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 cur-
His dog attends him. Now creeps he slow;
Close behind his heel and now, with many a
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 small tube That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, scenting all the air.
HOW soft the musick of those village bells, Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away, Now pealing loud again, and louder still, Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on! With easy force it opens all the cells Where mem'ry slept. Wherever I have heard A kindred melody, the scene recurs, And with it all its pleasures and its pains. Such comprehensive views the spirit takes, That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
BUT let the months go round, a few short months, And all shall be restor❜d. These naked shoots, Barren as lances, among which the wind Makes wintry musick, sighing as it goes,
Shall put their graceful foliage on again, And, more aspiring, and with ampler spread, Shall boast new charms, and more than they have
Then, each in its peculiar honours clad, Shall publish, even to the distant eye, Its family and tribe. Laburnum, rich In streaming gold; syringa, iv'ry pure; The scentless and the scented rose; this red And of an humbler growth, the *other tall, And throwing up into the darkest gloom Of neighb'ring cypress, or more sable yew, Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf That the wind severs from the broken wave; *The Guelder-rose.
The lilac, various in array, now white,
Now sanguine, and her beauteous head now set With purple spikes pyramidal, as if,
Studious of ornament, yet unresolv'd
Which hue she most approv'd, she chose them all; Copious of flow'rs the woodbine, pale and wan, But well compensating her sickly looks With never-cloying odours, early and late; Hypericum, all bloom, so thick a swarm Of flow'rs, like flies clothing her slender rods, That scarce a leaf appears; mezerion, too, Though leafless, well attir'd, and thick beset With blushing wreaths, investing ev'ry spray; Althea with the purple eye; the broom, Yellow and bright, as bullion unalloy'd, Her blossoms; and, luxuriant above all, The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, The deep dark green of whose unvarnish'd leaf Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more The bright profusion of her scatter'd stars.― These have been, and these shall be in their day; And all this uniform, uncolour'd scene,
Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load, And flush into variety again.
From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, Is Nature's progress, when she lectures man In heav'nly truth; evincing, as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. The beauties of the wilderness are his,
That makes so gay the solitary place Where no eye sees them.
That cultivation glories in, are his.
He sets the bright procession on its way, And marshals all the order of the year;
He marks the bounds which winter may not pass, And blunts his pointed fury; in its case, Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ, Uninjur'd, with inimitable art;
And, ere one flow'ry season fades and dies, Designs the blooming wonders of the next.
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