heaven, And in loose fragments fling them floating round. Taın'd by the cruel season, crowd around Nor less at land the loosen'd tempest reigns. The winnowing store, and claim the little boon The mountain thunders; and its sturdy sons Which Providence assigns them. One alone, Stoop to the bottoin of the rocks they shade. The red-breast, sacred to the household gods, Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast, Wisely regardful of th' embro:ling sky, The dark way-faring stranger breathless toils, In joyless tiells, and thorny thickets, leaves And, often falling, climbs against the blust. His shivering mates, and pays to trusted inan Low waves the routed forest, vex'il, and sheds His annual visit. Half-afraid he first What of its tarnish'd honon's yet remain ; Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights Dash'd down, and scatter'd, by the tearing wind's On the warm heartb; then, hopping u'er the tloor, Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs. Eyes all the smiling family askancc. Thus struggling through the dissipated grove, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is : The whirling tempest raves along che plain; Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs And on the cottage thatch'd, or loruly roof, Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base. Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome, Thougl, timorous of heart, and hard beset For entrance eager, howls the savage blast. By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs, Then too, they say, through all the burden'd air, And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant Urg'd on by fearless want. The bleating kind That, utter'd by the demon of the night, [sighs, Eye the bleak Heaven, and next the ghistening Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death. Earth Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds com With looks of dumb despair ; then, sad-dispers'd, With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky. (mixt Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of snow. All Nature reels : till Nature's King, who oft Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone, Baffle the raging year, and fill their penns [kind; And on the wings of the carcering wind With food at will, lodge them below the storin, Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm; And watch them strict : for from the bellowing East, Then strait air, sea, and earth, are hush'd at once. In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing As yet ’tis midnight deep. The weary clouds, Sweeps up the burthen of whole wintery plains Slow-meeting, mingle into solid glooin. At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks, Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep, Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills, Let me associate with the serious Night, The billowy tempest whelms; lill, upward urg'd, And Contemplation her sedate compeer; The valley to a shining mountain swells, Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day, Tipt with a wreath high-curling in the sky. And lay the meddling senses all aside. As thus the sows arise ; and foul, and fierce, : All Winter drives along the darken'd air: How many, rack'd witla honest passions, droop In his own luose-revolving fields, the swain In deep retir'd distress. How many stand Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend, Around the death-bed of their dearest friends, Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes, And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain: Of these, and all the thousand nameless ilis, Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid That one incessant struggle render life, Bencath the formless wild ; but wanders on One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate, Fro:n hill to dale, still more and more astray; Vice in his high career would stand appallid, Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think; Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts The conscious heart of Charity would warın, of home And her wide wish Benevolence dilate; While in the land of liberty, the land With open freedom, little tyrants rag'd; Tore from cold wintery limbs the tatter'd weed ; Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land, un- Ev'n robb'd them of the last of comforts, sleep; known, The free-born Briton to the dungeon chain'd, What water of the still unfrozen spring, Or, as the lust of cruelty prevailid, in the loose marsh or solitary lake, At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious stripes : Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils, And crush'd out lives, by secret barbarous ways, These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks That for their country would have toil'd, or bled. Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, O, great design ! if executed well, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, With patient care, and wisdom-temper'd zeal. Mix'd with the tender anguish Nature shoots Ye sons of mercy! yet resume the search; Through the wrung bosom of the dying man, Drag forth the legal monsters into light, His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. Wrench from their hands oppressioa's iron rod, In vain for him th' officious wife prepares And bid the cruel feel the pains they give. The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm ; Much still untouch'd remains; in this rank age, In vain his little children, peeping ont Much is the patriot's weeding hand requir'd. Into the mingling storm, demand their sire, The toils of law, (what dark insidious men With tears of artless innocence. Alas! Have cumberous added to perplex the truth, Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold, And lengthen simple justice into trade) Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve How glorious were the day! that saw these broke, The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense ; And every man within ihe reach of right. And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, By wintery famine rous'd, from all the tract lays bim along the snows, a stilen'd corse, Of horrid mountains which the shrining Alps, Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast. And wavy Appennine, and Pyrences, Ah, little think the gay licentious proud, Pranch out stupendous into distant lands; Whum pleasure, power, and affluence surround; Cruel as Death, and hungry as the Grave! They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, Burning for blood ! bony, and gaunt, and grim! And wanton, often cruel, riot waste; Assembling wolves in raging troops descend; Ah, little think they, while they dance along, And, pouring o'er the country, bear along, How many feel, this very moment, death Keen as the north wind sweeps the glossy snow. And all the sad variety of pain. All is their prize. They fasten on the steed, How many sink in the devouring fiood, Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart. Or more devouring flame. How many bleed, Vor can the bull his awful front defend, By shameful variance betwixt man and man. Or shake the murdering sarages away. How many pine in want, and digeou glooms; Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fiy, Shut from the common air, and cornmon use And trar the screaming infant from her breasts Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup The goulike face of man avails him nouglit. Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread E'vn Beauty, force divine ! at whose bright glance Of misery. Sore piere'd by u intery winds, The generous lion stands in soften’d gaze, How inany shrink into the sorlid hot. Flere bleeds, a hapless undistinguish'd prey. Of cheerless poverty. How many shake But if, appriz'd of the severe attack, With all the fiercer tortures of the mind, The country be shut up, lur'd by the scent, Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, retorse ; On church-yards crear (inhuman to relate !) Whenco tumbled headlong from the height of life, The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig They furnish matter for the tragic Muse. The shrouded body from the grave; o'er which, Ev'ni in the vale, where Wisdom loves to dwell With Friendship, Peace, and Contenplation joind, ? The Jail Committee, in the year 1729. Blix'd with foul shades, and frighted ghosts, they · Their country rajs'd to freedom, empire, fame. howl. He too, with whom Athenian honour sunk; Among those hilly regions, where embrac'd And left a mass of sordid lees bebind, In peaceful vales the happy Grisons dwell, Phocion the good ; in public life severe, Oft, rushing sudden from the loaded cliffs, To virtue still inexorably firm ; Mountains of snow their gathering terrours roll. But when, beneath his low illustrious roof, From steep to steep, loud-thundering down they Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth'd his brow, come, Not friendship softer was, nor love more kind. A wintery waste in dire commotion all ; And he, the last of old Lycurgas' sons, Ev'n Sparta's self to servile avaricesunk. Aratus, who a while relum'd the soul In the wild depth of Winter, while without Of fondly lingering liberty in Greece: The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat, And he her darling, as her latest hope, Between the groaning forest and the shore The gallant Philopamen ; who to arms Beat by the boundless multitnde of waves, Turn'd the luxurious pomp he could not cure; A rural, shelter'd, solitary scene; Or toiling in his farm a simple swain ; Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join, Or bold and skilful, thundering in the field. To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit, Of rougher front, a mighty people come! And hold high converse with the mighty dead;, A race of heroes!' in those virtuous times, Sages of ancient time, as gods rever'd, Which knew no stain, save that with partial fame As gods beneficent, who blest mankind Their dearest country they too fondly lov'd: With arts, with arms, and humaniz'd a world. Her better founder first, the light of Rome, Rous'd at th' inspiring thought, 1 throw aside Numa, who sosten'd her rapacious sons : The long-liv'd volume ; and, deep musing, hail Servius the king, who laid the solid base The sacred shades, that slowly-rising pass On which o'er Earth the vast republic spread. Before my wondering eyes. First Socrates, Then the great consuls venerable rise. Who, firmly good in a corrupted state, The public father' who the private quell’d, Against the rage of tyrants single stood, As on the dread tribunal sternly sad. Invincible! calm reason's holy law, He, whom his thankless country could not lose, That voice of God within th' attentive mind, Camillus, only vengeful to his foes. Obeying, fearless, or in life, or death : Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gol! ; Great inoral teacher ! wisest of mankind ! And Cincinnatus, aweful froin the plough. Solon the next, who built his common-weal Thy willing victim?, Carthage, bursting loose On equity's wide base ; by tender laws From all that pleading Nature could oppose, A lively people curbing, yet undamp'd, From a whole city's tears, by rigid faith Preserving still that quick peculiar fire, Imperious call'd, and honour's dire commands Whence in the laurel'd field of finer arts, Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave, And of bold freedom, they unequal'd shone, Who soon the race of spotless glory ran, The pride of smiling Greece, and human-kind. And warm in youth, to the poetic shade Lycurgus then, who bow'd beneath the force With Friendship and Philosophy retir’d. Of strictcst discipline, severely wise, Tully, who e powerful eloquence a while All human passions. Following him, I see, Restrain'd the rapid fate of rushing Rome. As at Thermopylæ he glorious fell, Unconquer'd Cato, virtuous in ertrime. The firm devoted chiet', who prov'd by deeds And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart, The hardest lesson which the viher taught. Whose stcady arm, hy aweful virtue urg'd, Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend. Demand; but who can count the stars of Hearon In pure majestic poverty rever'd; Who sing their influence on this lower world? Who, evin his glory to his country's weal Behold, who vonder comes ! in sober state, Submitting, swell'd a hanghty rival's a fame. Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun : Reard by bus care, of softer ray appears 'Tis Phobus self, or cise the Mantuan Swain ! Cimon, sweet-soul'd ; whose genius, rising strong, Great Homer too appears, of daring wing, Shook off the load of young debauch ; abroad Parent of song! and equal by his side, The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend The British Muse; join'd hand in hand they walk, Of every worth and every splendid art; Darkling, full up the middle steep to Fame. Modest and simple in the pomp of wealth. Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touch Theo the last worthies of declining Greece, Pathetic drew th' impassion'd heart, and charın'd Late cail'd to glory, in unequal times, Transported Athens with the moral scene : Pensive, appear. The fair Corinthian boast, Nor those who, tuneful, wak'd th' enchanting lyre. Timoleon, happy temper! mild, and firm, First of your kind! society divine; And mount my soaring soul to thonghits like youre, Whose virtues, in heroic cuncord join'd, Silence, thon lomily power! the door be thine; See on the hallow'd hour that none intrude, "Marcus Junius Brutus. 2 Regulys. VOL XIN 3 |