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 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.
Charged with the stores of Europe, home he goes'
Then cities rise amid th' illumined waste;
O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign; Far distant flood to flood is social joined; Th' 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.
Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, Blow hollow-blustering from the south. 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. 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
Th' 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,
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Tempest the loosened brine; while through the gloom, Far from the bleak, inhospitable shore,
Of famished monsters, there awaiting wrecks. Yet Providence, that ever-waking eye, Looks down with pity on the feeble toil Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.
'Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms. And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year. 1025
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,
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. 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 crue 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 awhile, 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.
THESE, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these Are but the varied GoD. The rolling year Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring THY beauty walks, THY tenderness, and love. Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round: the forest smiles; And every sense, and every heart is joy. Then comes THY glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then THY sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year: And oft THY VOICE in dreadful thunder speaks; And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales THY bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that live. In Winter awful THOU with clouds and storms
Around THEE thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled. Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing, Riding sublime, THOU bidst the world adore, And humblest Nature with THY northern blast. Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine, Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train, Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combined; Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade; And all so forming an harmonious whole; That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not THEE, marks not the mighty hand, That, ever busy, wheels the silent sphere; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring; Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth; And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport touches all the springs of life.
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