GEORGE II. AND GEORGE III. (Continued.)
A Summer Morning.
With quickened step
Brown night retires: young day pours in apace, And opens all the lawny prospect wide.
The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top
Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.
Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare
Limps awkward; while along the forest glade
The wild-deer trip, and often turning gaze
At early passenger. Music awakes
The native voice of undissembled joy;
And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells; And from the crowded fold, in order, drives His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn.
Autumn Evening Scene.
But see the fading many-coloured woods, Shade deepening over shade, the country round Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun, Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse, Low whispering, lead into their leaf-strewn walks, And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime light-shadowing all, a sober calm Fleeces unbounded ether; whose least wave Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn The gentle current; while illumined wide, The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun, And through their lucid veil his softened force Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time,
For those whom virtue and whom nature charm, To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd, And soar above this little scene of things: To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet; To soothe the throbbing passions into peace; And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks. Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,
Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,
And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard One dying strain, to cheer the woodman's toil. Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint, Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse; While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,
And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late, Swelled all the music of the swarming shades, Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock, With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, And nought save chattering discord in their note. O let not, aimed from some unhuman eye, The gun the music of the coming year Destroy; and harmless, unsuspecting harm, Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey In mingled murder. fluttering on the ground! The pale descending year, yet pleasing still, A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf Incessant rustles from the mournful grove; Oft startling such as studious walk below, And slowly circles through the waving air. But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams; Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower, The forest-walks, at every rising gale,
Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields; And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign. E'en what remained Of bolder fruits falls from the naked tree; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards all around, The desolated prospect thrills the soul.
The western sun withdraws the shortened day, And humid evening, gliding o'er the sky, In her chill progress, to the ground condensed The vapour throws. Where creeping waters ooze, Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind, Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the moon, Full orbed, and breaking through the scattered clouds, Shews her broad visage in the crimsoned east.
Turned to the sun direct her spotted disk,
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend, And caverns deep, as optic tube descries,
A smaller earth, gives all his blaze again, Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop, Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild O'er the skied mountain to the shadowy vale, While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam; The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of silver radiance trembling round the world. . . .
The lengthened night elapsed, the morning shines Serene, in all her dewy beauty bright Unfolding fair the last autumnal day.
And now the mounting sun dispels the fog; The rigid hoar-frost melts before his beam; And hung on every spray, on every blade Of grass, the myriad dew-drops twinkle round.
A Winter Landscape.
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:
'Tis 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 labourer-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. One alone, The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of the 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 kine 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. . . 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 dele, 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 vigour 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 the officious wife prepares The fire fair-blazing, and the vestiment 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 cors
Stretched out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
Hymn on the Seasons.
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 gale Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In Winter awful Thou! with clouds and storms Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rollo 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 a harmonious whole, That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. But wandering oft, with rude unconscious gaze, Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand
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