Perhaps has in immortal numbers sung,
Or what she dictates writes; and oft', an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world,
And tempts the sickled swain into the field,
Seiz'd by the general joy, his heart distends
With gentle throes, and thro' the tepid gleams
Deep musing, then he best exerts his song.
E'en Winter wild to him is full of bliss:
The mighty tempest and the hoary waste,
Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,
Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies,
Disclos'd and kindled by refining frost,
Pours every lustre on th' exalted eye.
A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure,
And mark them down for Wisdom. With swift wing
O'er land and sea Imagination roams;
Or Truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his powers;
Or in his breast heroic Virtue burns.
The touch of kindred, too, and love he feels;
The modest eye, whose beams on his alone
Ecstatic shine; the little strong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay,
Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns;
For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the social still and smiling kind.
This is the life which those who fret in guilt
And guilty cities never knew; the life
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself, with Man!
Oh, Nature! all sufficient! over all!
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven! thy rolling wonders there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely scatter'd o'er the blue immense,
Shew me; their motions, periods and their laws,
Give me to scan: thro' the disclosing deep
Light my blind way: the mineral strata there;
Thrust, blooming, thence, the vegetable world;
O'er that the rising system, more complex,
Of animals ; and, higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick compounded thought,
And where the mixing passions endless shift:
These ever open to my ravish'd eye,
A search the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!
But if to that unequal, if the blood,
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition, under closing shades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From Thee begin,
Dwell all on Thee, with Thee conclude my song;
And let me never, never stray from Thee!
The subject proposed. Address to the Earl of Wilmington. First approach of Winter. According to the natural course of the season, various storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the snows: A man perishing among them; whence reflections on the wants and miseries of human life. The wolves descending from the Alps and Apenines. A winter-evening described: as spent by philosophers; by the country people; in the city. Frost. A view of Winter within the polar Circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral reflections on a future state.
SEE, Winter comes to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train,
Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,
These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred Glooms! 5
Congenial Horrors, hail! with frequent foot
Pleas'd have I, in my chearful morn of life,
When nurs'd by careless Solitude I liv'd,
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy,
Pleas'd have I wander'd thro' your rough domain, 10
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure,
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst,
Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew'd
In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time
Till through the lucid chambers of the South
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and smil❜d.
To thee, the patron of her first essay,
The Muse, O Wilmington! renews her Song.
Since has she rounded the revolving year;
Skimm'd the gay Spring; on eagle pinions borne, 20
Attempted through the Summer blaze to rise;
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale;
And now among the wintry clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling storm, she tries to soar,
To swell her note with all the rushing winds,
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods,
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy! could she fill thy judging ear
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