The first, as o'er the billowy deep he pass'd, Blew from his brazen trump a far resounding blast. Upon a beaked promontory high,

With streaming beard, and cloudy brow severe, Mark'd ye the Father* of the frowning year?

Dark vapours roll'd o'er the tempestuous sky When creeping Winter from his cave came forth; 'Stern Courier of the Storm,' he cried, 'what from the North?'

NORTH WIND.

'From the vast and desert deeps,
Where the lonely Kraken sleeps,
Where fix'd, the icy mountains high
Glimmer to the twilight sky;
Where, six lingering months to last,
The night is closed, the day is pass'd,-
Father, lo! I come, I come :

I have heard the wizard's drum,
And the wither'd Lapland hag
Seal, with mutter'd spell, her bag:
O'er mountains white and forests sere
I flew, and with a wink am here.'

WINTER.

" Spirit of unwearied wing,

From the Baltic's frozen main,
From the Russ's bleak domain,
Say, what tidings dost thou bring?"

* Then comes the Father of the Tempest forth.

VOL. II.

LL

Thomson.

'Shouts, and the noise of battle!' and again
The winged wind blew loud a deadly blast ;
Shouts, and the noise of battle!' the long main
Seem'd with hoarse voice to answer as he pass'd.

6

The moody South went by, and silence kept;
The cloudy rack oft hid his mournful mien,
And frequent fell the showers, as if he wept
The' eternal havoc of this mortal scene.

He had heard the yell and cry
And howling dance of Anarchy,
Where the Rhone, with rushing flood,
Murmur'd to the main through blood:-
He seem'd to wish he could for ever throw
His misty mantle o'er a world of woe.

But, rousing him from his desponding trance, Cold Eurus blew his sharp and shrilling horn ; In his right hand he bore an icy lance,

That far off glitter'd in the frost of morn; The Old Man knew the clarion from afar, What from the East?' he cried.

EAST WIND.

'Shouts, and the noise of war!

Far o'er the land has been my flight,

O'er many a forest dark as night,

O'er champaigns where the Tartar speeds,
O'er Wolga's wild and giant reeds,
O'er the Carpathian summits hoar,
Beneath whose snows and shadows frore
Poland's level length unfolds

Her trackless woods and wildering wolds,

Like a spirit, seeking rest,

I have pass'd from east to west,
While sounds of discord and lament
Rose from the earth where'er I went!
I care not; hurrying, as in scorn,
I shook my lance, and blew my horn;
The day shows clear; and merrily
Along the' Atlantic now I fly.'

Who comes in soft and spicy vest
From the mild regions of the West?

An azure veil bends waving o'er his head,.
And showers of violets from his hands are shed.
"Tis Zephyr-with a look as young and fair,
As when his lucid wings convey'd
That beautiful and gentle maid
Psyche*, transported through the air,

The blissful couch of Love's own god to share.

Winter avaunt! thy haggard eye
Will scare him as he passes by,
Him and the timid butterfly.
He brings again the morn of May.

The lark, amid the clear blue sky,
Carols, but is not seen so high,

And all the Winter's winds fly far away!
I cried, 'O Father of the world! whose might
The storm, the darkness, and the winds obey,
Oh, when will thus the long tempestuous night
Of warfare and of woe be roll'd away!

Oh, when will cease the uproar and the din,
And Peace breathe soft, "Summer is coming in!""

BOWLES.

* See the poem of Cupid and Psyche, in this volume.

THE HAG.

THE hag is astride

This night for to ride,

The devil and she together,

Through thick and through thin,
Now out and now in,

Though ne'er so foul be the weather.

A thorn or a bur

She takes for a spur,

With a lash of a bramble she rides now; Through brakes and through briars, O'er ditches and mires,

She follows the spirit that guides now.

No beast for his food

Dares now range the wood;

But hush'd in his lair he lies lurking;
While mischiefs by these,

On land and on seas,
At noon of night are aworking.

The storm will arise

And trouble the skies

This night; and, more for the wonder,

The ghost from the tomb

Affrighted shall come,

Call'd out by the clap of the thunder.

HERRICK.

THURSDAY; OR, THE SPELL.

HOBNELIA, seated in a dreary vale,

In pensive mood rehearsed her piteous tale;
Her piteous tale the winds in sighs bemoan,
And pining Echo answers groan for groan:
'I rue the day, a rueful day I trow,
The woful day, a day indeed of woe!
When Lubberkin to town his cattle drove,
A maiden fine bedight he hap to love;
The maiden fine bedight his love retains,
And for the village he forsakes the plains.
Return, my Lubberkin! these ditties hear,
Spells will I try, and spells shall ease my care.
With my sharp heel I three times mark the
ground,

And turn me thrice around, around, around.

"When first the year I heard the cuckoo sing, And call with welcome note the budding spring, I straightway set a running with such haste, Deborah that won the smock scarce run so fast; Till spent for lack of breath, quite weary grown, Upon a rising bank I sat adown,

Then doff'd my shoe; and, by my troth, I swear,
Therein I spied this yellow frizzled hair,
As like to Lubberkin's in curl and hue
As if upon his comely pate it grew.

[ground,

With my sharp heel I three times mark the And turn me thrice around, around, around.

At eve last Midsummer no sleep I sought,
But to the field a bag of hempseed brought;
I scatter'd round the seed on every side,
And three times in a trembling accent cried,