What are the casements lin'd with creeping herbs,
The prouder sashes fronted with a range
Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,
The Frenchman's darling?* are they not all
proofs,
That man, immur'd in cities, still retains
His inborn inextinguishable thirst
Of rural scenes, compensating his loss
By supplemental shifts, the best he may?
The most unfurnish'd with the means of life,
And they, that never pass their brick-wall
bounds,
To range the fields, and treat their lungs with air,
Yet feel the burning instinct; over head
Suspend their crazy boxes planted thick,
And water'd duly. There the pitcher stands
A fragment, and the spoutless teapot there;
Sad witnesses how close-pent man regrets
The country, with what ardour he contrives
A peep at Nature, when he can no more.
Hail, therefore, patroness of health and ease,
And contemplation, heart-consoling joys,
And harmless pleasures in the throng'd abode
Of multitudes unknown! hail, rural life!
Address himself who will to the pursuit
Of honours, or emoluments, or fame;
I shall not add myself to such a chase,
Thwart his attempts, or envy his success.
Some must be great. Great offices will have
Great talents. And God gives to ev'ry man
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,
That lifts him into life, and lets him fall
Just in the niche he was ordained to fill.
To the deliv'rer of an injur'd land
He gives a tongue t' enlarge upon a heart
To feel, and courage to redress his wrongs;
To monarchs dignity; to judges sense;
To artists ingenuity and skill;
To me, an unambitious mind, content
In the low vale of life, that early felt
A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long Found here that leisure and that ease I wish'd. 10
ARGUMENT OF THE FIFTH BOOK.
A frosty morning-The foddering of cattle-The woodman and his dog-The poultry-Whimsical effects of a frost at a waterfall-The empress of Russia's palace of iceAmusements of monarchs-War, one of them-Wars, whence-And whence monarchy-The evils of itEnglish and French loyalty contrasted-The Bastile, and a prisoner there--Liberty the chief recommendation of this country-Modern patriotism questionable, and why-The perishable nature of the best human institutions-Spiritual liberty not perishable-The slavish state of man by nature-Deliver him, Deist, if you can -Grace must do it-The respective merits of patriots and martyrs stated-Their different treatment-Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free-His relish of the works of God-Address to the Creator.
'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, fires th' horizon; while the clouds That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From ev'ry herb and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine spindling into longitude immense,
In spite of gravity, and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance,
I view the muscular proportion'd limb
Transform'd to a lean shank. The shapeless
pair,
As they design'd to mock me, at my side,
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaster'd wall,
Prepost'rous sight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And, fledg'd with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not like hung'ring man,
Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,
And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay.
He from the stack carves out the accustom'd
load,
Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft.
His broad keen knife into the solid mass;
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away; no needless care,
Lest storm should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanc'd weight.
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd
The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe,
And drive the wedge, in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task.
Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears
And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk
Wide-scamp'ring, snatches up the drifted snow With iv'ry teeth, or ploughs it with his snout; Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy.
Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught,
But now and then with pressure of his thumb
T'adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,
That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud
Streams far behind him, scenting all the air.
Now from the roost, or from the neighb'ring
pale,
Where diligent to catch the first faint gleam
Of smiling day, they gossip'd side by side,
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