In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snow, a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY WINTER.
"Tis done!-Dread Winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd 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?
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?
Those gay-spent, festive nights? those veering thoughts,
Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life?
All now are vanish'd! 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 every heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refined, clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdom oft arraign'd: see now the cause,
Why unassuming worth in secret lived,
And died, neglected: why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined
In starving solitude! while Luxury,
In palaces, lay straining her low thought,
To form unreal wants: why heaven-born Truth,
And Moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of Superstition's scourge: why licensed Pain,
That cruel spoiler, that imbosom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distress'd!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil is no more:
The storms of wintry Time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.
232. FROM THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.'
O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate,
That like an emmet thou must ever moil
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date,
And, certes, there is for it reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found.
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground:
And there a season atween June and May,
Half-prankt with spring, with summer half-imbrown'd, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne cared e'en for play.
Was naught around but images of rest; Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest, From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime, unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd, And hurled everywhere their waters sheen; That as they bicker'd through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves 'plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.
233. William Shenstone. 1714-1763. (Manual, p. 377.)
My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottos are shaded with trees,
And my hills are white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,
Such health do my fountains bestow;
My fountains are bordered with moss,
Where the harebells and violets blow.
Not a pine in my grove is there seen,
But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;
Not a beech's more beautiful green,
But a sweet-brier entwines it around.
Not my fields, in the prime of the year,
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.
One would think she might like to retire
To the bower I have laboured to rear;
Not a shrub that I heard her admire,
But I hasted and planted it there.
Oh, how sudden the jessamine strove
With the lilac to render it gay!
Already it calls for my love
To prune the wild branches away.
Frow the plains, from the woodlands, and groves,
What strains of wild melody flow!
How the nightingales warble their loves
From thickets of roses that blow!
I have found out a gift for my fair,
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed ;—
But let me such plunder forbear,
She will say 'twas a barbarous deed;
For he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who would rob a poor bird of its young;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.
I have heard her with sweetness unfold
How that pity was due to a dove;
That it ever attended the bold,
And she called it the sister of love.
But her words such a pleasure convey,
So much I her accent adore,
Let her speak, and whatever she say,
Methinks I should love her the more.
234. William Collins. 1721-1759. (Manual, p. 377.) ODE TO FEAR.
Thou, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes, is shown,
Who seest appall'd the unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between :
Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!
I see I see thee near.
I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye!
Like thee I start, like thee disorder'd fly,
For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear!
Danger, whose limbs of giant mould
What mortal eye can fix'd behold?
Who stalks his round, a hideous form,
Howling amidst the midnight storm,
Or throws him on the ridgy steep
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep:
And with him thousand phantoms join'd,
Who prompt to deeds accursed the mind:
And those, the fiends, who near allied,
O'er nature's wounds and wrecks preside;
While vengeance, in the lurid air,
Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare:
On whom that ravening brood of fate,
Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait;
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see,
And look not madly wild, like thee?
235. Mark Akenside. 1721-1770. (Manual, p. 379.) FROM THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION.' GENIUS.
From Heav'n my strains begin; from Heav'n descends The flame of genius to the human breast,
And love, and beauty, and poetic joy,
And inspiration. Ere the radiant Sun,
Sprang from the east, or 'midst the vault of night
The Moon suspended her serener lamp;
Ere mountains, woods, or streams adorn'd the globe,
Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore;
Then liv'd th' almighty One; then, deep retir'd
In his unfathom'd essence, view'd the forms,
The forms eternal of created things;
The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,
The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe, And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first
Of days on them his love divine he fix'd,
His admiration: till in time complete,
What he admir'd, and lov'd, his vital smile
Unfolded into being. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame;
Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves;
Hence light and shade alternate; warmth and cold;
And clear autumnal skies, and vernal show'rs;
And all the fair variety of things.
But not alike to ev'ry mortal eye
Is this great scene unveil'd. For since the claims
Of social life to diff'rent labours urge
The active pow'rs of man; with wise intent
The hand of Nature on peculiar minds
Imprints a diff'rent bias, and to each
Decrees its province in the common toil.
To some she taught the fabric of the sphere,
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