THE TASK.

BOOK V.

THE ARGUMENT.

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 ice.-Amusements of monarchs.—War, one of them.--Wars, whence-And whence monarchy. -The evils of it.-English and French loyalty contrasted.-The Bastille, 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.

THE TASK.

BOOK V.

THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb

IS

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 ray

Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,

And, tingeing 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,

10

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

20

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, 30
Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,

And patient of the slow-pac'd swain's delay.

He from the stack carves out th' 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 storms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or it's 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.

40

Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur, 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; 50 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,