What of its tarnifh'd honours yet remain;
Dash'd down, and scattered, by the tearing wind's
Affiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.
Thus ftruggling thro' the diffipated grove,
The whirling tempeft raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof,
Keen-faftening, shakes them to the folid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eagre, howls the favage blast.
Then too, they fay, thro' all the burthen'd air,
Long groans are heard, shrill founds, and distant 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 ftars fwift-gliding fweep along the sky.
All Nature reels. Till Nature's KING, who oft
Amid tempeftuous darknefs dwells alone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully ferene, commands a calm;
Then straight 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 loft in fleep, 205 Let me affociate with the ferious Night,
And Contemplation her fedate compeer;
Let me shake off th' intrufive cares of day,
And lay the meddling fenfes all afide.
WHERE now, ye lying vanities of life! Ye ever-tempting ever-cheating train!
Where are you now? and what is your amount ?
Vexation, disappointment, and remorfe.
Sad, fickening thought! and yet deluded Man,
A scene of crude disjointed visions past,
And broken flumbers, rifes ftill refolv'd,
With new-flush'd hopes, to run the giddy round.
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, substantial, never fading blifs!
THE keener tempefts come: and fuming dun From all the livid eaft, or piercing north, 225 Thick clouds afcend; in whofe capacious womb A vapoury deluge lies, to fnow congeal'd. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; And the sky faddens with the gathered storm. Thro' the hufh'd air the whitening fhower defcends, At first thin-wavering; 'till at laft the flakes 231 Fall broad, and wide, and faft, dimming the day,
With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields
Put on their winter-robe of pureft white.
"Tis brightness all; fave where the new snow melts 235. 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 dazling waste, that buries wide
The works of Man. Drooping, the labourer-ox
Stands cover'do'er with fnow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tam'd by the cruel season, croud around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon 245
Which PROVIDENCE affigns them. One alone,
The red-breaft, facred to the houfhold gods,
Wifely regardful of th' embroiling sky,
In joyless fields, and thorny thickets, leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trufted Man 250 His annual vifit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brifk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family afkance,
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is: 255:
'Till more familar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his flender feet. The foodlefs wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Tho' timorous of heart, and hard befet
By death in various forms, dark fnares, and dogs, 260
And more unpitying Men, the garden feeks,
Urg'd on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb defpair; then, fad difpers'd,
Dig for the withered herb thro' heaps of fnow. 265
Now, fhepherds, to your helpless charge be kind, Baffle the raging year, and fill their
With food at will; lodge them below the ftorm,
And watch them ftrict: for from the bellowing eaft,
In this dire feafon, oft the whirlwind's wing
Sweeps up the burthen 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 loofe-revolving fields, the swain
Difafter'd ftands; fees other hills afcend,
Of unknown joyiefs brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid profpect, fhag the trackless plain:
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, ftill more and more astray;
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! 290
When for the dusky fpot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rifing thro' the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track, and blest abode of Man;
While round him night resistless closes faft,
And every tempeft, howling o'er his head,
Aenders the favage wildernefs more wild,
Then throng the busy fhapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost,
Of faithlefs bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with fnow; and, what is land unknown, What water, of the still unfrozen fpring,
In the loofe marsh or folitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. 305
These check his fearful steps; and down he finks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless 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
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