Thus jocund fleets with them the winter-night.

The city swarms intense. The public haunt, Full of each theme, and warm with mixt discourse, Hums indistinct. The sons of riot flow

Down the loose stream of false inchanted joy,

To swift destuction. On the rankled soul
The gaming fury falls; and in one gulph
Of total ruin, honour, virtue, peace,
Friends, families, and fortune, headlong sink.
Up-springs the dance along the lighted dome,
Mix'd, and evolv'd, a thousand sprightly ways.
The glittering court effuses every pomp ;

The circle deepens : beam'd from gaudy robes,
Tapers, and sparkling gems, and radiant eyes,
A soft effulgence o'er the palace waves:
While, a gay insect in his summer-shine,
The fop, light-fluttering, spreads his mealy wings.
Dread o'er the scene, the ghost of HAMLET stalks;
OTHELO rages; poor MONIMIA mourns;

And BELVIDERA pours her soul in love.

Terror alarms the breast; the comely tear

Steals o'er the cheek: or else the COMIC MUSE

Holds to the world a picture of itself,
And raises sly the fair impartial laugh.

Sometimes she lifts her strain, and paints the scenes
Of beauteous life; whate'er can deck mankind,
Or charm the heart, in generous (1) BEVIL shew'd.
O Thou, whose wisdom, solid yet refin’d,

Whose patriot virtues, and consummate skill

(1) A character in the CONSCIOUS LOVERS, written by Sir Richard Steele.

To touch the finer springs that move the world,
Join'd to whate'er the Graces can bestow,
And all Apollo's animating fire,

Give thee, with pleasing dignity, to shine
At once the guardian, ornament,
and joy,
Of polish'd life; permit the Rural Muse,
O CHESTERFIELD, to grace with thee her song!
Ere to the shades again she humbly flies,
Indulge her fond ambition, in thy train,
(For every Muse has in thy train a place)
To mark thy various full-accomplish'd mind:
To mark that spirit, which, with British scorn,
Rejects th' allurements of corrupted power;
That elegant politeness, which excels,

Even in the judgment of presumptuous France,
The boasted manners of her shining court;
That wit, the vivid energy of sense,

The truth of Nature, which, with Attic point,
And kind well-temper'd satire, smoothly keen,
Steals thro' the soul, and without pain corrects.
Or, rising thence with yet a brighter flame,
O let me hail thee on some glorious day,
When to the listening senate, ardent, croud
BRITANNIA'S Sons to hear her pleaded cause.
Then drest by thee, more amiably fair,
Truth the soft robe of mild persuasion wears :
Thou to assenting reason giv'st again

Her own enlightened thoughts; call'd from the heart
Th' obedient passions on thy voice attend;

And even reluctant party feels a while

Thy gracious power: as thro' the varied maze

Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now strong,
Profound and clear, you roll the copious flood.

To thy lov'd haunt return, my happy Muse :
For now, behold, the joyous winter-days,
Frosty, succeed ; and thro' the blue serene,
For sight too fine, th' ethereal nitre flies;
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air
Storing afresh with elemental life.

Close crouds the shining atmosphere; and binds
Our strengthened bodies in its cold embrace,
Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood;
Refines our spirits, thro' the new-strung nerves,
In swifter fallies darting to the brain;

Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.
All Nature feels the renovating force
Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye
In ruin seen. The frost-concocted glebe
Draws in abundant vegetable soul,
And gathers vigour for the coming year.
A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek
Of ruddy fire and luculent along.
The purer rivers flow; their sullen deeps,
Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze,
And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.

What art thou, frost ? and whence are thy keen stores Deriv'd, thou secret all-invading power,

Whom even th' illusive fluid cannot fly?

Is not thy potent energy, unseen,
Myriads of little salts, or hook'd, or shap'd
Like double wedges, and diffus'd immense

Thro' water,
earth, and ether? Hence at eve,
Steam'd eager from the red horizon round,
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffus'd,
An icy gale, oft shifting, o'er the pool
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering stream. The loosened ice,
Let down the flood, and half dissolv'd by day
Rustles no more; but to the sedgy bank
Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone,
A crystal pavement, by the breath of heaven
Cemented firm; till, seiz'd from shore to shore,
The whole imprison'd river growls below.
Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
A double noise; while, at his evening watch,
The village dog deters the nightly thief;
The heifer lows; the distant water-fall
Swells in the breeze; and, with the hasty tread
Of traveller, the hollow-sounding plain
Shakes from afar. The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and, all one cope
Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole.
From pole to pole the rigid influence falls,
Thro' the still night, incessant, heavy, strong
And seizes Nature fast. It freezes on;

Til moru, late-rising o'er the drooping world,
Lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then appears
The various labour of the silent night :

Prone from the dripping eave, and dumb cascade,
Whose idle :orrents only seem to roar,

The pendant icicle; the frost-work fair,

Where transient hues, and fancy'd figures rise ;
Wide-spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook,
A livid tract, cold-gleaming on the morn;
The forest bent beneath the plumy wave;
And by the frost refin'd the whiter snow,
Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread
Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks

His pining flock, or from the mountain top,
Pleas'd with the slippery surface, swift descends.
On blithsome frolicks bent, the youthful swains,
While every work of Man is laid at rest,
Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport
And revelry dissolv'd; where mixing glad,
Happiest of all their train! the raptur'd boy
Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine
Branch'd out in many a long canal extends,
From every province swarming, void of care,
Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep,
On sounding skates, a thousand different ways,
In circling poise, swift as the winds, along,
The then gay
land is maddened all to joy.
Nor less the northern courts, wide o'er the snow,
Pour a new pomp. Eager, on rapid sleds,
Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel
The long-resounding course. Mean-time, to raise
The manly strife, with highly blooming charms,
Flush'd by the season, Scandinavia's dames,
Or Russia's buxom daughters glow around.

Pure, quick, and sportful, is the wholesome day; But soon elaps'd. The horizontal sun,

Broad o'er the south, hangs at his utmost noon :