The Seasons Read Online

The various turns

Of fortune ponder; that your sons may want

What now with hard reluctance faint ye give.

The lovely young Lavinia once had friends;

And fortune smiled deceitful on her birth.

For, in her helpless years deprived of all,

Of every stay save innocence and Heaven,

She, with her widowed mother, feeble, old,

And poor, lived in a cottage far retired

Among the windings of a woody vale;

By solitude and deep surrounding shades,

But more by bashful modesty, concealed.

Together thus they shunned the cruel scorn

Which virtue, sunk to poverty, would meet

From giddy fashion and low-minded pride;

Almost on nature's common bounty fed,

Like the gay birds that sung them to repose,

Content, and careless of to-morrow's fare.

Her form was fresher than the morning-rose

When the dew wets its leaves; unstained and pure

As is the lily or the mountain-snow.

The modest virtues mingled in her eyes,

Still on the ground dejected, darting all

Their humid beams into the blooming flowers:

Or when the mournful tale her mother told,

Of what her faithless fortune promised once,

Thrilled in her thought, they, like the dewy star

Of evening, shone in tears. A native grace

Sat fair-proportioned on her polished limbs,

Veiled in a simple robe, their best attire,

Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness

Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,

But is when unadorned adorned the most.

Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,

Recluse amid the close-embowering woods.

As in the hollow breast of Apennine,

Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,

A myrtle rises, far from human eye,

And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild –

So flourished blooming, and unseen by all,

The sweet Lavinia; till at length, compelled

By strong necessity's supreme command,

With smiling patience in her looks she went

To glean Palemon's fields. The pride of swains

Palemon was, the generous and the rich,

Who led the rural life in all its joy

And elegance, such as Arcadian song

Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times,

When tyrant custom had not shackled man,

But free to follow nature was the mode.

He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes

Amusing, chanced beside his reaper-train

To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye;

Unconscious of her power, and turning quick

With unaffected blushes from his gaze –

He saw her charming, but he saw not half

The charms her downcast modesty concealed.

That very moment love and chaste desire

Sprung in his bosom, to himself unknown;

For still the world prevailed, and its dread laugh,

Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn,

Should his heart own a gleaner in the field;

And thus in secret to his soul he sighed:

»What pity that so delicate a form,

By beauty kindled, where enlivening sense

And more than vulgar goodness seem to dwell,

Should be devoted to the rude embrace

Of some indecent clown! She looks, methinks,

Of old Acasto's line; and to my mind

Recalls that patron of my happy life,

From whom my liberal fortune took its rise, –

Now to the dust gone down, his houses, lands,

And once fair-spreading family dissolved.

'Tis said that in some lone, obscure retreat,

Urged by remembrance sad and decent pride,

Far from those scenes which knew their better days,

His aged widow and his daughter live;

Whom yet my fruitless search could never find.

Romantic wish, would this the daughter were!«

When, strict inquiring, from herself he found

She was the same, the daughter of his friend,

Of bountiful Acasto, who can speak

The mingled passions that surprised his heart

And through his nerves in shivering transport ran?

Then blazed his smothered flame, avowed and bold

And, as he viewed her ardent o'er and o'er,

Love, gratitude, and pity wept at once.

Confused and frightened at his sudden tears,

Her rising beauties flushed a higher bloom,

As thus Palemon, passionate and just,

Poured out the pious rapture of his soul:

»And art thou then Acasto's dear remains?

She whom my restless gratitude has sought

So long in vain? O yes! the very same,

The softened image of my noble friend,

Alive his every feature, every look,

More elegantly touched. Sweeter than Spring!

Thou soul surviving blossom from the root

That nourished up my fortune! say, ah where,

In what sequestered desert, hast thou drawn

The kindest aspect of delighted Heaven?

Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair?

Though poverty's cold wind and crushing rain

Beat keen and heavy on thy tender years.

Oh, let me now into a richer soil

Transplant thee safe, where vernal suns and showers

Diffuse their warmest, largest influence;

And of my garden be the pride and joy!

It ill befits thee, oh, it ill befits

Acasto's daughter – his, whose open stores,

Though vast, were little to his ampler heart,

The father of a country – thus to pick

The very refuse of those harvest-fields

Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy.

Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand,

But ill applied to such a rugged task;

The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine;

If, to the various blessings which thy house

Has on me lavish'd, thou wilt add that bliss,

That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee!«

Here ceased the youth: yet still his speaking eye

Expressed the sacred triumph of his soul,

With conscious virtue, gratitude, and love

Above the vulgar joy divinely raised.

Nor waited he reply. Won by the charm

Of goodness irresistible, and all

In sweet disorder lost, she blushed consent.

The news immediate to her mother brought,

While, pierced with anxious thought, she pined away

The lonely moments for Lavinia's fate,

Amazed, and scarce believing what she heard,

Joy seized her wither'd veins, and one bright gleam

Of setting life shone on her evening hours, –

Not less enraptured than the happy pair;

Who flourished long in tender bliss, and reared

A numerous offspring, lovely like themselves,

And good, the grace of all the country round.

Defeating oft the labours of the year,

The sultry south collects a potent blast.

At first, the groves are scarcely seen to stir

Their trembling tops; and a still murmur runs

Along the soft-inclining fields of corn.

But, as the aerial tempest fuller swells,

And in one mighty stream, invisible,

Immense, the whole excited atmosphere

Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world –

Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours

A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves.

High-beat, the circling mountains eddy in,

From the bare wild, the dissipated storm,

And send it in a torrent down the vale.

Exposed, and naked to its utmost rage,

Through all the sea of harvest rolling round,

The billowy plain floats wide; nor can evade,

Though pliant to the blast, its seizing force –

Or whirled in air or into vacant chaff

Shook waste. And sometimes too a burst of rain,

Swept from the black horizon, broad descends

In one continuous flood. Still over head

The mingling tempest weaves its gloom, and still

The deluge deepens; till the fields around

Lie sunk and flatted in the sordid wave.

Sudden the ditches swell; the meadows swim.

Red from the hills innumerable streams

Tumultuous roar, and high above its banks

The river lift – before whose rushing tide

Herds, flocks, and harvests, cottages, and swains

Roll mingled down; all that the winds had spared

In one wild moment ruined, the big hopes

And well-earned treasures of the painful year.

Fled to some eminence, the husbandman

Helpless beholds the miserable wreck

Driving along; his drowning ox, at once

Descending with his labours scattered round,

He sees; and instant o'er his shivering thought

Comes winter unprovided, and a train

Of clamant children dear. Ye masters, then

Be mindful of the rough laborious hand

That sinks you soft in elegance and ease;

Be mindful of those limbs in russet clad

Whose toil to yours is warmth and graceful pride;

And oh, be mindful of that sparing board

Which covers yours with luxury profuse,

Makes your glass sparkle, and your sense rejoice;

Nor cruelly demand what the deep rains

And all-involving winds have swept away!

Here the rude clamour of the sportsman's joy,

The gun fast-thundering and the winded horn,

Would tempt the Muse to sing the rural game, –

How, in his mid career, the spaniel, struck

Stiff by the tainted gale, with open nose

Outstretched and finely sensible, draws full,

Fearful, and cautious on the latent prey

As in the sun the circling covey bask

Their varied plumes, and, watchful every way,

Through the rough stubble turn the secret eye.

Caught in the meshy snare, in vain they beat

Their idle wings, entangled more and more:

Nor, on the surges of the boundless air

Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun,

Glanced just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye,

O'ertakes their sounding pinions, and again

Immediate brings them from the towering wing

Dead to the ground; or drives them wide-dispersed,

Wounded and wheeling various down the wind.

These are not subjects for the peaceful muse,

Nor will she stain with such her spotless song –

Then most delighted when she social sees

The whole mixed animal creation round

Alive and happy. 'Tis not joy to her,

This falsely cheerful barbarous game of death,

This rage of pleasure which the restless youth

Awakes, impatient, with the gleaming morn;

When beasts of prey retire that all night long,

Urged by necessity, had ranged the dark,

As if their conscious ravage shunned the light

Ashamed. Not so the steady tyrant, man,

Who, with the thoughtless insolence of power

Inflamed beyond the most infuriate wrath

Of the worst monster that e'er roamed the waste,

For sport alone pursues the cruel chase

Amid the beamings of the gentle days.

Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,

For hunger kindles you, and lawless want;

But lavish fed, in Nature's bounty rolled,

To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,

Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.

Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare!

Scared from the corn, and now to some lone seat

Retired – the rushy fen, the ragged furze

Stretched o'er the stony heath, the stubble chapped,

The thistly lawn, the thick entangled broom,

Of the same friendly hue the withered fern,

The fallow ground laid open to the sun

Concoctive, and the nodding sandy bank

Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook.

Vain is her best precaution; though she sits

Concealed with folded ears, unsleeping eyes

By Nature raised to take the horizon in,

And head couched close betwixt her hairy feet

In act to spring away. The scented dew

Betrays her early labyrinth; and deep,

In scattered sullen openings, far behind,

With every breeze she hears the coming storm

But, nearer and more frequent as it loads

The sighing gale, she springs amazed, and all

The savage soul of game is up at once –

The pack full-opening various, the shrill horn

Resounded from the hills, the neighing steed

Wild for the chase, and the loud hunter's shout –

O'er a weak, harmless, flying creature, all

Mixed in mad tumult and discordant joy.

The stag, too, singled from the herd, where long

He ranged the branching monarch of the shades,

Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed

He sprightly puts his faith, and, roused by fear,

Gives all his swift aerial soul to flight.

Against the breeze he darts, that way the more

To leave the lessening murderous cry behind.

Deception short! though, fleeter than the winds

Blown o'er the keen-aired mountain by the North,

He bursts the thickets, glances through the glades,

And plunges deep into the wildest wood.

If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track

Hot-steaming, up behind him come again

The inhuman rout, and from the shady depth

Expel him, circling through his every shift.

He sweeps the forest oft; and sobbing sees

The glades, mild opening to the golden day,

Where in kind contest with his butting friends

He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy.

Oft in the full-descending flood he tries

To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides –

Oft seeks the herd; the watchful herd, alarmed,

With selfish care avoid a brother's woe.

What shall he do? His once so vivid nerves,

So full of buoyant spirit, now no more

Inspire the course; but fainting, breathless toil

Sick seizes on his heart: he stands at bay,

And puts his last weak refuge in despair.

The big round tears run down his dappled face;

He groans in anguish; while the growling pack,

Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest,

And mark his beauteous chequered sides with gore.

Of this enough. But, if the sylvan youth,

Whose fervent blood boils into violence,

Must have the chase, behold, despising flight,

The roused up lion, resolute and slow,

Advancing full on the pretended spear

And coward band that circling wheel aloof.

Slunk from the cavern and the troubled wood,

See the grim wolf; on him his shaggy foe

Vindictive fix, and let the ruffian die:

Or, growling horrid, as the brindled, boar

Grins fell destruction, to the monster's heart

Let the dart lighten from the nervous arm.

These Britain knows not; give, ye Britons, then

Your sportive fury pitiless to pour

Loose on the nightly robber of the fold.

Him, from his craggy winding haunts unearthed,

Let all the thunder of the chase pursue.

Throw the broad ditch behind you; o'er the hedge

High bound resistless; nor the deep morass

Refuse, but through the shaking wilderness

Pick your nice way; into the perilous flood

Bear fearless, of the raging instinct full;

And, as you ride the torrent, to the banks

Your triumph sound sonorous, running round

From rock to rock, in circling echo tost;

Then scale the mountains to their woody tops;

Rush down the dangerous steep; and o'er the lawn,

In fancy swallowing up the space between,

Pour all your speed into the rapid game.

For happy he who tops the wheeling chase;

Has every maze evolved, and every guile

Disclosed; who knows the merits of the pack;

Who saw the villain seized, and dying hard

Without complaint, though by an hundred mouths

Relentless torn: O glorious he beyond

His daring peers, when the retreating horn

Calls them to ghostly halls of grey renown,

With woodland honours graced – the fox's fur

Depending decent from the roof, and spread

Round the drear walls, with antic figures fierce,

The stag's large front: he then is loudest heard

When the night staggers with severer toils,

With feats Thessalian Centaurs never knew,

And their repeated wonders shake the dome

But first the fuelled chimney blazes wide;

The tankards foam; and the strong table groans

Beneath the smoking sirloin, stretched immense

From side to side, in which with desperate knife

They deep incision make, and talk the while

Of England's glory, ne'er to be defaced

While hence they borrow vigour; or, amain

Into the pasty plunged, at intervals,

If stomach keen can intervals allow,

Relating all the glories of the chase.

Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst

Produce the mighty bowl: the mighty bowl,

Swelled high with fiery juice, steams liberal round

A potent gale, delicious as the breath

Of Maia to the love-sick, shepherdess

On violets diffused, while soft she hears

Her panting shepherd stealing to her arms.

Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn

Mature and perfect from his dark retreat

Of thirty years; and now his honest front

Flames in the light refulgent, not afraid

Even with the vineyard's best produce to vie.

To cheat the thirsty moments, whist a while

Walks his grave round beneath a cloud of smoke,

Wreathed fragrant from the pipe; or the quick dice,

In thunder leaping from the box, awake

The sounding gammon; while romp-loving miss

Is hauled about in gallantry robust.

At last these puling idlenesses laid

Aside, frequent and full, the dry divan

Close in firm circle; and set ardent in

For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly

Nor sober shift is to the puking wretch

Indulged apart; but earnest brimming bowls

Lave every soul, the table floating round,

And pavement faithless to the fuddled foot.

Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,

Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,

Reels fast from theme to theme – from horses, hounds,

To church or mistress, politics or ghost –

In endless mazes, intricate, perplext.

Meantime, with sudden interruption, loud

The impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart.

That moment touched is each congenial soul;

And, opening in a full-mouthed cry of joy,

The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse goes round;

While, from their slumbers shook, the kennelled hounds

Mix in the music of the day again.

As when the tempest, that has vexed the deep

The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls;

So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,

Unable to take up the cumbrous word,

Lie quite dissolved. Before their maudlin eyes,

Seen dim and blue, the double tapers dance,

Like the sun wading through the misty sky.

Then, sliding soft, they drop. Confused above,

Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,

As if the table even itself was drunk,

Lie a wet broken scene: and wide, below,

Is heaped the social slaughter – where astride

The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits,

Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side,

And steeps them drenched in potent sleep till morn.

Perhaps some doctor of tremendous paunch,

Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,

Outlives them all; and, from his buried flock

Retiring, full of rumination sad,

Laments the weakness of these latter times.

But if the rougher sex by this fierce sport

Is hurried wild, let not such horrid joy

E'er stain the bosom of the British fair.

Far be the spirit of the chase from them!

Uncomely courage, unbeseeming skill,

To spring the fence, to reign the prancing steed,

The cap, the whip, the masculine attire

In which they roughen to the sense and all

The winning softness of their sex is lost.

In them 'tis graceful to dissolve at woe;

With every motion, every word, to wave

Quick o'er the kindling cheek the ready blush;

And from the smallest violence to shrink

Unequal, then the loveliest in their fears;

And, by this silent adulation soft,

To their protection more engaging man.

O may their eyes no miserable sight,

Save weeping lovers, see! a nobler game,

Through love's enchanting wiles pursued, yet fled,

In chase ambiguous. May their tender limbs

Float in the loose simplicity of dress!

And, fashioned all to harmony, alone

Know they to seize the captivated soul,

In rapture warbled from love-breathing lips;

To teach the lute to languish; with smooth step,

Disclosing motion in its every charm,

To swim along and swell the mazy dance;

To train the foliage o'er the snowy lawn;

To guide the pencil, turn the tuneful page;

To lend new flavour to the fruitful year,

And heighten nature's dainties; in their race

To rear their graces into second life;

To give society its highest taste;

Well-ordered home man's best delight to make;

And, by submissive wisdom, modest skill,

With every gentle care-eluding art,

To raise the virtues, animate the bliss,

Even charm the pains to something more than joy,

And sweeten all the toils of human life:

This be the female dignity and praise.

Ye swains, now hasten to the hazel-bank,

Where down yon dale the wildly-winding brook

Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close array,

Fit for the thickets and the tangling shrub,

Ye virgins, come. For you their latest song

The woodlands raise; the clustering nuts for you

The lover finds amid the secret shade;

And, where they burnish on the topmost bough,

With active vigour crushes down the tree;

Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk,

A glossy shower and of an ardent brown

As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair –

Melinda! form'd with every grace complete,

Yet these neglecting, above beauty wise,

And far transcending such a vulgar praise.

Hence from the busy joy-resounding fields,

In cheerful error let us tread the maze

Of Autumn unconfined; and taste, revived,

The breath of orchard big with bending fruit.

Obedient to the breeze and beating ray,

From the deep-loaded bough, a mellow shower

Incessant melts away. The juicy pear

Lies in a soft profusion scattered round.

A various sweetness swells the gentle race,

By Nature's all-refining hand prepared,

Of tempered sun, and water, earth, and air,

In ever-changing composition mixed.

Such, falling frequent through the chiller night,

The fragrant stores, the wide-projected heaps

Of apples, which the lusty-handed year

Innumerous o'er the blushing orchard shakes

A various spirit, fresh, delicious, keen,

Dwells in their gelid pores, and active points

The piercing cider for the thirsty tongue –

Thy native theme, and boon inspirer too,

Phillips, Pomona's bard! the second thou

Who nobly durst in rhyme-unfettered verse

With British freedom sing the British song –

How from Silurian vats high-sparkling wines

Foam in transparent floods, some strong to cheer

The wintry revels of the labouring hind,

And tasteful some to cool the summer hours.

In this glad season, while his sweetest beams

The Sun sheds equal o'er the meekened day,

Oh, lose me in the green delightful walks

Of, Dodington, thy seat, serene and plain;

Where simple Nature reigns; and every view

Diffusive spreads the pure Dorsetian downs

In boundless prospect – yonder shagged with wood,

Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks!

Meantime the grandeur of thy lofty dome

Far-splendid seizes on the ravished eye.

New beauties rise with each revolving day;

New columns swell; and still the fresh Spring finds

New plants to quicken, and new groves to green.

Full of thy genius all, the Muses' seat!

Where, in the secret bower and winding walk,

For virtuous Young and thee they twine the bay.

Here wandering oft, fired with the restless thirst

Of thy applause, I solitary court

The inspiring breeze, and meditate the book

Of Nature, ever open, aiming thence

Warm from the heart to learn the moral song.

And, as I steal along the sunny wall,

Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep,

My pleasing theme continual prompts my thought –

Presents the downy peach, the shining plum

With a fine bluish mist of animals

Clouded, the ruddy nectarine, and dark

Beneath his ample leaf the luscious fig.

The vine too here her curling tendrils shoots,

Hangs out her clusters glowing to the south,

And scarcely wishes for a warmer sky.

Turn we a moment fancy's rapid flight

To vigorous soils and climes of fair extent,

Where, by the potent sun elated high,

The vineyard swells refulgent on the day,

Spreads o'er the vale, or up the mountain climbs

Profuse, and drinks amid the sunny rocks,

From cliff to cliff increased, the heightened blaze.

Low bend the weighty boughs. The clusters clear,

Half through the foliage seen, or ardent flame

Or shine transparent; while perfection breathes

White o'er the turgent film the living dew.

As thus they brighten with exalted juice,

Touched into flavour by the mingling ray,

The rural youth and virgins o'er the field,

Each fond for each to cull the autumnal prime,

Exulting rove, and speak the vintage nigh.

Then comes the crushing swain; the country floats,

And foams unbounded with the mashy flood,

That, by degrees fermented, and refined,

Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy –

The claret smooth, red as the lip we press

In sparkling fancy while we drain the bowl,

The mellow-tasted burgundy, and, quick

As is the wit it gives, the gay champagne.

Now, by the cool declining year condensed,

Descend the copious exhalations, checked

As up the middle sky unseen they stole,

And roll the doubling fogs around the hill.

No more the mountain, horrid, vast, sublime,

Who pours a sweep of rivers from his sides,

And high between contending kingdoms rears

The rocky long division, fills the view

With great variety; but, in a night

Of gathering vapour, from the baffled sense

Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far,

The huge dusk gradual swallows up the plain:

Vanish the woods: the dim-seen river seems,

Sullen and slow, to roll the misty wave.

Even in the height of noon oppressed, the sun

Sheds, weak and blunt, his wide-refracted ray;

Whence glaring oft, with many a broadened orb,

He frights the nations. Indistinct on earth,

Seen through the turbid air, beyond the life

Objects appear, and, wildered, o'er the waste

The shepherd stalks gigantic; till at last,

Wreathed dun around, in deeper circles still

Successive closing, sits the general fog

Unbounded o'er the world, and, mingling thick,

A formless grey confusion covers all.

As when of old (so sung the Hebrew bard)

Light, uncollected, through the Chaos urged

Its infant way, nor order yet had drawn

His lovely train from out the dubious gloom.

These roving mists, that constant now begin

To smoke along the hilly country, these,

With weighty rains and melted Alpine snows.

The mountain-cisterns fill – those ample stores

Of water, scooped among the hollow rocks,

Whence gush the streams, the ceaseless fountains play,

And their unfailing wealth the rivers draw.

Some sages say, that, where the numerous wave

For ever lashes the resounding shore,

Drilled through the sandy stratum, every way,

The waters with the sandy stratum rise;

Amid whose angles infinitely strained,

They joyful leave their jaggy salts behind,

And clear and sweeten as they soak along.

Nor stops the restless fluid, mounting still,

Though oft amidst the irriguous vale it springs;

But, to the mountain courted by the sand,

That leads it darkling on in faithful maze,

Far from the parent main, it boils again

Fresh into day, and all the glittering hill

Is bright with spouting rills. But hence this vain

Amusive dream! why should the waters love

To take so far a journey to the hills,

When the sweet valleys offer to their toil

Inviting quiet and a nearer bed?

Or if, by blind ambition led astray,

They must aspire, why should they sudden stop

Among the broken mountain's rushy dells,

And, ere they gain its highest peak, desert

The attractive sand that charmed their course so long?

Besides, the hard agglomerating salts,

The spoil of ages, would impervious choke

Their secret channels, or by slow degrees,

High as the hills, protrude the swelling vales:

Old ocean too, sucked through the porous globe,

Had long ere now forsook his horrid bed,

And brought Deucalion's watery times again.

Say, then, where lurk the vast eternal springs

That, like creating Nature, lie concealed

From mortal eye, yet with their lavish stores

Refresh the globe and all its joyous tribes?

O thou pervading genius, given to man

To trace the secrets of the dark abyss!

Oh! lay the mountains bare, and wide display

Their hidden structure to the astonished view;

Strip from the branching Alps their piny load,

The huge incumbrance of horrific woods

From Asian Taurus, from Imaus stretched

Athwart the roving Tartar's sullen bounds;

Give opening Hemus to my searching eye,

And high Olympus pouring many a stream!18

Oh, from the sounding summits of the north,

The Dofrine Hills, through Scandinavia rolled

To farthest Lapland and the frozen main;

From lofty Caucasus, far seen by those

Who in the Caspian and black Euxine toil;

From cold Riphaean rocks, which the wild Russ

Believes the stony girdle of the world;19

And all the dreadful mountains wrapt in storm

Whence wide Siberia draws her lonely floods;

Oh, sweep the eternal snows! Hung o'er the deep,

That ever works beneath his sounding base,

Bid Atlas, propping heaven, as poets feign,

His subterranean wonders spread! Unveil

The miny caverns, blazing on the day,

Of Abyssinia's cloud-compelling cliffs,

And of the bending Mountains of the Moon!20

O'ertopping all these giant-sons of earth,

Let the dire Andes, from the radiant Line

Stretched to the stormy seas that thunder round

The Southern Pole, their hideous deeps unfold!

Amazing scene! Behold! the glooms disclose!

I see the rivers in their infant beds!

Deep, deep I hear them labouring to get free!

I see the leaning strata, artful ranged;

The gaping fissures, to receive the rains,

The melting snows, and ever-dripping fogs.

Strowed bibulous above I see the sands,

The pebbly gravel next, the layers then

Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths,

The guttured rocks and mazy-running clefts,

That, while the stealing moisture they transmit,

Retard its motion, and forbid its waste.

Beneath the incessant weeping of these drains,

I see the rocky siphons stretched immense,

The mighty reservoirs, of hardened chalk

Or stiff compacted clay capacious formed:

O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores,

The crystal treasures of the liquid world,

Through the stirred sands a bubbling passage burst,

And, welling out around the middle steep

Or from the bottoms of the bosomed hills

In pure effusion flow. United thus,

The exhaling sun, the vapour-burdened air,

The gelid mountains, that to rain condensed

These vapours in continual current draw,

And send them o'er the fair-divided earth

In bounteous rivers to the deep again,

A social commerce hold, and firm support

The full-adjusted harmony of things.

When Autumn scatters his departing gleams,

Warned of approaching Winter, gathered, play

The swallow-people; and, tossed wide around,

O'er the calm sky in convolution swift

The feathered eddy floats, rejoicing once

Ere to their wintry slumbers they retire,

In clusters clung beneath the mouldering bank,

And where, unpierced by frost, the cavern sweats;

Or rather, into warmer climes conveyed,

With other kindred birds of season, there

They twitter cheerful, till the vernal months

Invite them welcome back – for thronging now

Innumerous wings are in commotion all.

Where the Rhine loses his majestic force

In Belgian plains, won from the raging deep

By diligence amazing and the strong

Unconquerable hand of liberty,

The stork-assembly meets, for many a day

Consulting deep and various ere they take

Their arduous voyage through the liquid sky.

And now, their route designed, their leaders chose,

Their tribes adjusted, cleaned their vigorous wings,

And many a circle, many a short essay,

Wheeled round and round, in congregation full

The figured flight ascends, and, riding high

The aerial billows, mixes with the clouds.

Or, where the Northern Ocean in vast whirls

Boils round the naked melancholy isles

Of farthest Thule, and the Atlantic surge

Pours in among the stormy Hebrides,

Who can recount what transmigrations there

Are annual made? what nations come and go?

And how the living clouds on clouds arise,

Infinite wings! till all the plume-dark air

And rude resounding shore are one wild cry?

Here the plain harmless native his small flock

And herd diminutive of many hues

Tends on the little island's verdant swell,

The shepherd's sea-girt reign; or, to the rocks

Dire-clinging, gathers his ovarious food;

Or sweeps the fishy shore; or treasures up

The plumage, rising full, to form the bed

Of luxury. And here a while the muse,

High hovering o'er the broad cerulean scene,

Sees Caledonia in romantic view –

Her airy mountains from the waving main

Invested with a keen diffusive sky,

Breathing the soul acute; her forests huge,

Incult, robust, and tall, by Nature's hand

Planted of old; her azure lakes between,

Poured out extensive, and of watery wealth

Full; winding deep and green, her fertile vales,

With many a cool translucent brimming flood

Washed lovely, from the Tweed (pure parent-stream,

Whose pastoral banks first heard my Doric reed,

With, silvan Jed, thy tributary brook)

To where the north-inflated tempest foams

O'er Orca's or Betubium's highest peak –

Nurse of a people, in misfortune's school

Trained up to hardy deeds, soon visited

By Learning, when before the Gothic rage

She took her western flight; a manly race

Of unsubmitting spirit, wise, and brave,

Who still through bleeding ages struggled hard

(As well unhappy Wallace can attest,

Great patriot-hero! ill requited chief!)

To hold a generous undiminished state,

Too much in vain! Hence, of unequal bounds

Impatient, and by tempting glory borne

O'er every land, for every land their life

Has flowed profuse, their piercing genius planned,

And swelled the pomp of peace their faithful toil:

As from their own clear north in radiant streams

Bright over Europe bursts the boreal morn.

Oh! is there not some patriot in whose power

That best, that godlike luxury is placed,

Of blessing thousands, thousands yet unborn,

Through late posterity? some, large of soul,

To cheer dejected Industry, to give

A double harvest to the pining swain,

And teach the labouring hand the sweets of toil?

How, by the finest art, the native robe

To weave; how, white as Hyperborean snow,

To form the lucid lawn; with venturous oar

How to dash wide the billow; nor look on,

Shamefully passive, while Batavian fleets

Defraud us of the glittering finny swarms

That heave our friths and crowd upon our shores;

How all-enlivening trade to rouse, and wing

The prosperous sail from every growing port,

Uninjured, round the sea-encircled globe;

And thus, in soul united as in name,

Bid Britain reign the mistress of the deep?

Yes, there are such. And full on thee, Argyle,

Her hope, her stay, her darling, and her boast,

From her first patriots and her heroes sprung,

Thy fond imploring Country turns her eye;

In thee, with all a mother's triumph, sees

Her every virtue, every grace combined,

Her genius, wisdom, her engaging turn,

Her pride of honour, and her courage tried,

Calm and intrepid, in the very throat

Of sulphurous war, on Tenier's dreadful field.

Nor less the palm of peace enwreathes thy brow:

For, powerful as thy sword, from thy rich tongue

Persuasion flows, and wins the high debate;

While mixed in thee combine the charm of youth,

The force of manhood, and the depth of age.

Thee, Forbes, too, whom every worth attends,

As truth sincere, as weeping friendship kind,

Thee, truly generous, and in silence great,

Thy country feels through her reviving arts,

Planned by thy wisdom, by thy soul informed;

And seldom has she felt a friend like thee.

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-strown 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 wisdom 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 naught save chattering discord in their note.

Oh, let not, aimed from some inhuman 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 wither'd waste, and whistle bleak.

Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields;

And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race

Their sunny robes resign.