The subject proposed. Address to the Earl of Wilinington. First
approach of Winter. According to the natural course of the seasons, various storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the snows; a man perishing among them; whenco reflections on the wants and miseries of human life. The wolves descending from the Alps and Apennines. A winter evening described; as spent by philosophers; by the country people; in the city. Frost. A view of Winter within the polar circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral refections on a future state.
SEE, Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train-
Vapors, and Clouds, and Storms. Be these my theme,
These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought,
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms, 5
Congenial horrors, hail! with frequent foot,
Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nursed by careless Solitude I lived,
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy,
Pleased have I wandered through your rough domain ;
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure ; 11
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;
Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brewed,
In the grim evening sky. Thus passed the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the south 15
Looked out the joyous Spring, looked out, and smiled.
To thee, the patron of her first essay,
The Muse, O Wilmington! renews her song. ;
Since has she rounded the revolving year;
Skimmed the gay Spring; on eagle pinions borne, 20
Attempted through the summer blaze to rise ;
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale;
And now amongst the wintry clouds again,
Rolled in the doubling storm, she tries to soar ,
To swell her note with all the rushing winds ;
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods ;
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great :
Thrice happy ! could she fill thy judging ear
With bold description and with manly thought.
Nor art thou skilled in awful schemes alone, 30
And how to make a mighty people thrive
But equal goodness, sound integrity,
A firm, unshaken, uncorrupted soul
Amid a sliding age, and burning strong,
Not vainly blazing, for thy country's weal, 35
A steady spirit, regularly free;
These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse
Record what envy dares not flattery call.
40
Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius stains th’inverted year;
Hung o'er the furthest verge of heaven, the sun
Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day. 45
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And, soon descending, to the long, dark night, 50
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.
Nor is the night unwished; while vital heat,
Light, life, and joy the dubious day forsake.
Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast,
Deep-tinged and damp, and congregated clouds, 55
And all the vapory turbulence of heaven,
Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls,
A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,
Through Nature shedding influence malign,
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.
60 The soul of man dies in him, loathing life,
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop; and o’er the furrowed land,
Fresh from the plough, the dun-discolored flocks,
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root. 65
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm:
And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,
And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave presageful, send a hollow moan, 70
Resounding long in listening Fancy's ear.
Then comes the father of the tempest forth,
Wrapped in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure
Drive through the mingling skies with vapor foul,
Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods, 75
That grumbling wave below. Th’unsightly plain
Lies a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds
Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still
Combine, and deepening into night shut up
The day's fair face. The wanderers of heaven 80
Each to his home retire; save those that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
Or skimming Autter round the dimply pool.
The cattle from th' untasted fields return,
And ask, with meaning low, their wonted stalls, 85
Or ruminate in the contiguous shade.
Thither the household feathery people crowd,
The crested cock, with all his female train,
Pensive and dripping; while the cottage hind
Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful there 90
Recounts his simple frolic; much he talks,
And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows
Without, and rattles on his humble roof.
Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swelled, And the mixed ruin of its banks o'erspread, 95 At last the roused-up river pours along: Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes, From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild, Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far;
Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads,
Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrained
Between two meeting hills, it bursts away,
Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream;
There gathering triple force, rapid and deep,
It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.
Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand 106
Rolls round the Seasons of the changeful year,
How mighty, how majestic are thy works !
With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul,
That sees astonished ! and astonished sings! 110
Ye too, ye winds! that now begin to blow
With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you.
Where are your stores, ye powerful beings! say
Where your aerial magazines reserved,
To swell the brooding terrors of the storm ? 115
In what far distant region of the sky,
Hushed in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm ?
When from the pallid sky the sun descends, With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb Uncertain wanders, stained; red fiery streaks 120 Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet Which master to obey : while rising slow, Blank, in the leaden-colored east, the moon Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns. 125 Seen through the turbid, fluctuating air, The stars obtuse emit a shivered ray; Or frequent seem to shoot athwart the gloom, And long behind them trail the whitening blaze. Snatched in short eddies, plays the withered leaf; 130 And on the flood the dancing feather floats. With broadened nostrils to the sky upturned, The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale. E’en as the matron, at her nightly task, With pensive labor draws the flaxen thread, 135 The wasted taper and the crackling flame Foretel the blast. But chief the plumy race,
The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.
Retiring from the downs, where all day long
They picked their scanty fare, a blackening train 140
Of clamorous rooks thick urge their weary flight,
And seek the closing shelter of the grove;
Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land. 145
Loud shrieks the soaring hern; and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal pressed, with broken tide
And blind commotion heaves; while from the shore,
Eat into caverns by the restless wave,
150
And forest-rustling mountain, comes a voice,
That solemn sounding bids the world prepare.
Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,
And hurls the whole precipitated air
Down, in a torrent. On the passive main
155 Descends th' eth ial force, and with strong gust Turns from its bottom the discolored deep. Through the black night that sits immense around, Lashed into foam, the fierce conflicting brine Seems o’er a thousand raging waves to burn: 160 Meantime, the mountain billows, to the clouds In dreadful tumult swelled, surge above
surge, Burst into chaos with tremendous roar, And anchored navies from their stations drive, Wild as the winds, across the howling waste 165 Of mighty waters: now th' inflated wave Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot Into the secret chambers of the deep, The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head. Emerging thence again, before the breath 170 Of full-exerted heaven they wing their course, And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock Or shoal insidious break not their career, And in loose fragments fling them floating round.
Nor less at land the loosened tempest reigns. 175
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