The Seasons Read Online

Even what remained

Of bolder fruits falls from the naked tree;

And – woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around –

The desolated prospect thrills the soul.

He comes! he comes! in every breeze the Power

Of Philosophic Melancholy comes!

His near approach the sudden-starting tear,

The glowing cheek, the mild dejected air,

The softened feature, and the beating heart,

Pierced deep with many a virtuous pang, declare.

O'er all the soul his sacred influence breathes;

Inflames imagination; through the breast

Infuses every tenderness; and far

Beyond dim earth exalts the swelling thought.

Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such

As never mingled with the vulgar dream,

Crowd fast into the mind's creative eye.

As fast the correspondent passions rise,

As varied, and as high – devotion raised

To rapture, and divine astonishment;

The love of nature unconfined, and, chief,

Of human race; the large ambitious wish

To make them blest; the sigh for suffering worth

Lost in obscurity; the noble scorn

Of tyrant pride; the fearless great resolve;

The wonder which the dying patriot draws,

Inspiring glory through remotest time;

The awakened throb for virtue and for fame;

The sympathies of love and friendship dear,

With all the social offspring of the heart.

Oh! bear me then to vast embowering shades,

To twilight groves, and visionary vales,

To weeping grottoes, and prophetic glooms;

Where angel forms athwart the solemn dusk,

Tremendous, sweep, or seem to sweep along;

And voices more than human, through the void

Deep-sounding, seize the enthusiastic ear.

Or is this gloom too much? Then lead, ye Powers

That o'er the garden and the rural seat

Preside, which, shining through the cheerful land

In countless numbers, blest Britannia sees –

Oh! lead me to the wide extended walks,

The fair majestic paradise of Stowe!

Not Persian Cyrus on Ionia's shore

E'er saw such sylvan scenes, such various art

By genius fired, such ardent genius tamed

By cool judicious art, that in the strife

All-beauteous Nature fears to be outdone.

And there, O Pitt! thy country's early boast,

There let me sit beneath the sheltered slopes,

Or in that Temple where, in future times,21

Thou well shalt merit a distinguished name,

And, with thy converse blest, catch the last smiles

Of Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods.

While there with thee the enchanted round I walk,

The regulated wild, gay fancy then

Will tread in thought the groves of Attic land;

Will from thy standard taste refine her own,

Correct her pencil to the purest truth

Of nature, or, the unimpassioned shades

Forsaking, raise it to the human mind.

Oh, if hereafter she with juster hand

Shall draw the tragic scene, instruct her thou

To mark the varied movements of the heart,

What every decent character requires,

And every passion speaks! Oh, through her strain

Breathe thy pathetic eloquence, that moulds

The attentive senate, charms, persuades, exalts,

Of honest zeal the indignant lightning throws,

And shakes Corruption on her venal throne!

While thus we talk, and through Elysian vales

Delighted rove, perhaps a sigh escapes –

What pity, Cobham! thou thy verdant files

Of ordered trees shouldst here inglorious range,

Instead of squadrons flaming o'er the field,

And long-embattled hosts! when the proud foe,

The faithless vain disturber of mankind,

Insulting Gaul, has roused the world to war;

When keen, once more, within their bounds to press

Those polished robbers, those ambitious slaves,

The British youth would hail thy wise command,

Thy tempered ardour and thy veteran skill.

The western sun withdraws the shortened day;

And humid evening, gliding o'er the sky

In her chill progress, to the ground condensed

The vapours 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,

Shows 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.

But when, half blotted from the sky, her light,

Fainting, permits the starry fires to burn

With keener lustre through the depth of heaven;

Or quite extinct her deadened orb appears,

And scarce appears, of sickly beamless white;

Oft in this season, silent from the north

A blaze of meteors shoots – ensweeping first

The lower skies, they all at once converge

High to the crown of heaven, and, all at once

Relapsing quick, as quickly re-ascend,

And mix and thwart, extinguish and renew,

All ether coursing in a maze of light.

From look to look, contagious through the crowd,

The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes

The appearance throws – armies in meet array,

Thronged with aerial spears and steeds of fire;

Till, the long lines of full-extended war

In bleeding fight commixed, the sanguine flood

Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of heaven.

As thus they scan the visionary scene,

On all sides swells the superstitious din,

Incontinent; and busy frenzy talks

Of blood and battle; cities overturned,

And late at night in swallowing earthquake sunk,

Or hideous wrapt in fierce ascending flame;

Of sallow famine, inundation, storm;

Of pestilence, and every great distress;

Empires subversed, when ruling fate has struck

The unalterable hour: even nature's self

Is deemed to totter on the brink of time.

Not so the man of philosophic eye

And inspect sage: the waving brightness he

Curious surveys, inquisitive to know

The causes and materials, yet unfixed,

Of this appearance beautiful and new.

Now black and deep the night begins to fall,

A shade immense! Sunk in the quenching gloom,

Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.

Order confounded lies, all beauty void,

Distinction lost, and gay variety

One universal blot – such the fair power

Of light to kindle and create the whole.

Drear is the state of the benighted wretch

Who then bewildered wanders through the dark

Full of pale fancies and chimeras huge;

Nor visited by one directive ray

From cottage streaming or from airy hall.

Perhaps, impatient as he stumbles on,

Struck from the root of slimy rushes, blue

The wild-fire scatters round, or, gathered, trails

A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss;

Whither decoyed by the fantastic blaze,

Now lost and now renewed, he sinks absorbed,

Rider and horse, amid the miry gulf –

While still, from day to day, his pining wife

And plaintive children his return await,

In wild conjecture lost. At other times,

Sent by the better genius of the night,

Innoxious, gleaming on the horse's mane,

The meteor sits, and shows the narrow path

That winding leads through pits of death, or else

Instructs him how to take the dangerous ford.

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.

Ah, see where, robbed and murdered, in that pit

Lies the still-heaving hive! at evening snatched,

Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night,

And fixed o'er sulphur – while, not dreaming ill,

The happy people in their waxen cells

Sat tending public cares and planning schemes

Of temperance for Winter poor; rejoiced

To mark, full-flowing round, their copious stores.

Sudden the dark oppressive steam ascends;

And, used to milder scents, the tender race

By thousands tumbles from their honeyed domes,

Convolved and agonizing in the dust.

And was it then for this you roamed the spring,

Intent from flower to flower? for this you toiled

Ceaseless the burning summer-heats away?

For this in Autumn searched the blooming waste,

Nor lost one sunny gleam? for this sad fate?

O man! tyrannic lord! how long, how long

Shall prostrate nature groan beneath your rage,

Awaiting renovation? When obliged,

Must you destroy? Of their ambrosial food

Can you not borrow, and in just return

Afford them shelter from the wintry winds?

Or, as the sharp year pinches, with their own

Again regale them on some smiling day?

See where the stony bottom of their town

Looks desolate and wild, – with here and there

A helpless number, who the ruined state

Survive, lamenting weak, cast out to death!

Thus a proud city, populous and rich.

Full of the works of peace, and high in joy,

At theatre or feast, or sunk in sleep

(As late, Palermo, was thy fate) is seized

By some dread earthquake, and convulsive hurled

Sheer from the black foundation, stench-involved,

Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame.

Hence every harsher sight! for now the day,

O'er heaven and earth diffused, grows warm and high;

Infinite splendour! wide-investing all.

How still the breeze! save what the filmy threads

Of dew evaporate brushes from the plain.

How clear the cloudless sky! how deeply tinged

With a peculiar blue! the ethereal arch

How swelled immense! amid whose azure throned,

The radiant sun how gay! how calm below

The gilded earth! the harvest-treasures all

Now, gathered in, beyond the rage of storms,

Sure to the swain; the circling fence shut up;

And instant Winter's utmost rage defied –

While, loose to festive joy, the country round

Laughs with the loud sincerity of mirth,

Shook to the wind their cares. The toil-strung youth,

By the quick sense of music taught alone,

Leaps wildly graceful in the lively dance.

Her every charm abroad, the village-toast,

Young, buxom, warm, in native beauty rich,

Darts not-unmeaning looks; and, where her eye

Points an approving smile, with double force

The cudgel rattles, and the wrestler twines.

Age too shines out; and, garrulous, recounts

The feats of youth. Thus they rejoice; nor think

That with to-morrow's sun their annual toil

Begins again the never-ceasing round.

Oh! knew he but his happiness, of men

The happiest he! who far from public rage

Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired,

Drinks the pure pleasures of the rural life.

What though the dome be wanting, whose proud gate

Each morning vomits out the sneaking crowd

Of flatterers false, and in their turn abused?

Vile intercourse! What though the glittering robe,

Of every hue reflected light can give,

Or floating loose or stiff with massy gold,

The pride and gaze of fools, oppress him not?

What though, from utmost land and sea purveyed,

For him each rarer tributary life

Bleeds not, and his insatiate table heaps

With luxury and death? What though his bowl

Flames not with costly juice; nor, sunk in beds

Oft of gay care, he tosses out the night,

Or melts the thoughtless hours in idle state?

What though he knows not those fantastic joys

That still amuse the wanton, still deceive;

A face of pleasure, but a heart of pain;

Their hollow moments undelighted all?

Sure peace is his; a solid life, estranged

To disappointment and fallacious hope –

Rich in content, in Nature's bounty rich,

In herbs and fruits; whatever greens the spring

When heaven descends in showers, or bends the bough

When summer reddens and when autumn beams,

Or in the wintry glebe whatever lies

Concealed and fattens with the richest sap:

These are not wanting; nor the milky drove,

Luxuriant spread o'er all the lowing vale;

Nor bleating mountains; nor the chide of streams

And hum of bees, inviting sleep sincere

Into the guiltless breast beneath the shade,

Or thrown at large amid the fragrant hay;

Nor aught besides of prospect, grove, or song,

Dim grottoes, gleaming lakes, and fountain clear.

Here too dwells simple truth, plain innocence,

Unsullied beauty, sound unbroken youth

Patient of labour – with a little pleased,

Health ever-blooming, unambitious toil,

Calm contemplation, and poetic ease.

Let others brave the flood in quest of gain,

And beat for joyless months the gloomy wave.

Let such as deem it glory to destroy

Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek –

Unpierced, exulting in the widow's wail,

The virgin's shriek, and infant's trembling cry.

Let some, far distant from their native soil,

Urged or by want or hardened avarice,

Find other lands beneath another sun.

Let this through cities work his eager way

By legal outrage and established guile,

The social sense extinct; and that ferment

Mad into tumult the seditious herd,

Or melt them down to slavery. Let these

Ensnare the wretched in the toils of law,

Fomenting discord, and perplexing right,

An iron race! and those of fairer front,

But equal inhumanity, in courts,

Delusive pomp, and dark cabals delight;

Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying smile,

And tread the weary labyrinth of state.

While he, from all the stormy passions free

That restless men involve, hears, and but hears,

At distance safe, the human tempest roar,

Wrapped close in conscious peace. The fall of kings,

The rage of nations, and the crush of states

Move not the man who, from the world escaped,

In still retreats and flowery solitudes

To Nature's voice attends from month to month,

And day to day, through the revolving year –

Admiring, sees her in her every shape;

Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart;

Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more.

He, when young Spring protrudes the bursting gems,

Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale

Into his freshened soul; her genial hours

He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows

And not an opening blossom breathes in vain.

In Summer he, beneath the living shade,

Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave,

Or Haemus cool, reads what the muse, of these

Perhaps, has in immortal numbers sung;

Or what she dictates writes; and oft an eye

Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.

When Autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world

And tempts the sickled swain into the field,

Seized by the general joy his heart distends,

With gentle throes; and, through the tepid gleams

Deep musing, then he best exerts his song.

Even Winter wild to him is full of bliss.

The mighty tempest, and the hoary waste

Abrupt and deep, stretched o'er the buried earth,

Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies,

Disclosed and kindled by refining frost,

Pour every lustre on the exalted eye.

A friend, a book the stealing hours secure,

And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing,

O'er land and sea imagination roams;

Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,

Elates his being, and unfolds his powers;

Or in his breast heroic virtue burns.

The touch of kindred, too, and love he feels –

The modest eye whose beams on his alone

Ecstatic shine, the little strong embrace

Of prattling children, twined around his neck,

And emulous to please him, calling forth

The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay,

Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns:

For happiness and true philosophy

Are of the social still and smiling kind.

This is the life which those who fret in guilt

And guilty cities never knew – the life

Led by primeval ages uncorrupt

When angels dwelt, and God himself, with man!

O Nature! all-sufficient! over all

Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works;

Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders there,

World beyond world, in infinite extent

Profusely scattered o'er the blue immense,

Show me; their motions, periods, and their laws

Give me to scan; through the disclosing deep

Light my blind way: the mineral strata there;

Thrust blooming thence the vegetable world;

O'er that the rising system, more complex,

Of animals; and, higher still, the mind,

The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,

And where the mixing passions endless shift;

These ever open to my ravished eye –

A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!

But, if to that unequal – if the blood

In sluggish streams about my heart forbid

That best ambition – under closing shades

Inglorious lay me by the lowly brook,

And whisper to my dreams. From thee begin,

Dwell all on thee, with thee conclude my song;

And let me never, never stray from thee!

Winter

The Argument

The subject proposed. Address to the Earl of Wilmington. First approach of Winter. According to the natural course of the season, various storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the snows: a man perishing among them; whence reflections on the wants and miseries of human life. The wolves descending from the Alps and Apennines. A winter evening described: as spent by philosophers; by the country people; in the city. Frost. A view of Winter within the polar circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral reflections on a future state.

See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,

Sullen and sad, with all his rising train –

Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme;

These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought

And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!

Cogenial horrors, hail! With frequent foot,

Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life,

When nursed by careless solitude I lived

And sung of Nature with unceasing joy,

Pleased have I wandered through your rough domain;

Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure;

Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;

Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brewed

In the grim evening-sky. Thus passed the time,

Till through the lucid chambers of the south

Looked out the joyous Spring – looked out and smiled.

To thee, the patron of this first essay,

The Muse, O Wilmington! renews her song.

Since has she rounded the revolving year:

Skimm'd the gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne,

Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rise;

Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale.

And now among the Wintry clouds again,

Rolled in the doubling storm, she tries to soar,

To swell her note with all the rushing winds,

To suit her sounding cadence to the floods;

As is her theme, her numbers wildly great.

Thrice happy, could she fill thy judging ear

With bold description and with manly thought!

Nor art thou skilled in awful schemes alone,

And how to make a mighty people thrive;

But equal goodness, sound integrity,

A firm, unshaken, uncorrupted soul

Amid a sliding age, and burning strong,

Not vainly blazing, for thy country's weal,

A steady spirit, regularly free –

These, each exalting each, the statesman light

Into the patriot; these, the public hope

And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse

Record what envy dares not flattery call.

Now, when the cheerless empire of the sky

To Capricorn the Centaur-Archer yields,

And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year –

Hung o'er the farthest verge of heaven, the sun

Scarce spreads o'er ether the dejected day.

Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot

His struggling rays in horizontal lines

Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,

Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;

And, soon descending, to the long dark night,

Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.

Nor is the night unwished; while vital heat,

Light, life, and joy the dubious day forsake.

Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast,

Deep-tinged and damp, and congregated clouds,

And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven

Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls,

A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,

Through Nature shedding influence malign,

And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.

The soul of man dies in him, loathing life,

And black with more than melancholy views.

The cattle droop; and o'er the furrowed land,

Fresh from the plough, the dun discoloured flocks,

Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.

Along the woods, along the moorish fens,

Sighs the sad genius of the coming storm;

And up among the loose disjointed cliffs

And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook

And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan,

Resounding long in listening fancy's ear.

Then comes the father of the tempest forth,

Wrapt in black glooms. First, joyless rains obscure

Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul,

Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods

That grumbling wave below.