A steady spirit regularly free;
These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse
Record what Envy dares not flattery call.

SUNLIGHT IN DECEMBER. THE DISMAL DAY DECLINING INTO
NIGHT.

Now when the cheerless empire of the sky To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields, And fierce Aquarius stains th' inverted year; Hung o'er the furthest verge of heaven, the sun Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day. Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot His struggling rays, in horizontal lines, Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm, Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky; And, soon descending, to the long dark night, Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns. Nor is the night unwished; while vital heat, Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake. Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast, Deep-tinged and damp, and congregated clouds, And all the vapory turbulence of heaven, Involve the face of things.

THE MELANCHOLY OF WINTER. DISCONSOLATE LOOK OF CATTLE.-SOUNDS PORTENDING A WINTER STORM.

Thus Winter falls,

A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,
Through Nature shedding influence malign,
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.
The soul of man dies in him, loathing life,
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop; and o'er the furrowed land,
Fresh from the plough, the dun discolored flocks,
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm;
And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,
And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan,
Resounding long in listening Fancy's ear.

A WINTER RAIN-STORM; THE PLAIN DELUGED; EFFECTS ON
CATTLE POULTRY; THE COTTAGER HOUSED.
Then comes the father of the tempest forth,
Wrapt in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure
Drive through the mingling skies with vapor foul;
Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods,
That grumbling wave below. Th' unsightly plain
Lies a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds
Pour flood on flood, yet, unexhausted, still
Combine, and, deepening into night, shut up
The day's fair face. The wanderers of heaven,
Each to his home, retire; save those that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool.
The cattle from th' untasted fields return,
And ask, with moaning low, their wonted stalls,
Or ruminate in the contiguous shade.
Thither the household feathery people crowd,

The crested cock, with all his female train,
Pensive, and dripping; while the cottage hind
Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful there
Recounts his simple frolic: much he talks,
And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows
Without, and rattles on his humble roof.

THE RIVER SWOLLEN BY THE WINTER RAINS. THE FRESHET.

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swelled, And the mixed ruin of its banks o'erspread, At last the roused-up river pours along : Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild, Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far; Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads, Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrained Between two meeting hills, it bursts away, Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream; There gathering triple force, rapid, and deep, It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.

APOSTROPHE TO THE GRANDEURS OF NATURE; WINDS.

Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year, How mighty, how majestic, are thy works! With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul, That sees astonished, and astonished sings! Ye too, ye winds! that now begin to blow With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you. Where are your stores, ye powerful beings! say, Where your aerial magazines reserved,

To swell the brooding terrors of the storm?

In what far-distant region of the sky,
Hushed in deep silence, sleep ye when 't is calm?
THE WINTER TEMPEST. SIGNS OF ITS APPROACH; SUN;
CLOUDS; STARS; WIND; HEIFER; TAPER.

When from the pallid sky the sun descends,
With many a spot, that o'er his glaring orb
Uncertain wanders, stained; red fiery streaks
Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
Which master to obey; while rising slow,
Blank in the leaden-colored east, the moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
The stars obtuse emit a shivered ray;
Or frequent seem to shoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.
Snatched in short eddies, plays the withered leaf;
And on the flood the dancing feather floats.
With broadened nostrils to the sky upturned,
The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale.
E'en as the matron, at her nightly task,
With pensive labor draws the flaxen thread,
The wasted taper and the crackling flame
Foretell the blast.

SIGNS OF A COMING TEMPEST AMONG THE BIRDS.ROOKS ; OWL; CORMORANT; HERN; SEA-FOWL.SIGNS FROM THE SEA-SHORE.

But chief the plumy race,

The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.

Retiring from the downs, where all day long
They picked their scanty fare, a blackening train
Of clamorous rooks thick urge their weary flight,
And seek the closing shelter of the grove.
Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land.
Loud shrieks the soaring hern ; and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal pressed, with broken tide

And blind commotion heaves; while from the shore,
Eat into caverns by the restless wave,

And forest-rustling mountain, comes a voice,
That solemn sounding bids the world prepare.

THE WINTER TEMPEST ON THE OCEAN. THE BALTIC.SHIPWRECK.

Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst, And hurls the whole precipitated air Down in a torrent. On the passive main Descends th' ethereal force, and with strong gust Turns from its bottom the discolored deep. Through the black night that sits immense around, Lashed into foam, the fierce conflicting brine Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn: Meantime the mountain-billows, to the clouds In dreadful tumult swelled, surge above surge, Burst into chaos with tremendous roar, And anchored navies from their stations drive, Wild as the winds, across the howling waste Of mighty waters: now th' inflated wave Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot Into the secret chambers of the deep, The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head. Emerging thence again, before the breath Of full-exerted heaven they wing their course, And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock, Or shoal insidious, break not their career, And in loose fragments fling them floating round.

THE WINTER TEMPEST ON LAND. ITS EFFECT ON TREES, ETC. THE SUCCEEDING CALM.

Nor less on land the loosened tempest reigns.
The mountain thunders; and its sturdy sons
Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade.
Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast,
The dark wayfaring stranger breathless toils,
And, often falling, climbs against the blast.
Low waves the rooted forest, vexed, and sheds
What of its tarnished honors yet remain ;
Dashed down, and scattered, by the tearing wind's
Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.

Thus struggling through the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatched, or lordly roof,
Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast.
Then too, they say, through all the burdened air,
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant
sighs,

That, uttered by the Demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.
Huge Uproar lords it wide. The clouds commixed
With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky.
All Nature reels. Till Nature's King, who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm;
Then straight air, sea, and earth, are hushed at once.

WINTER-MIDNIGHT. - CONTEMPLATION.

As yet 't is midnight deep. The weary clouds, Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom. Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep, Let me associate with the serious Night, And Contemplation, her sedate compeer; Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day, And lay the meddling senses all aside.

VANITY OF HUMAN PURSUITS.

Where now, ye lying vanities of life! Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train! Where are you now? and what is your amount? Vexation, disappointment, and remorse. Sad, sickening thought! and yet deluded man, A scene of crude disjointed visions passed, And broken slumbers, rises still resolved, With new-flushed hopes, to run the giddy round.

PRAYER FOR VIRTUE.

Father of light and life! thou Good Supreme! O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice, From every low pursuit! and feed my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure ; Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!

THE SNOW-STORM. THE FIELDS; THE OX; BIRDS.

The keener tempests rise and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congealed; Heavy they roll their fleecy world along, And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hushed air the whitening shower

descends,

At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
"T is brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the laborer ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them.

THE ROBIN RED-BREAST IN A SNOW-STORM; THE HARE;

SHEEP.

One alone,

The red-breast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first

Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is :
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad-dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.

CARE OF FLOCKS IN WINTER.

Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind, Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens With food at will; lodge them below the storm, And watch them strict; for from the bellowing east, In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks, Hid in the hollow of two neighboring hills, The billowy tempest whelms ; till, upward urged, The valley to a shining mountain swells, Tipped with a wreath high-curling in the sky.

THE WAYFARER LOST IN THE SNOW.HIS WRETCHED FATE; HOME; WIFE; CHILDREN; FRIENDS.

As thus the snows arise; and foul, and fierce,
All Winter drives along the darkened air;
In his own loose-revolving fields the swain
Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain :
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of
home

Rush on his nerves, and call their vigor forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul !
What black despair, what horror fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feigned
His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and blest abode of man ;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.

Then throng the busy shapes into his mind
Of covered pits unfathomably deep,

A dire descent! beyond the power of frost;

Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,

Smoothed up with snow; and what is land unknown, What water of the still unfrozen spring,

In the loose marsh or solitary lake,

Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks,
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death;
Mixed with the tender anguish Nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold;
Nor friends, nor sacred home. On every nerve
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense;
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse,
Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast.

INDIFFERENCE OF PLEASURE-SEEKERS TO HUMAN MISERY. —
VARIOUS FORMS OF WRETCHEDNESS NOTED.

Ah! little think the gay licentious proud, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround; They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain.
How many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame. How many bleed,
By shameful variance betwixt man and man.
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms;
Shut from the common air and common use
Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty. How many shake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse;
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life,
They furnish matter for the tragic Muse;
E'en in the vale where Wisdom loves to dwell,
With Friendship, Peace, and Contemplation joined,
How many, racked with honest passions, droop
In deep retired distress. How many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish.

GOOD EFFECTS OF SYMPATHY.

Thought fond man
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,

Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of Charity would warm,
And her wide wish Benevolence dilate;
The social tear would rise, the social sigh;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining still, the social passions work.

THE BENEVOLENT JAIL COMMITTEE. IMPRISONMENT FOR
DEBT.

And here can I forget the generous band,1 Who, touched with human woe, redressive searched Into the horrors of the gloomy jail? Unpitied, and unheard, where misery moans, Where sickness pines, where thirst and hunger burn, And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice. While in the land of Liberty, the land Whose every street and public meeting glow With open freedom, little tyrants raged; Snatched the lean morsel from the starving mouth; Tore from cold wintry limbs the tattered weed; E'en robbed them of the last of comforts, sleep; The free-born Briton to the dungeon chained, Or, as the lust of cruelty prevailed,

At pleasure marked him with inglorious stripes; And crushed out lives, by secret barbarous ways, That for their country would have toiled or bled.

LEGAL REFORM URGED.

O great design! if executed well, With patient care, and wisdom-tempered zeal. Ye sons of Mercy! yet resume the search, Drag forth the legal monsters into light, Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod, And bid the cruel feel the pains they give. Much still untouched remains; in this rank age, Much is the patriot's weeding hand required. The toils of law (what dark insidious men Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth, And lengthen simple justice into trade) How glorious were the day that saw these broke, And every man within the reach of right!

PACKS OF WOLVES; THEIR RAVAGES; THE HORSE; BULL; MOTHER AND INFANT; BURIED CORPSES.

By wintry famine roused, from all the tract Of horrid mountains which the shining Alps, And wavy Apennine, and Pyrenees, Branch out stupendous into distant lands; Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave! Burning for blood, bony, and gaunt, and grim! Assembling wolves in raging troops descend; And, pouring o'er the country, bear along, Keen as the north-wind sweeps the glossy snow. All is their prize. They fasten on the steed, Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart. Nor can the bull his awful front defend, Or shake the murdering savages away. Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fly, And tear the screaming infant from her breast. The godlike face of man avails him naught.

1 The Jail Committee, in the year 1729.

E'en beauty, force divine! at whose bright glance
The generous lion stands in softened gaze,
Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguished prey.
But if, apprised of the severe attack,

The country be shut up, lured by the scent,
On church-yards drear (inhuman to relate!)
The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig
The shrouded body from the grave; o'er which,
Mixed with foul shades and frighted ghosts, they
howl.

SWISS AVALANCHES.

Among those hilly regions, where embraced
In peaceful vales the happy Grisons dwell;
Oft, rushing sudden from the loaded cliffs,
Mountains of snow their gathering terrors roll.
From steep to steep, loud-thundering down they come,
A wintry waste in dire commotion all;
And herds, and flocks, and travellers, and swains,
And sometimes whole brigades of marching troops,
Or hamlets sleeping in the dead of night,
Are deep beneath the smothering ruin whelmed.
THE WINTER HOMESTEAD; ITS PROPER LOCATION. — STUDY
OF HISTORY.

Now, all amid the rigors of the year,
In the wild depth of Winter, while without
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat,
Between the groaning forest and the shore
Beat by the boundless multitude of waves,
A rural, sheltered, solitary scene;
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead;
Sages of ancient time, as gods revered,
As gods beneficent, who blessed mankind
With arts, with arms, and humanized a world.

THE MIGHTY DEAD.-SOCRATES.

Roused at the inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-lived volume; and, deep-musing, hail
The sacred shades, that slowly-rising pass
Before my wondering eyes. First Socrates,
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants single stood,
Invincible! calm reason's holy law,

That voice of God within the attentive mind,
Obeying, fearless, or in life, or death:
Great moral teacher! wisest of mankind!

SOLON.

Solon the next, who built his common weal On equity's wide base; by tender laws A lively people curbing, yet undamped; Preserving still that quick peculiar fire, Whence in the laurelled field of finer arts, And of bold freedom, they unequalled shone, The pride of smiling Greece, and humankind.

LYCURGUS.LEONIDAS.

Lycurgus then, who bowed beneath the force Of strictest discipline, severely wise, All human passions. Following him, I see,

As at Thermopyla he glorious fell,
The firm devoted chief, who proved by deeds
The hardest lesson which the other taught.

ARISTIDES.

Then Aristides lifts his honest front; Spotless of heart, to whom the unflattering voice Of Freedom gave the noblest name of Just; In pure majestic poverty revered; Who, e'en his glory to his country's weal Submitting, swelled a haughty rival's 2 fame.

CIMON.

Reared by his care, of softer ray appears Cimon, sweet-souled; whose genius, rising strong, Shook off the load of young debauch ; abroad The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend Of every worth and every splendid art; Modest, and simple, in the pomp of wealth.

TIMOLEON. PELOPIDAS. EPAMINONDAS.

Then the last worthies of declining Greece,
Late called to glory, in unequal times,
Pensive, appear. The fair Corinthian boast,
Timoleon, happy temper! mild, and firm,
Who wept the brother while the tyrant bled.
And, equal to the best, the Theban pair,3
Whose virtues, in heroic concord joined,
Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.

PHOCION.

He too, with whom Athenian honor sunk,
And left a mass of sordid lees behind,
Phocion the Good; in public life severe,
To virtue still inexorably firm;

But when, beneath his low illustrious roof,
Sweet Peace and happy Wisdom smoothed his brow,
Not Friendship softer was, nor Love more kind.

AGIS. ARATUS. — PHILOPEMEN.

And he, the last of old Lycurgus' sons,
The generous victim to that vain attempt
To save a rotten state, Agis, who saw
E'en Sparta's self to servile avarice sunk,
The two Achaian heroes close the train :
Aratus, who a while relumed the soul
Of fondly lingering Liberty in Greece;
And he her darling, as her latest hope,
The gallant Philopomen; who to arms
Turned the luxurious pomp he could not cure;
Or toiling in his farm, a simple swain,
Or, bold and skilful, thundering in the field.

THE ROMANS. NUMA. SERVIUS. — BRUTUS. — CAMILLUS.-
FABRICIUS. CINCINNATUS.

Of rougher front, a mighty people come ! A race of heroes! in those virtuous times Which knew no stain, save that with partial flame Their dearest country they too fondly loved : Her better Founder first, the light of Rome, Numa, who softened her rapacious sons;

Servius the king, who laid the solid base
On which o'er earth the vast republic spread.
Then the great consuls venerable rise :
The public Father who the private quelled,
As on the dread tribunal sternly sad;
He, whom his thankless country could not lose,
Camillus, only vengeful to her foes;
Fabricius, scorner of all-conquering gold;
And Cincinnatus, awful from the plough.

REGULUS. SCIPIO. — CICERO. CATO. BRUTUS.

Thy willing victim,2 Carthage, bursting loose From all that pleading Nature could oppose, From a whole city's tears, by rigid faith Imperious called, and Honor's dire command; Scipio, the gentle chief, humanely brave, Who soon the race of spotless glory ran, And, warm in youth, to the poetic shade With Friendship and Philosophy retired; Tully, whose powerful eloquence a while Restrained the rapid fate of rushing Rome; Unconquered Cato, virtuous in extreme; And thou, unhappy Brutus, kind of heart, Whose steady arm, by awful virtue urged, Lifted the Roman steel against thy friend: Thousands besides the tribute of a verse Demand; but who can count the stars of heaven? Who sing their influence on this lower world?

VIRGIL. HOMER AND THE GRECIAN WRITERS.

Behold, who yonder comes! in sober state, Fair, mild, and strong, as is a vernal sun : "T is Phoebus' self, or else the Mantuan swain! Great Homer too appears, of daring wing, Parent of song! and, equal by his side, The British Muse; joined hand in hand they walk, Darkling, full up the middle steep to fame. Nor absent are those shades, whose skilful touch Pathetic drew the impassioned heart, and charmed Transported Athens with the moral scene; Nor those who, tuneful, waked the enchanting lyre.

THE SOCIETY OF THE WISE. FRIENDS.-POPE.

First of your kind! society divine! Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved, And mount my soaring soul to thoughts like yours. Silence, thou lonely power! the door be thine; See on the hallowed hour that none intrude, Save a few chosen friends, who sometimes deign To bless my humble roof, with sense refined, Learning digested well, exalted faith, Unstudied wit, and humor ever gay. Or from the Muses' hill will Pope descend, To raise the sacred hour, to bid it smile, And with the social spirit warm the heart? For though not sweeter his own Homer sings, Yet is his life the more endearing song.

A TRIBUTE TO MR. HAMMOND.

Where art thou, Hammond? thou, the darling pride,