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No more the streams in music roll:
But snows fall dark, or rains resound;
And, while great Nature mourns around,
Her griefs infect the human soul.

III.

Hence the loud city's busy throngs
Urge the warm bowl and splendid fire:
Harmonious dances, festive songs,
Against the spiteful heaven conspire.
Meantime, perhaps, with tender fears,
Some village dame the curfew hears,
While round the hearth her children play:
At morn their father went abroad;

The moon is sunk, and deep the road;

She sighs, and wonders at his stay.

IV.

But thou, my lyre, awake, arise,

And hail the sun's returning force:

Even now he climbs the northern skies,
And health and hope attend his course.
Then louder howl the aërial waste,
Be earth with keener cold embrac'd,
Yet gentle hours advance their wing;
And Fancy, mocking Winter's might,
With flowers and dews and streaming light
Already decks the new-born spring.

V.

O fountain of the golden day,

Could mortal vows promote thy speed,

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How soon before thy vernal ray
Should each unkindly damp recede!
How soon each hovering tempest fly,
Whose stores for mischief arm the sky,
Prompt on our heads to burst amain,
To rend the forest from the steep,
Or, thundering o'er the Baltic deep,
To whelm the merchant's hopes of gain!

VI.

But let not man's unequal views
Presume o'er Nature and her laws:

"Tis his with grateful joy to use
The indulgence of the Sovereign Cause;
Secure that health and beauty springs
Through this majestic frame of things,
Beyond what he can reach to know;
And that Heaven's all-subduing will,
With good, the progeny of ill,
Attempereth every state below.

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VIII.

But should some cheerful, equal friend
Bid leave the studious page awhile,
Let mirth on wisdom then attend,

And social ease on learned toil.
Then while, at love's uncareful shrine,
Each dictates to the god of wine
Her name whom all his hopes obey,
What flattering dreams each bosom warm,
While absence, heightening every charm,
Invokes the slow-returning May!

IX.

May, thou delight of heaven and earth,
When will thy genial star arise?

The auspicious morn, which gives thee birth,
Shall bring Eudora to my eyes.
Within her sylvan haunt behold,
As in the happy garden old,

She moves like that primeval fair
Thither, ye silver-sounding lyres,
Ye tender smiles, ye chaste desires,
Fond hope and mutual faith, repair.

X.

And if believing love can read

His better omens in her eye,

Then shall my fears, O charming maid,
And every pain of absence die:
Then shall my jocund harp, attun'd

To thy true ear, with sweeter sound

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Pursue the free Horatian song;
Old Tyne shall listen to my tale,
And Echo, down the bordering vale,
The liquid melody prolong.

FOR THE WINTER SOLSTICE, DECEMBER 11, 1740. AS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN.

Now to the utmost southern goal
The sun has trac'd his annual way,
And backward now prepares to roll,
And bless the north with earlier day.
Prone on Potosi's lofty brow
Floods of sublimer splendour flow,
Ripening the latent seeds of gold;
Whilst, panting in the lonely shade,
Th' afflicted Indian hides his head,
Nor dares the blaze of noon behold.

But lo! on this deserted coast

How faint the light, how chill the air!
Lo! arm'd with whirlwind, hail, and frost,
Fierce Winter desolates the year.
The fields resign their cheerful bloom,
No more the breezes breathe perfume,
No more the warbling waters roll;
Deserts of snow fatigue the eye,
Successive tempests bloat the sky,
And gloomy damps oppress the soul.

T

But let my drooping genius rise,
And hail the sun's remotest ray:
Now, now he climbs the northern skies,
To-morrow nearer than to-day.

Then louder howl the stormy waste,
Be land and ocean worse defac'd,
Yet brighter hours are on the wing,
And Fancy, through the wintry gloom,
Radiant with dews, and flowers in bloom,
Already hails th' emerging spring.

O fountain of the golden day!
Could mortal vows but urge thy speed,
How soon before thy vernal ray
Should each unkindly damp recede!
How soon each tempest hovering fly,
That now fermenting loads the sky,
Prompt on our heads to burst amain,
To rend the forest from the steep,
And, thundering o'er the Baltic deep,
To whelm the merchant's hopes of gain!

But let not man's imperfect views
Presume to tax wise Nature's laws:
'Tis his with silent joy to use

Th' indulgence of the Sovereign Cause;
Secure that from the whole of things
Beauty and good consummate springs,
Beyond what he can reach to know,
And that the providence of Heaven

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