A face of pleafure, but a heart of pain;
Their hollow moments undelighted all?
Sure peace is his; a folid life eftrang'd
To difappointinent, and fallacious hope:
Rich in content, in nature's bounty rich,
In herbs and fruits; whatever greens the Spring,
When heaven defcends in fhowers; or bends the
bough

When Summer reddens, and when Autumn beams;
Or in the wintery glebe whatever lies
Conceal'd, and fattens with the richest fap:
Thefe are not wanting; nor the milky drove,
Luxuriant, fpread o'er all the lowing vale;
Nor bleating mountains; nor the chide of ftreams,
And hum of bees, inviting fleep fincere
Into the guiltless breaft, beneath the fhade,
Or thrown at large amid the fragrant hay;
Nor aught befides of profpect, grove, or fong,
Dim grottoes, gleaming lakes, and fountains clear.
Here too dwells fimple truth; plain innocence;
Unfullied beauty; found unbroken youth,
Patient of labour, with a little pleas'd;
Health ever blooming; unambitious toil;
Calm contemplation, and poetic cafe.

Let others brave the flood in queft of gain,
And beat, for joylefs months, the gloomy wave.
Let fuch as deem it glory to deftroy,
Rufh into blood, the fack of cities feek;
Unpierc'd, exulting in the widow's wail,
The virgin's fhrick, and infant's trembling cry.
Let fome far diftant from their native foil,
Urg'd or by want or harden'd avarice,
Find other lands beneath another fun.
Let this through cities work his cager way,
By regal outrage and establish'd guile,
The focial fenfe extinct; and that ferment
Mad into tumult the feditious herd,
Or melt them down to flavery. Let thefe
Infnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting difcord, and perplexing right,
An iron race! and thofe of fairer front,
But equal inhumanity, in courts,
Delufive pomp, and dark cabals, delight;
Wreathe the deep bow, diffufe the lying fmile,
And tread the weary labyrinth of ftate.
While he, from all the ftormy paffions free
That reftlefs men involve, hcars, and but hears,
At distance fafe, the human tempest roar,
Wrapt clofe in confcious peace. The fall of kings,
The rage of nations, and the crush of ftates,
Move not the man, who, from the world efcap'd,
In ftill retreats, and flowery folitudes,
To nature's voice attends, from month to month,
And day to day, through the revolving year;
Admiring, fees her in her every fhape;
Feels all her fweet emotions at his heart;
Takes what fhe liberal gives, nor thinks of more.
He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting gems,
Marks the first bud, and fucks the healthful gale
Iato his frefhen'd foul; her genial hours

He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows,
And not an opening bloffom breathes in vain.
In Summer he, beneath the living fhade,
Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,
Or Hemus cool, reads what the muse, of these,
Perhaps, has in immortal numbers fung;
Or what the dictates writes: and oft, an eye
Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When Autumn's yellow luftre gilds the world,
And tempts the fickled fwain into the field,
Seiz'd by the general joy, his heart diftends
With gentle throws; and through the tepid gleams
Deep mufing, then he beft exerts his fong.
Ev'n Winter, wild to him, is full of blifs.
The mighty tempeft, and the hoary wafte,
Abrupt, and deep, ftretch'd o'er the buried earth,
Awake to folemn thought. At night the skies,
Disclos'd, and kindled, by refining froft,
Pours every luftre on th' exalted eye,

A friend, a book, the stealing hours fecure,
And mark them down for wifdom. With fwift wing,
O'er land and fea imagination roams;
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates, his being, and unfolds his powers;
Or in his breaft heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels;
The modeft eye, whofe beams on his alone
Ecftatic fhine; the little ftrong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to pleafe him, calling forth
The fond parental foul. Nor purpofe gay,
Amusement, dance, or fong, he fternly scorns;
For happiness and true philofophy

Are of the focial ftill, and fmiling kind.
This is the life which thofe who fret in guilt,
And guilty cities, never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,

When angels dwelt, and God Fimfelf, with man!
Oh, Nature! all-fufficient! over all!
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonder there,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profufely fcatter'd o'er the blue immenfe,
Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws,
Give me to fcan; through the difclosing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral firata there;
Thruft, blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that the rifing fyftem, more complex,
Of animals; and higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing paflions endlefs fhift;
Thefe ever open to my ravifh'd eye;

A fearch, the flight of time can ne'er exhauft!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In fluggish ftreams about my heart, forbid
That beft ambition; under clofing fhades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly broek,
And whisper to my dreams. From thee begin,
Dwell all on thee, with thee conclude my fong;
And let me never, never ftray from thee!

SEE, Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
Sullen and fad, with all his rifing train:
Vapours, and clouds, and forms. Be thefe my theme,
Thefe! that exalt the foul to folemn thought,
And heavenly mufing. Welcome, kindred glooms!
Congenial horrors, hail! with frequent foot,
Pha'd have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nurs'd by carelefs folitude I liv'd,
And fung of Nature with unceasing joy,
Pleas'd have I wander'd through your rough domain;
Trod the pure virgin-fnows, myfelf as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burft;
Or feen the deep fermenting tempeft brew'd,
In the grim evening sky. Thus pafs'd the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the fouth
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'dout, and fmil'd.
To thee, the patron of her firft essay,
The mufe, O Wilmington! renews her fong.
Since has the rounded the revolving year:
Skim'd the gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne,
Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rife;
Then wept o'er Autumn with the fhadowy gale;
And now among the wintery clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling ftorm, fhe tries to foar;
To fwell her note with all the rushing winds;
To fit her founding cadence to the floods;
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy! could the l thy judging ear
With bold defcription, and with manly thought.
Nor art thou kill'd in aweful schemes alone,
And how to make a mighty people thrive;
Eat equal goodness, found integrity,
A firm unfhaken uncorrupted foul
Amid a fiding age, and burning ftrong,
Not vainly blazing for thy country's weal,
A feady fpirit regularly free;

Thee, cach exalting each, the fatefman light
Into the patriot; thefe, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the mufe
Record what envy dares not flattery call.
Now when the cheerlefs empire of the fky
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius ftains th' inverted year;
Hung o'er the fartheft verge of heaven, the fun
Searce Spreads through ether the dejected day,
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His ftruggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Through the thick air; as, cloth'd in cloudy ftorm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he fkirts the fouthern fky;
And, foon-defcending, to the long dark night,

Wide-fhading all, the proftrate world refigns.
Nor is the night unwifh'd; while vital heat,
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forfake.
Meantime, in fable-cincture, fhadows vast,
Deep-ting'd and damp, and congregated clouds,
And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven,
Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls,
A heavy gloom oppreffive o'er the world,
Through nature fhedding influence malign,
And roufes up the feeds of dark disease.
The foul of man dies in him, loathing life,
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop; and o'er the furrow'd land,
Fresh from the plough, the dun difcolour'd flocks,
Untended fpreading, crop the wholefome root.
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the fad genius of the coming storm;
And up among the loofe disjointed cliffs,
And fractur'd mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave, prefageful, fend a hollow mean,
Refounding long in liftening fancy's ear.

Then comics the father of the tempeft forth,
Wrapt in black glooms. First joylefs rains obfcure
Drive through the mingling fkies with vapour foul;
Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods,
That grumbling wave below. Th'unfightly plain
Lics a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds
Pour flood on flood, yet unexhaufted still
Combine, and deepening into night fhut up
The day's fair face. The wanderers of heaven,
Each to his home, retire; fave thefe that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
Or fkimming flutter round the dimply pool.
The cattle from th' untafted fields return,
And afk, with meaning lowe, their wonted ftalls,
Or ruminate in the contiguous fhade..
Thither the household feathery people crowd,
The crefted cock, with all his female train,
Penfive, and dripping; while the cottage-hind
Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze, and taleful there
Recounts his fimple frolic: much he talks,
And much he laughs, nor recks the ftorm that
Without, and rattles on his humble roof. [blows

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent fwell'd, And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'erfpread, At laft the rous'd-up river pours along : Refiftlefs, roaring, dreadful, down it comes, From the rude mountain, and the moffy wild, Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and founding far; Then o'er the fanded valley floating spreads,

Calm, fluggish, filent; till again, constrain'd
Between two meeting hills, it bursts away,
Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid ftream;
There gathering triple force, rapid, and deep,
It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders
through.

Nature! great parent! whofe unceafing hand
Rolls round the Seasons of the changeful year,
How mighty, how majeftic, are thy works!
With what a pleafing dread they fwell the foul!
That fees aftonifh'd and astonish'd fings!
Ye too, ye winds! that now begin to blow,
With boisterous fweep, I raife my voice to you.
Where are your ftores, ye powerful beings! fay,
Where your aerial magazines referv'd,
To fwell the brooding terrors of the storm?
In what far-diflant region of the sky,
Huh'd in deep filence, fleep ye when 'tis calm?
When from the pallid fky the fun defcends,
With many a fpot, that o'er his glaring orb
Uncertain wanders, itain'd; red fiery streaks
Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy poise, as doubting yet
Which mailer to obey while rifing flow,
Blank, in the leaden-colour'd east, the moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
Seen through the turbid fluctuating air,
The ftars obtufe emit a fhiver'd ray;
Or frequent feem to fhoot athwart the gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening blaze.
Snatch'd in fhort eddies, plays the wither'd leaf;
And on the flood the dancing feather floats.
With broaden'd noftrils to the fky up-turn'd,
The confcious heifer fnuffs the formy gale.
Ev'n as the matron, at her nightly taik,
With penfive labour draws the flaxen thread,
The wafted taper and the crackling flame
Foretel the blaft. But chief the plumy race,
The tenants of the fky, its changes fpeak.
Retiring from the downs, where all day long
'They pick'd their scanty fare, a blackening train
Of clamorous rooks thick urge their weary flight,
And feck the clofing fhelter of the grove;
Affiduous, in his bower, the wailing ow!
Plies his fad fong. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and fereems along the land.
Loud shrieks the foaring horn; and with wild
wing

The circling fea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal prefs'd, with broken tide
And blind commotion heaves; while from the
fhore,

Eat into caverns by the reftlefs wave,

And foreft-rustling mountains, comes a voice,
That foleman founding bids the world prepare.
Then iffues forth the ftorm with fudden burst,
And hils the whole precipitated air,
Down, in a torrent. On the paffive main
Defcends th' ethereal force, and with strong guft
Turns from its bottom the difcolour'd deep.
Through the black night that fits immenfe around,
1 afh'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn:
Meantime the mountain-hillows to the clouds
in dreadful tumult fwell'd, furge above furge,
Burst into chaos with tremendous roar,
And anchor'd navies from their stations drive,
Wild as the winds across the howling waite

Of mighty waters: now th' inflated waye
Straining they fcale, and now inpetuous shoot
Into the fecret chambers of the deep,
The wintery Baltic thundering o'er their head.
Emerging thence again, before the breath
Of full-exerted heaven they wing their course,
And dart on diftant coafts; if fome fharp rock,
Or fhoal infidious break not their career,
And in loofe fragments fling them floating round,
Nor lefs at land the loofen'd tempeft reigns.
The mountain thunders; and its sturdy fons
Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade.
Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghaft,
The dark way-faring stranger breathlefs toils,
And, often falling, climbs against the blast.
Low waves the rooted foreft, vex'd and sheds
What of its tarnish'd honours yet remain;
Dash'd down, and featter'd by the tearing wind's
Affiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.

Thus ftruggling through the diffipated grove,
The whirling tempeft raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof,
Keen-faftening, thakes them to the folid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the favage blast.
Then too, they fay, through all the burden'd air,
Long groans are heard, fhrill founds, and diftant figh
That, utter'd by the demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.

Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds committ
With stars fwift gliding fweep along the sky.
All nature reels. Till Nature's King, who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of careering wind
Walks dreadfully ferene, commands a calm;
Then ftrait air, fea, and earth, are hufh'd at on

As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds, Slow-meeting, mingle into folid gloom. Now, while the drowfy world lies loft in fleep, Let me affociate with the ferious night, And Contemplation her fedate compeer; Let me fhake off th' intrufive cares of day, And lay the meddling fenfes all afide.

Where now, ye lying vanities of life! Ye ever-tempting, ever-cheating train! Where are you now? and what is your amount? Vexation, difappointment, and remorse. Sad, fickening thought! and yet deluded man, A fcene of crude disjointed vifions paft, And broken flumbers, rifes ftill refolv'd, With new-flush'd hopes, to run the giddy round.

Father of light and life! thou Good fupreme!
O, teach me what is good! teach me Thyfelf!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low purfuit ! and feed my foul
With knowledge, confcious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, fubftantial, never-fading blifs!

The keener tempefts rife: and, fuming dun
From all the livid caft, or piercing north,
Thick clouds afcend; in whofe capacious womb
A vapoury deluge lies, to fnow congeal'd.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along;
And the ky faddens with the gather'd form.
Through the hufh'd air the whitening fhower de
fcends,

At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and faft, dimming the day,
With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields

While in the land of liberty, the land
Whofe every street and public meeting glow
With open freedom, little tyrants rag'd;
Snatch'd the lean morfel from the starving mouth;
Tore from cold wintery limbs the tatter'd weed;
Ev'n robb'd them of the laft of comforts, fleep;
The free-born Briton to the dungeon chain'd,
Or, as the luft of cruelty prevail'd,

At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious flripes;
And crush'd out lives, by fecret barbarous ways,
That for their country would have toil'd, or bled.
O, great defign! if executed well,

With patient care, and wifdom-temper'd zeal,
Ye fons of mercy! yet refume the fearch;
Drag forth the legal monfters into light,
Wrench from their hands oppreffion's iron rod,
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much still untouch'd remains; in this rank age,
Much is the patriot's weeding hand requir'd.
The toils of law, (what dark infidious men
Have cumberous added to perplex the truth,
And lengthen fimple juftice into trade)
How glorious were the day! that faw thefe broke,
And every man within the reach of right.

By wintery famine rous'd, from all the tract
Of horrid mountains which the fhining Alps,
And wavy Appenine, and Pyrenees,
Branch out ftupendous into diftant lands;
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave!
Burning for blood! bony, and ghaunt, and grim!
Affembling wolves in raging troops defcend;
And, pouring o'er the country, bear along,
Keen as the north-wind fweeps the gloffy fnow.
All is their prize. They faften on the fteed,
Prefs him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.
Nor can the buli his awful front defend,
Or fhake the murdering favages away.
Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fly,
And tear the fereeming infant from her breast.
The godlike face of man avails him nought.
Ev'n beauty, force divine! at whofe bright glance
The generous lion stands in foften'd gaze,
Here bleeds, a hapless undiftinguish'd prey.
But if, appriz'd of the fevere attack,
The country be shut up, lur'd by the scent,
On church-yards drear (inhuman to relate!)
The difappointed prowlers fall, and dig
The fhrouded body from the grave; o'er which,
Mix'd with foul fhades, and frighted ghofts, they
howl.

Among thofe hilly regions, where embrac'd In peaceful vales the happy Grifons dwell. Oft, rufhing fudden from the loaded cliffs, Mountains of fnow their gathering terrors roll. From keep to fleep, loud thundering, down they A wintery waste in dire commotion all; [come, And herds, and flocks, and traveliers, and fwains, And fometimes whole brigades of marching troops, Or hamlets fleeping in the dead of night, Are deep beneath the fmothering ruin whelm'd. Now, all amid the rigours of the year, In the wild depth of Winter, while without The ceafelefs winds blow ice, be my retreat, Between the groaning foreft and the shore Beat by the boundlefs multitude of waves, A rural, fhelter'd, folitary scene; Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join, To cheer the gloom. There ftudious let me fit,

And hold high converfe with the mighty dead;
Sages of ancient time, as gods rever'd,
As gods beneficent, who bleft mankind
With arts, with arms, and humaniz'd a world.
Rous d at th' inspiring thought, I throw afide
The long-liv'd volume; and, deep mufing, hail
The facred shades, that flowly-rifing pafs
Before my wondering eyes. First Socrates,
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants fingle stood,
invincible! calm reafon's holy law,
That voice of God within th' attentive mind,
Obeying, fearleís, or in life, or death:
Great moral teacher! wifeft of mankind!
Solon the next, who built his common-weal
On equity's wide bafe; by tender laws
A lively people curbing, yet undamp'd
Preferving fill that quick peculiar fire,
Whence in the laurel'd field of finer arts,
And of bold freedom, they unequal'd fhone,
The pride of fmiling Greece, and human-kind.
Lycurgus then, who bow'd beneath the force
Of ftricteft difcipline, feverely wife,
All human paffions. Following him, I see,
As at Thermopyle he glorious fell,
The firm devoted chief, who prov'd by deeds
The hardest leffon which the other taught.
Then Ariftides lifts his honeft front;
Spotless of heart, to whom th' unflattering voice
Of freedom gave the noblest name of Juft;
In pure majeftic poverty rever'd;

Who, ev'n his glory to his country's weal
Submitting, fwell'd a haughty + rival's fame.
Rear'd by his care, of fofter ray appears
Cimon fweet-foul'd; whofe genius, rifing ftrong,
Shock off the load of young debauch; abroad
The fcourge of Perfian pride, at home the friend
Of every worth and every fplendid art;
Modeft, and fimple, in the pomp of wealth.
Then the laft worthies of declining Greece,
Late call'd to glory, in unequal times,
Penfive, appear. The fair Corinthian boaft,
Timoleon, happy temper! mild and firm,
Who wept the brother, while the tyrant bled.
And, equal to the beft, the Theban pair,
Whof virtues in heroic concord join'd,
Their country rais'd to freedom, empire, fame.
He too, with whom Athenian honour funk;
And left a mafs of fordid lees behind,
Phocion the good; in public life fevere,
To virtue ftill inexorably firm;

But when, beneath his low illuftrious roof,
Sweet peace and happy wisdom smooth'd his brow,
Not freindship fofter was, nor love more kind.
And he, the laft of old Lycurgus' fons,
The generous victim to that vain attempt,
To fave a rotten fate, Agis, who saw
Ev'n Sparta's felf to fervile avarice funk.
The two Achaian heroes clofe the train:
Aratus, who a while relum'd the foul
Of fondly lingering liberty in Greece:
And he her darling as her latest hope,
The gallant Philopamen; who to arms
Turn'd the luxurious pomp he could not cure;

Leonidas. + Themistocles. Pelopidas and Epaminondas.