And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods, That stretch, athwart the solitary vast, Their icy horrors to the frozen main; And cheerless towns far distant, never bless'd, Save when its annual course the caravan Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay1, With news of human kind. Yet there life glows; Yet cherish'd there, beneath the shining waste, The furry nations harbour: tipt with jet, Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press; Sables, of glossy black; and dark embrown'd, Or beauteous freak'd with many a mingled hue, Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts. There, warm together press'd, the trooping deer Sleep on the new fall'n snows; and, scarce his head Rais'd o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss.
Cheer'd by the milder beam, the sprightly youth Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands Gazing the inverted landscape, half afraid To meditate the blue profound below;
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 repell'd, With arms and legs according well, he makes, As humour leads, an easy-winding path; While, from his polish'd sides, a dewy light Effuses on the pleas'd spectators round. This is the purest exercise of health, The kind refresher of the summer heats: Nor, when cold Winter keens the brightening flood, Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink. Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserv'd By the bold swimmer, in the swift illapse Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs Knit into force; and the same Roman arm2, That rose victorious o'er the conquer'd earth,
1 The old name for China. (See Marco Paolo's Travels.) 2 Swimming was a part of every Roman's training.
First learn'd, while tender, to subdue the wave. Even, from the body's purity, the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid.
TRUST IN GOD'S PROVIDENCE.
Think not, when all your scanty stores afford Is spread at once upon the sparing board; Think not, when worn the homely robe appears, While on the roof the howling tempest bears; What farther shall this feeble life sustain, And what shall clothe these shivering limbs again. Say, does not life its nourishment exceed? And the fair body its investing weed?
Behold! and look away your low despair See the light tenants of the barren air: To them nor stores nor granaries belong, Nought but the woodland and the pleasing song; Yet your kind Heavenly Father bends his eye On the least wing that flits along the sky. He hears their gay and their distressful call, And with unsparing bounty fills them all. Observe the rising lily's snowy grace, Observe the various vegetable race;
They neither toil nor spin, but careless grow; Yet see how warm they blush! how bright they glow! What regal vestments can with theirs compare! What king so shining! or what queen so fair!
If ceaseless thus the fowls of heaven he feeds; If o'er the fields such lucid robes he spreads; Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say? Is he unwise? or are ye less than they?
A STORM IN AUTUMN.
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 aerial tempest fuller swells, And in one mighty stream, invisible, Immense, the whole excited atmosphere Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world; Strain'd to the root, the stooping forest pours A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves.
High beat, the circling mountains eddy in, From the bare wild, the dissipated storm, And send it in a torrent down the vale. Expos'd, 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 whirl'd 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 weaves its gloom, and still The deluge deepens; till the fields around Lie sunk, and flatted, in the sordid wave. Sudden, the ditches swell, the meadows swim, Red, from the hills, innumerable streams Tumultuous roar, and high above its banks The river lift; before whose rushing tide, Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains, Roll mingled down; all that the winds had spar'd In one wild moment ruin'd; the big hopes, And well-earn'd treasures of the painful year. Fled to some eminence, the husbandman Helpless beholds the miserable wreck Driving along; his drowning ox at once Descending, with his labours scatter'd round, He sees; and instant o'er his shivering thought Comes Winter unprovided, and a train Of claimant children dear.
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 urg'd, The valley to a shining mountain swells, Tipt with a wreath high curling in the sky.
As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce, All Winter drives along the darken'd air; In his own loose revolving fields, the swain Disaster'd 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; but wanders on From hill to dale, still more and more astray, Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul! What black despair, what horror fills his heart! When for the dusky spot, which Fancy feign'd His tufted cottage rising through the snow, He meets the roughness of the middle waste, Far from the track, and blest abode of man ; While round him night resistless closes fast, And every tempest howling o'er his head, Renders the savage wilderness more wild. Then throng the busy shapes into his mind, Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost ; Of faithless bogs, of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land, unknown, What water, of the still unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mix'd with the tender anguish Nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man, His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. In vain for him th' officious wife prepares The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm; In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling storm, demand their sire, With tears of artless innocence. Alas! Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold; Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense; And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows, a stiffen'd corse! Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
THE GLORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.
Happy Britannia! where the Queen of Arts, Inspiring vigour, Liberty abroad
Walks, unconfin'd 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; Unmatch'd thy guardian oaks; thy valleys float With golden waves; and on thy mountains flocks Bleat numberless; while, roving round their sides, Bellow the blackening herds in lusty droves. Beneath, thy meadows glow, and rise unequall'd Against the mower's scythe. On every hand Thy villas shine. Thy country teems with wealth; And property assures it to the swain 1, Pleas'd, and unwearied in his guarded toil. Full are thy cities with the sons of art; And trade and joy, in every busy street, Mingling are heard: even Drudgery 2 himself, As at the car he sweats, or dusty hews
The palace stone, looks gay. Thy crowded ports, Where rising masts an endless prospect yield, With labour burn, and echo to the shouts Of hurried sailor, as he hearty waves His last adieu, and loosening every sheet, Resigns the spreading vessel to the wind.
Bold, firm, and graceful, are thy generous youth, By hardship sinew'd, and by danger fir'd, 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 plains Of thriving peace thy thoughtful sires preside; In genius, and substantial learning, high ; For every virtue, every worth, renown'd; Sincere, plain hearted, hospitable, kind ; Yet, like the mustering thunder, when provok'd, The dread of tyrants, and the sole resource Of those that under grim oppression groan. Thy sons of glory many ! Alfred thine, In whom the splendour of heroic war, And more heroic peace, when govern'd well, Combine; whose hallow'd name the virtuous saint,
And his own muses love; the best of kings ! With him thy Edwards and thy Henrys shine, Names dear to fame; the first who deep impress'd On haughty Gaul the terror of thy arms,
1 The law of property defends the poor man's earnings. 2 Drudgery, not a pleasing term for honest industry.
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