Page images
PDF
EPUB

Then too, they say, thro' all the burden'd air,
Long groans are heard, fhrill founds, and diftant fighs,
That, uttered by the Demon of the night,

Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.

Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds commix'd
With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky.
All nature reels. Till Nature's KING, who oft
Amid tempeftuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully ferene, commands a calm ;
Then ftrait air, fea, and earth, are hush'd at once.
As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds,
Slow-meeting, mingle into folid gloom.

Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep,
Let me affociate with the serious Night,
And Contemplation her sedate compeer;
Let me shake off th' intrufive cares of day,
And lay the meddling senses all aside.
Where now, ye lying vanities of life!
Ye ever-tempting ever-cheating train !
Where are you now? and what is your amount?
Vexation, difappointment, and remorse.

Sad, fickening thought! and yet deluded Man,
A scene of crude disjointed vifions past,

$ 2

And broken flumbers, rifes ftill refolv'd,
With new-flush'd hopes, to run the giddy round. X
FATHER of light and life! thou GOOD SUPREME!
O teach me what is good! teach me THYSELF!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,

From every low purfuit! and feed my foul
With knowledge, confcious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, fubftantial, never-fading blifs!

The keener tempefts rife: and fuming dun
From all the livid east, or piercing north,
Thick clouds afcend; in whose capacious womb
A vapoury deluge lies, to fnow congeal'd..
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;
And the sky faddens with the gathered ftorm.
Thro' the hush'd air the whitening fhower defcends,
At first thin wavering, till at laft the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day,
With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all; fave where the new fnow nielts
Along the mazy current. Low, the woods
Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid fun
Faint from the weft emits his evening ray,
Earth's univerfal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide

The works of Man. Drooping, the labourer-ox
Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tam'd by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which PROVIDENCE affigns them. One alone,
The red-breast, facred to the houshold gods,
Wifely regardful of th' embroiling sky,
In joyless fields, and thorny thickets, leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted Man
His annual vifit. Half-afraid, he first

Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm earth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family afkance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is:
Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his flender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Tho' timorous of heart, and hard befet

By death in various forms, dark fnares, and dogs,
And more unpitying Men, the garden feeks,
Urg'd on by fearlefs want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, fad difpers'd,
Dig for the withered herb thro' heaps of fnow.

Now, fhepherds, to your helpless charge be kind, Baffle the raging year, and fill their penns

With food at will; lodge them below the storm,
And watch them ftrict: for from the bellowing caft,
In this dire feafon, 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 tempeft whelms; till, upward urg'd,
The valley to a fhining mountain fwells,
Tipt with a wreath high-curling in the sky.

As thus the fnows arife; and foul, and fierce,
All Winter drives along the darkened air;
In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain
Difafter'd ftands; fees other hills afcend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid profpect, fhag the trackless plain :
Nor finds the river, nor the foreft, hid

Beneath the formlefs wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, ftill more and more aftray;
Impatient flouncing thro' 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 finks his foul!
What black defpair, what horror fills his heart!

When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rifing thro' the fnow,
He meets the roughness of the middle watte,
Far from the track, and blest abode of Man;
While round him night refistless closes fast,
And every tempeft, howling o'er his head,
Renders the favage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the bufy fhapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,

A dire defcent! beyond the power of froft;
Of faithlefs bogs; of precipices huge,

Smooth'd up with snow! and, what is land unknown,
What water, of the ftill unfrozen fpring,

In the loose marsh or folitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he finks
Beneath the shelter of the fhapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish Nature shoots
Thro' the wrung bofom of the dying Man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unfeen.
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 ftorm, demand their fire,

« PreviousContinue »