The friend and lover of the tuneful throng!

Ah, why, dear youth, in all the blooming prime
Of vernal genius, where disclosing fast
Each active worth, each manly virtue lay,
Why wert thou ravished from our hope so soon?
What now avails that noble thirst of fame,
Which stung thy fervent breast? that treasured store
Of knowledge early gained? that eager zeal
To serve thy country, glowing in the band
Of youthful patriots, who sustain her name?
What now, alas! that life-diffusing charm
Of sprightly wit? that rapture for the Muse,
That heart of friendship, and that soul of joy,
Which bade with softest light thy virtues smile?
Ah! only showed, to check our fond pursuits,
And teach our humbled hopes that life is vain!
PHILOSOPHIC SPECULATIONS IN A WINTER RETIREMENT, WITH
FRIENDS. COSMOGONY. — PROVIDENCE,

Thus in some deep retirement would I pass
The winter-glooms, with friends of pliant soul,
Or blithe, or solemn, as the theme inspired,
With them would search, if Nature's boundless frame
Was called, late-rising from the void of night,
Or sprung eternal from the Eternal Mind;
Its life, its laws, its progress, and its end.
Hence larger prospects of the beauteous whole
Would, gradual, open on our opening minds;
And each diffusive harmony unite

In full perfection to the astonished eye.
Then would we try to scan the moral world,
Which, though to us it seems embroiled, moves on
In higher order; fitted and impelled
By Wisdom's finest hand, and issuing all
In general good.

STUDY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND OF POLITICAL
ECONOMY.-PUBLIC SPIRIT.

The sage historic Muse

Should next conduct us through the deeps of time:
Show us how empire grew, declined, and fell,
In scattered states; what makes the nations smile,
Improves their soil, and gives them double suns ;
And why they pine beneath the brightest skies,
In Nature's richest lap. As thus we talked,
Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale
That portion of divinity, that ray

Of purest heaven, which lights the public soul
Of patriots and of heroes.

THE VIRTUES OF PRIVATE LIFE CULTIVATED IN WINTER RE-
TIREMENT. HOPES FOR THE SPIRIT-WORLD. FANCY,
WIT, AND HUMOR.

In endless growth and infinite ascent,

Rises from state to state, and world to world.
But, when with these the serious thought is foiled,
We, shifting for relief, would play the shapes
Of frolic Fancy; and incessant form
Those rapid pictures, that assembled train
Of fleet ideas, never joined before,
Whence lively Wit excites to gay surprise;
Or folly-painting Humor, grave himself,
Calls Laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve.

ENJOYMENTS OF VILLAGERS IN A WINTER EVENING.- GHOST-
STORIES; GAMBOLS; PRACTICAL JOKES ; DANCING.
Meantime the village rouses up the fire;
While well attested, and as well believed,
Heard solemn, goes the goblin story round;
Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all.
Or, frequent in the sounding hall, they wake
The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round;
The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart,
Easily pleased; the long loud laugh, sincere ;
The kiss, snatched hasty from the sidelong maid,
On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep :
The leap, the slap, the haul; and, shook to notes
Of native music, the respondent dance.
Thus jocund fleets with them the winter-night.

THE CITY IN WINTER. — NEWS; DISSIPATION; GAMING; DANC-
ING PARTIES; COURT BALLS; THE FOP.

The city swarms intense. The public haunt, Full of each theme, and warm with mixed discourse, Hums indistinct. The sons of riot flow Down the loose stream of false enchanted joy, To swift destruction. On the rankled soul The gaming fury falls; and in one gulf Of total ruin, honor, virtue, peace, Friends, families, and fortune, headlong sink. Up springs the dance along the lighted dome, Mixed and evolved, a thousand sprightly ways. The glittering court effuses every pomp ; The circle deepens: beamed from gaudy robes, Tapers, and sparkling gems, and radiant eyes, A soft effulgence o'er the palace waves: While, a gay insect in his summer-shine, The fop, light-fluttering, spreads his mealy wings.

THE DRAMA.

Dread o'er the scene, the ghost of Hamlet stalks; Othello rages; poor Monimia mourns;

And Belvidera pours her soul in love.
Terror alarms the breast; the comely tear

Steals o'er the cheek or else the Comic Muse

Holds to the world a picture of itself,

And raises sly the fair impartial laugh.
Sometimes she lifts her strain, and paints the scenes
Of beauteous life; whate'er can deck mankind,

Or charm the heart, in generous Bevil1 showed.

LORD CHESTERFIELD EULOGIZED.

O thou, whose wisdom, solid yet refined, Whose patriot virtues, and consummate skill

1 A character in 'The Conscious Lovers,' by Sir R. Steele.

To touch the finer springs that move the world,
Joined to whate'er the Graces can bestow,
And all Apollo's animating fire,

Give thee, with pleasing dignity, to shine
At once the guardian, ornament, and joy,
Of polished life; permit the rural Muse,
O Chesterfield! to grace with thee her song,
Ere to the shades again she humbly flies,
Indulge her fond ambition, in thy train
(For every Muse has in thy train a place),
To mark thy various full-accomplished mind:
To mark that spirit, which, with British scorn,
Rejects the allurements of corrupted power;
That elegant politeness, which excels,
E'en in the judgment of presumptuous France,
The boasted manners of her shining court;
That wit, the vivid energy of sense,
The truth of Nature, which, with Attic point,
And kind well-tempered satire, smoothly keen,
Steals through the soul, and without pain corrects.
Or, rising thence with yet a brighter flame,
O let me hail thee on some glorious day,
When to the listening senate, ardent, crowd
Britannia's sons to hear her pleaded cause.
Then, dressed by thee, more amiably fair,
Truth the soft robe of mild Persuasion wears :
Thou to assenting Reason giv'st again

Her own enlightened thoughts; called from the heart,
The obedient passions on thy voice attend;
And e'en reluctant Party feels a while
Thy gracious power, as through the varied maze
Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now strong,
Profound and clear, you roll the copious flood.

THE CLEAR, FROSTY, HEALTHY DAYS OF WINTER.— NITRE ;
WITS WHETTED BY THE BRACING COLD.

To thy loved haunt return, my happy Muse;
For now, behold, the joyous winter-days,
Frosty, succeed; and through the blue serene,
For sight too fine, the ethereal nitre flies,
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air
Storing afresh with elemental life.

Close crowds the shining atmosphere, and binds
Our strengthened bodies in its cold embrace,
Constringent; feeds and animates our blood;
Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves
In swifter sallies darting to the brain;
Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.

WINTER RENOVATES NATURE.

All Nature feels the renovating force Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye In ruin seen. The frost-concocted glebe Draws in abundant vegetable soul, And gathers vigor for the coming year. A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek Of ruddy fire, and luculent along The purer rivers flow; their sullen deeps, Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze, And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.

[stores

FROST, ITS NATURE; THE STREAM FREEZING. What art thou, Frost? and whence are thy keen Derived, thou secret all-invading power, Whom e'en the illusive fluid cannot fly? Is not thy potent energy, unseen,

Myriads of little salts, or hooked, or shaped

Like double wedges, and diffused immense
Through water, earth, and ether? Hence at eve,
Steamed eager from the red horizon round,
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffused,
An icy gale, oft shifting, o'er the pool
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering stream. The loosened ice,
Let down the flood, and half dissolved by day,
Rustles no more; but to the sedgy bank
Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone,
A crystal pavement, by the breath of heaven
Cemented firm; till, seized from shore to shore,
The whole imprisoned river growls below.

FROST IN THE GROUND INCREASES SOUND. THE STARS OF
A WINTRY NIGHT.

Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
A double noise; while, at his evening watch,
The village dog deters the nightly thief;
The heifer lows; the distant waterfall
Swells in the breeze; and, with the hasty tread
Of traveller, the hollow-sounding plain
Shakes from afar. The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and, all one cope
Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole.

A STIFF FREEZE. BEAUTIFUL FROST-WORKS. THE FROZEN
WATERFALL; BROOK; FOREST. THE SHEPHERD.

From pole to pole the rigid influence falls, Through the still night, incessant, heavy, strong, And seizes Nature fast. It freezes on ; Till Morn, late rising o'er the drooping world, Lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then appears The various labor of the silent night: Prone from the dripping eave, and dumb cascade, Whose idle torrents only seem to roar, The pendent icicle; the frost-work fair, Where transient hues and fancied figures rise; Wide-spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook, A livid tract, cold-gleaming on the morn; The forest bent beneath the plumy wave; And by the frost refined the whiter snow, Encrusted hard, and sounding to the tread Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks His pining flock, or from the mountain top, Pleased with the slippery surface, swift descends. WINTER FROLICS. TOPS; SKATING; THE DUTCH; ICESLEIGHS; RUSSIANS; SWEDES.

On blithesome frolics bent, the youthful swains, While every work of man is laid at rest, Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport And revelry dissolved; where mixing glad, Happiest of all the train! the raptured boy Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine

Branched out in many a long canal extends,
From every province swarming, void of care,
Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep,
On sounding skates, a thousand different ways,
In circling poise, swift as the winds, along,
The then gay land is maddened all to joy.
Nor less the northern courts, wide o'er the snow,
Pour a new pomp. Eager, on rapid sleds,
Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel
The long-resounding course. Meantime, to raise
The manly strife, with highly-blooming charms,
Flushed by the season, Scandinavia's dames,
Or Russia's buxom daughters, glow around.

THE SHORT WINTER'S DAY. - FEEBLE EFFECTS OF THE SUN'S
RAYS. FOWLING, ETC.

Pure, quick, and sportful, is the wholesome day;
But soon elapsed. The horizontal sun,
Broad o'er the south, hangs at its utmost noon,
And, ineffectual, strikes the gelid cliff;
His azure gloss the mountain still maintains,
Nor feels the feeble touch. Perhaps the vale
Relents a while to the reflected ray;
Or from the forest falls the clustered snow,
Myriads of gems, that in the waving gleam
Gay-twinkle as they scatter. Thick around
Thunders the sport of those, who with the gun,
And dog impatient bounding at the shot,
Worse than the season desolate the fields;
And, adding to the ruins of the year,
Distress the footed or the feathered game.

AN ARCTIC WINTER. THE EXILE OF SIBERIA. DESOLATE
SCENERY OF SIBERIA.CARAVAN TO CHINA.
But what is this? Our infant Winter sinks,
Divested of his grandeur, should our eye
Astonished shoot into the frigid zone,
Where, for relentless months, continual Night
Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.
There, through the prison of unbounded wilds,
Barred by the hand of Nature from escape,
Wide roams the Russian exile. Naught around
Strikes his sad eye but deserts lost in snow;
And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods,
That stretch athwart the solitary waste
Their icy horrors to the frozen main ;

And cheerless towns far distant, never blessed,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,1
With news of human kind.

FÜR ANIMALS; ERMINES; SABLES; DEER; THE ELK; CAUGHT AND KILLED IN THE DEEP SNOW; BEARS.

Yet there life glows; Yet cherished there, beneath the shining waste, The furry nations harbor: tipped with jet, Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press; Sables, of glossy black; and dark embrowned, Or beauteous freaked with many a mingled hue, Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts. There, warm together pressed, the trooping deer 1 The old name for China.

Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and, scarce his head
Raised o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss.
The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils,
Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives
The fearful flying race; with ponderous clubs,
As weak against the mountain-heaps they push
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray,
He lays them quivering on the ensanguined snows,
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home.
There through the piny forest half absorbed,
Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear,
With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn;
Slow-paced, and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath the inclement drift,
And with stern patience, scorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against assailing want.

THE SCYTHIAN RACE. THE ARMORY OF PROVIDENCE.

1

Wide o'er the spacious regions of the north, That see Bootes urge his tardy wain, A boisterous race, by frosty Caurus pierced, Who little pleasure know and fear no pain, Prolific swarm. They once relumed the flame Of lost mankind, in polished slavery sunk ; Drove martial horde on horde,2 with dreadful sweep Resistless rushing o'er the enfeebled south, And gave the vanquished world another form.

THE LAPLANDERS. -THEIR VIRTUES.

Not such the sons of Lapland: wisely they Despise the insensate barbarous trade of war; They ask no more than simple Nature gives; They love their mountains and enjoy their storms. No false desires, no pride-created wants, Disturb the peaceful current of their time; And through the restless, ever-tortured maze Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it rage.

THE REINDEER.

Their reindeer form their riches. These their

tents,

Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth
Supply, their wholesome fare and cheerful cups.
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe
Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swift
O'er hill and dale, heaped into one expanse
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep,
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glazed.

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. ARCTIC MOONS AND STARS.

By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless shake A waving blaze refracted o'er the heavens, And vivid moons, and stars that keener play With doubled lustre from the glossy waste, E'en in the depth of polar night they find A wondrous day; enough to light the chase, Or guide their daring steps to Finland fairs. THE ARCTIC SPRING AND SUMMER; THE SUN'S COURSE ; NIEMI TENGLIO; LAPLAND WIVES; INNOCENCE.

Wished Spring returns; and from the hazy south While dim Aurora slowly moves before,

1 The north-west wind. 2 The wandering Scythian clans.

The welcome sun, just verging up at first,
By small degrees extends the swelling curve,
Till seen at last for gay rejoicing months,
Still round and round his spiral course he winds,
And, as he nearly dips his flaming orb,
Wheels up again, and reäscends the sky.
In that glad season, from the lakes and floods,
Where pure Niemi's fairy mountains rise,
And fringed with roses Tenglio 2 rolls his stream,
They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve,
They cheerful loaded to their tents repair;
Where, all day long in useful cares employed,
Their kind unblemished wives the fire prepare.
Thrice happy race! by poverty secured
From legal plunder and rapacious power:
In whom fell interest never yet has sown

The seeds of vice: whose spotless swains ne'er knew
Injurious deed, nor, blasted by the breath
Of faithless love, their blooming daughters woe.

THE POLAR REGIONS; HECLA; GREENLAND; THE POLE; THE
ETERNAL PALACE AND MAGAZINE OF WINTER.

Still pressing on, beyond Tornea's lake,
And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow,
And furthest Greenland, to the pole itself,
Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out,
The Muse expands her solitary flight;
And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene,
Beholds new seas beneath another sky. 3
Throned in his palace of cerulean ice,
Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court;
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is forever heard ;
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath;
Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost,
Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his
With which he now oppresses half the globe.

snows,

THE ARCTIC COASTS; ETERNAL SNOWS; ICEBERGS; AVALANCHES; THE VERY OCEAN FROZEN.

Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's coast, She sweeps the howling margin of the main ; Where undissolving, from the first of time, Snows swell on snows amazing to the sky; And icy mountains high on mountains piled Seem to the shivering sailor from afar, Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds. Projected huge, and horrid o'er the surge, Alps frown on Alps; or, rushing hideous down, As if old chaos were again returned, Wide-rend the deep, and shake the solid pole. Ocean itself no longer can resist The binding fury; but, in all its rage

1 M. de Maupertuis, after describing the beautiful lake and mountain of Niemi, in Lapland, says, 'From this height we had opportunity several times to see those vapors rise from the lake, which the people of the country call Haltios, and which they deem to be the guardian spirits of the mountains. We had been frighted with stories of bears that haunted this place, but saw none. It seemed rather a place of resort for fairies and genii than bears.'

2 The same author observes, I was surprised to see upon the banks of this river (the Tenglio) roses of as lively a red as any that are in our gardens.'

3 The other hemisphere.

Of tempest taken by the boundless frost,
Is many a fathom to the bottom chained,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagged o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious southward.

SHIPS LOCKED IN POLAR ICE. FATE OF SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY.— ARZINA.

Miserable they!

Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death, and fierce with ten-fold frost,
The long, long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's fate,
As with first prow (what have not Britons dared!)
He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate sealed, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.

THE SAMOIEDES, ETC.- THE OBY.-GROSS AND STUPID LIFE.

[stream

Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men ; And half enlivened by the distant sun, That rears and ripens man, as well as plants, Here human nature wears its rudest form. Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves, Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer, They waste the tedious gloom. Immersed in furs, Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor song, Nor tenderness, they know ; nor aught of life Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without. Till morn at length, her roses drooping all, Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their fields, And calls the quivered savage to the chase.

[shores,

PETER THE GREAT. HIS CONQUESTS OVER NATURE, THE
RUSSIANS, AND BARBARISM; HIS HEROIC SELF-EDUCATION.
What cannot active government perform,
New-moulding man? Wide-stretching from these
A people savage from remotest time,
A huge neglected empire, one vast mind,
By Heaven inspired, from Gothic darkness called.
Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! He
His stubborn country tamed, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons;
And while the fierce barbarian he subdued,
To more exalted soul he raised the man.
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toiled
Through long successive ages to build up
A laboring plan of state, behold at once
The wonder done! behold the matchless prince!
Who left his native throne, where reigned till then

1 Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth to discover the north-east passage.

A mighty shadow of unreal power;

Who greatly spurned the slothful pomp of courts;
And roaming every land, in every port
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unwearied plying the mechanic tool,
Gathered the seeds of trade, of useful arts,
Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill.

PETER FOUNDS CITIES, DIGS CANALS, BUILDS A NAVY, SUBDUES CHARLES XII. AND THE TURKS. — HAPPY RESULTS.

Charged with the stores of Europe home he goes!
Then cities rise amid the illumined waste;
O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign;
Far-distant flood to flood is social joined ;
The astonished Euxine hears the Baltic roar ;
Proud navies ride on seas that never foamed
With daring keel before; and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repressing here
The frantic Alexander of the North,

And awing there stern Othman's shrinking sons.
Sloth flies the land, and Ignorance and Vice,
Of old dishonor proud; it glows around,
Taught by the royal hand that roused the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade;
For what his wisdom planned, and power enforced,
More potent still, his great example showed.

THE SOUTH WIND THAW. - FRESHETS; POLAR ICE BREAKS
UP; FIELDS OF ICE; ICEBERGS.

Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, Blow hollow-blustering from the south. Subdued, The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet descends, And floods the country round. The rivers swell, Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts, A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once; And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas, That washed the ungenial pole, will rest no more Beneath the shackles of the mighty north; But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave. And hark! the lengthening roar continuous runs Athwart the rifted deep at once it bursts, And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds.

:

THE VESSEL CAUGHT AMONGST THE FLOATING ICE-FIELDS. -SUFFERINGS OF HER CREW; WHALE; SEA MONSTERS;

DELIVERANCE.

Ill fares the bark, with trembling wretches charged, That, tossed amid the floating fragments, moors Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,

While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks
More horrible. Can human force endure
The assembled mischiefs that besiege them round?
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness,
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renewed with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main.
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan
And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempest the loosened brine, while through the gloom,

"T is done! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year. How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!

How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictured life; pass some few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength,
Thy sober Autumn fading into age,

And pale concluding Winter comes, at last,
And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled
Those dreams of greatness, those unsolid hopes
Of happiness those longings after fame-
Those restless cares- those busy bustling days-
Those gay-spent, festive nights, those veering
thoughts,

Lost between good and ill, that shared thy life?
All now are vanished! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal, never-failing friend of man,
His guide to happiness on high.

WAKING FROM THE WINTRY LIFE OF TIME TO AN IMMORTAL
SPRING IN HEAVEN. ALL MORAL PROBLEMS SOLVED.
And see!

'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth! Awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heightened form, from pain and death
Forever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To Reason's eye refined clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power
And Wisdom oft arraigned: see now the cause
Why unassuming Worth in secret lived,
And died neglected, why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul,
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined

In starving solitude, while Luxury

In palaces lay straining her low thought
To form unreal wants, why heaven-born Truth,
And Moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of Superstition's scourge, - why licensed Pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosomed foe,
Embittered all our bliss. Ye good distressed!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deemed evil, is no more :
The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.