Of every life, that from the dreary month s
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they

Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost,
The long long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the (1) BRITON's fate,
As with first prow, (what have not BRITONS dar'd!)
He for the passage sought, attempted since

So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate seal'd, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued

The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.

Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing stream Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of Men; And half enlivened by the distant sun,

That rears and ripens Man, as well as plants,
Here human Nature wears its rudest form.
Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves
Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer,
They waste the tedious gloom. Immers'd in furs
Dose the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor song,
Nor tenderness they know; nor aught of life,
Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without.
Till morn at length, her roses drooping all,

(1) Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth to diseover the North-East passage.

Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their fields,
And calls the quivered savage to the chace.

What cannot active government perform, New moulding Man? Wide-stretching from these A people savage from remotest time,

(shores,

A huge neglected empire, ONE Vast Mind,
By HEAVEN inspir'd, from Gothic darkness call'd.
Immortal PETER! first of monarchs! He

His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods, her seas ber ill-submitting sons ;
And while the fierce Barbarian he subdu'd,
To more exalted soul he rais'd the Man.
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toil'd
Thro' long successive ages to build up

A labouring plan of state, behold at once
The wonder done! behold the matchless prince!
Who left his native throne, where reign'd till then
A mighty shadow of unreal power;

Who greatly spurn'd the slothful pomp of courts;
And roaming every land, in every port
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unwearied plying the mechanic tool,
Gather'd the seeds of trade, of useful arts,
Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill. !

Charg'd with the stores of Europe home he goes. A
Then cities rise amid th' illumin'd waste';
O'er joyless desarts smiles the rural reign;
Far-distant flood to flood is social join'd;
Th' astonish'd Euxine hears the Baltick roar ;
Proud navies ride on seas that never foam'd
With daring keel before; and armies stretch

Each

way

their dazzling files, repressing here The frantic Alexander of the north,

And awing there stern Othman's shrinking sons.
Sloth flies the land, and Ignorance, and Vice,
Of old dishonour proud: it glows around,
Taught by the ROYAL HAND that rous'd the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade :
For what his wisdom plann'd, and power enforc'd,
More potent still, his great example shew'd.
with blunted point,

Muttering, the winds at eve, Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdu'd, The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet desends, And floods the country round. The rivers swell Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts, A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once; And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas, That wash'd th' ungenial pole, will rest no more Beneath the shackles of the mighty north; But, rousing all, their waves, resistless heave. And hark! the lengthening roar continuous runs Athwart the rifted deep : at once it bursts, And piles althousand mountains to the clouds. Ill fares the bark with trembling wretches charg'd, That, tost amid the floating fragments, moors Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,

While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks More horrible. Can human force endure

The assembled mischiefs that besiege them round?

Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness,

The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renew'd with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main.
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan

And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempest the loosened brine, while thro' the gloom,
Far, from the bleak inhospitable shore,
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Of famish'd monsters, there awaiting wrecks.
Yet PROVIDENCE, that ever-waking eye,
Looks down with pity on the feeble toil

Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe,
Thro' all this dreary labyrinth of fate.

'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 pictur'd 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 shar'd 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 heightened 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 refin'd 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 liv'd,
And died, neglected: why the good Man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
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 licens'd pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distrest!
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.