BOOK V. THE WINTER MORNING
A frosty morning. The foddering of cattle. The woodman and his dog. The poultry. Whimsical effects of froft at a waterfall. The Empress of Ruffia's palace of ice. Amusements of monarchs. War, one of them. Wars, whence. And whence monarchy. The evils of it. English and French loyalty contrafted. The Baftille, and a prifoner there. Liberty the chief recommendation of this country. Modern patriotism questionable, and why. The perishable nature of the best human inftitutions. Spiritual liberty not perishable. The slavish state of man by nature. Deliver him, Deift, if you can. Grace must do it. The respective merits of patriots and martyrs ftated. Their different treatment. Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free. His relish of the works of God. Addrefs to the Creator.
BOOK V. THE WINTER MORNING
IS morning; and the fun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires the horizon; while the
clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the difk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leaflefs wood. His flanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the fnowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rofy hue,
From every herb and every spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine, fpindling into longitude immense,
In fpite of gravity and fage remark,
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye afkance
I view the muscular proportion'd limb
Transform'd to a lean fhank. The fhapeless pair,
As they defign'd to mock me, at my fide
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaster'd wall,
Prepofterous fight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarser grass, upfpearing o'er the rest,
Of late unfightly and unseen, now shine
Confpicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
Screens them, and feem half petrified to fleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man,
Fretful if unsupplied; but filent, meek,
And patient of the flow-paced fwain's delay.
He from the ftack carves out the accuftom'd load,
Deep plunging, and again deep plunging oft,
His broad keen knife into the folid mass:
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant ftands,
With fuch undeviating and even force
He fevers it away: no needlefs care,
Left storms should overfet the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd
The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder foreft drear,
From morn to eve his folitary task.
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 flow; and now, with many a frisk
Wide fcampering, fnatches up the drifted fnow
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his fnout;
Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy.
Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl
Moves right toward the mark; nor ftops for aught,
But now and then with preffure of his thumb
To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,
That fumes beneath his nofe: the trailing cloud
Streams far behind him, fcenting all the air.
Now from the rooft, or from the neighbouring
Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam
Of smiling day, they goffip'd fide by fide,
Come trooping at the housewife's well known call
The feather'd tribes domeftic. Half on wing,
And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,
Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge.
The fparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves,
To feize the fair occafion; well they eye
The scatter'd grain, and thievishly resolved
To escape the impending famine, often scared
As oft return, a pert voracious kind.
Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
Remains to each, the fearch of funny nook,
Or fhed impervious to the blast. Refign'd
To fad neceffity, the cock foregoes
His wonted ftrut; and, wading at their head
With well confider'd fteps, feems to resent
His alter'd gait and stateliness retrench'd.
How find the myriads, that in fummer cheer
The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,
Due fuftenance, or where fubfift they now?
Earth yields them nought: the imprison'd worm
is fafe
Beneath the frozen clod; all feeds of herbs
Lie cover'd close; and berry-bearing thorns,
|