The Seasons Read Online

A faint deceitful calm,

A fluttering gale, the demon sends before

To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once

Precipitant descends a mingled mass

Of roaring winds and flame and rushing floods.

In wild amazement fixed the sailor stands.

Art is too slow. By rapid fate oppressed,

His broad-winged vessel drinks the whelming tide,

Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.

With such mad seas the daring Gama9 fought,

For many a day and many a dreadful night

Incessant labouring round the stormy Cape, –

By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst

Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerged

The rising world of trade: the genius then

Of navigation, that in hopeless sloth

Had slumbered on the vast Atlantic deep

For idle ages, starting, heard at last

The Lusitanian Prince,10 who, heaven-inspired,

To love of useful glory roused mankind,

And in unbounded commerce mixed the world.

Increasing still the terrors of these storms,

His jaws horrific armed with threefold fate,

Here dwells the direful shark. Lured by the scent

Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,

Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,

Swift as the gale can bear the ship along;

And from the partners of that cruel trade

Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons

Demands his share of prey – demands themselves.

The stormy fates descend: one death involves

Tyrants and slaves; when straight, their mangled limbs

Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas

With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.

When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains

Flooded immense, looks out the joyless sun,

And draws the copious steam from swampy fens,

Where putrefaction into life ferments

And breathes destructive myriads, or from woods,

Impenetrable shades, recesses foul,

In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,

Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot

Has ever dared to pierce; then wasteful forth

Walks the dire power of pestilent disease.

A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,

Sick nature blasting, and to heartless woe

And feeble desolation, casting down

The towering hopes and all the pride of man:

Such as of late at Carthagena quenched

The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw

The miserable scene; you, pitying, saw

To infant-weakness sunk the warrior's arm;

Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form,

The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye

No more with ardour bright; you heard the groans

Of agonizing ships from shore to shore,

Heard, nightly plunged amid the sullen waves,

The frequent corse, while, on each other fixed

In sad presage, the blank assistants seemed

Silent to ask whom fate would next demand.

What need I mention those inclement skies

Where frequent o'er the sickening city, plague,

The fiercest child of Nemesis divine,

Descends? From Ethiopia's poisoned woods,11

From stifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields

With locust armies putrefying heaped,

This great destroyer sprung. Her awful rage

The brutes escape: Man is her destined prey,

Intemperate man! and o'er his guilty domes

She draws a close incumbent cloud of death;

Uninterrupted by the living winds,

Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze; and stained

With many a mixture by the Sun suffused

Of angry aspect. Princely wisdom then

Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand

Of feeble justice ineffectual drop

The sword and balance; mute the voice of joy,

And hushed the clamour of the busy world.

Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad;

Into the worst of deserts sudden turned

The cheerful haunt of men – unless, escaped

From the doomed house, where matchless horror reigns,

Shut up by barbarous fear, the smitten wretch

With frenzy wild breaks loose, and, loud to Heaven

Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns,

Inhuman and unwise. The sullen door,

Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge

Fearing to turn, abhors society:

Dependents, friends, relations, Love himself,

Savaged by woe, forget the tender tie,

The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.

But vain their selfish care: the circling sky,

The wide enlivening air is full of fate;

And, struck by turns, in solitary pangs

They fall, unblest, untended, and unmourned.

Thus o'er the prostrate city black despair

Extends her raven wing; while, to complete

The scene of desolation stretched around,

The grim guards stand, denying all retreat,

And give the flying wretch a better death.

Much yet remains unsung: the rage intense

Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields,

Where drought and famine starve the blasted year;

Fired by the torch of noon to tenfold rage,

The infuriate hill that shoots the pillared flame;

And, roused within the subterranean world,

The expanding earthquake, that resistless shakes

Aspiring cities from their solid base,

And buries mountains in the flaming gulf.

But 'tis enough; return, my vagrant muse;

A nearer scene of horror calls thee home.

Behold, slow-settling o'er the lurid grove

Unusual darkness broods, and, growing, gains

The full possession of the sky, surcharged

With wrathful vapour, from the secret beds

Where sleep the mineral generations drawn.

Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume

Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day,

With various-tinctured trains of latent flame,

Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud,

A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate,

Ferment; till, by the touch ethereal roused,

The dash of clouds, or irritating war

Of fighting winds, while all is calm below,

They furious spring. A boding silence reigns

Dread through the dun expanse – save the dull sound

That from the mountain, previous to the storm,

Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,

And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath

Prone to the lowest vale the aerial tribes

Descend: the tempest-loving raven scarce

Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze

The cattle stand, and on the scowling heavens

Cast a deploring eye – by man forsook,

Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,

Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave,

'Tis listening fear and dumb amazement all:

When to the startled eye the sudden glance

Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud,

And, following slower, in explosion vast

The thunder raises his tremendous voice.

At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven,

The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,

And rolls its awful burden on the wind,

The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more

The noise astounds, till overhead a sheet

Of livid flame discloses wide, then shuts

And opens wider, shuts and opens still

Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.

Follows the loosened aggravated roar,

Enlarging, deepening, mingling, peal on peal

Crushed horrible, convulsing heaven and earth.

Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail,

Or prone-descending rain. Wide-rent, the clouds

Pour a whole flood; and yet, its flame unquenched,

The unconquerable lightning struggles through,

Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls,

And fires the mountains with redoubled rage.

Black from the stroke, above, the smouldering pine

Stands a sad shattered trunk; and, stretched below,

A lifeless group the blasted cattle lie:

Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look

They wore alive, and ruminating still

In fancy's eye; and there the frowning bull,

And ox half-raised. Struck on the castled cliff,

The venerable tower and spiry fane

Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods

Start at the flash, and from their deep recess

Wide-flaming out, their trembling inmates shake.

Amid Carnarvon's mountains rages loud

The repercussive roar: with mighty crush,

Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks

Of Penmanmaur heaped hideous to the sky,

Tumble the smitten cliffs; and Snowdon's peak,

Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load.

Far seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze,

And Thulè bellows through her utmost isles.

Guilt hears appalled, with deeply troubled thought;

And yet not always on the guilty head

Descends the fated flash. Young Celadon

And his Amelia were a matchless pair,

With equal virtue formed and equal grace

The same, distinguished by their sex alone:

Hers the mild lustre of the blooming morn,

And his the radiance of the risen day.

They loved: but such their guileless passion was

As in the dawn of time informed the heart

Of innocence and undissembling truth.

'Twas friendship heightened by the mutual wish,

The enchanting hope and sympathetic glow

Beamed from the mutual eye. Devoting all

To love, each was to each a dearer self,

Supremely happy in the awakened power

Of giving joy. Alone amid the shades,

Still in harmonious intercourse they lived

The rural day, and talked the flowing heart,

Or sighed and looked unutterable things.

So passed their life, a clear united stream,

By care unruffled; till, in evil hour,

The tempest caught them on the tender walk,

Heedless how far and where its mazes strayed,

While with each other blest, creative Love

Still bade eternal Eden smile around.

Heavy with instant fate, her bosom heaved

Unwonted sighs, and, stealing oft a look

Of the big gloom, on Celadon her eye

Fell tearful, wetting her disordered cheek.

In vain assuring love and confidence

In Heaven repressed her fear; it grew, and shook

Her frame near dissolution. He perceived

The unequal conflict, and, as angels look

On dying saints, his eyes compassion shed,

With love illumined high. »Fear not,« he said,

»Sweet innocence! thou stranger to offence

And inward storm! he, who yon skies involves

In frowns of darkness, ever smiles on thee

With kind regard. O'er thee the secret shaft

That wastes at midnight, or the undreaded hour

Of noon, flies harmless: and that very voice,

Which thunders terror through the guilty heart,

With tongues of seraphs whispers peace to thine.

'Tis safety to be near thee sure, and thus

To clasp perfection!« From his void embrace,

Mysterious Heaven! that moment to the ground,

A blackened corse, was struck the beauteous maid.

But who can paint the lover, as he stood

Pierced by severe amazement, hating life,

Speechless, and fixed in all the death of woe?

So, faint resemblance! on the marble tomb

The well-dissembled mourner stooping stands,

For ever silent and for ever sad.

As from the face of Heaven the shattered clouds

Tumultuous rove, the interminable sky

Sublimer swells, and o'er the world expands

A purer azure. Nature from the storm

Shines out afresh; and through the lightened air

A higher lustre and a clearer calm

Diffusive tremble; while, as if in sign

Of danger past, a glittering robe of joy,

Set off abundant by the yellow ray,

Invests the fields, yet dropping from distress.

'Tis beauty all, and grateful song around,

Joined to the low of kine, and numerous bleat

Of flocks thick-nibbling through the clovered vale.

And shall the hymn be marred by thankless man,

Most-favoured, who with voice articulate

Should lead the chorus of this lower world?

Shall he, so soon forgetful of the hand

That hushed the thunder, and serenes the sky,

Extinguished feel that spark the tempest waked,

That sense of powers exceeding far his own,

Ere yet his feeble heart has lost its fears?

Cheered by the milder beam, the sprightly youth

Speeds to the well-known pool, whose crystal depth

A sandy bottom shows. Awhile he stands

Gazing the inverted landscape, half afraid

To meditate the blue profound below;

Then plunges headlong down the circling flood.

His ebon tresses and his rosy cheek

Instant emerge; and through the obedient wave,

At each short breathing by his lip repelled,

With arms and legs according well, he makes,

As humour leads, an easy-winding path;

While from his polished sides a dewy light

Effuses on the pleased spectators round.

This is the purest exercise of health,

The kind refresher of the summer heats;

Nor, when cold winter keens the brightening flood,

Would I weak-shivering linger on the brink.

Thus life redoubles, and is oft preserved

By the bold swimmer, in the swift illapse

Of accident disastrous. Hence the limbs

Knit into force; and the same Roman arm

That rose victorious o'er the conquered earth

First learned, while tender, to subdue the wave.

Even from the body's purity the mind

Receives a secret sympathetic aid.

Close in the covert of an hazel copse,

Where, winded into pleasing solitudes,

Runs out the rambling dale, young Damon sat

Pensive, and pierced with love's delightful pangs.

There to the stream that down the distant rocks

Hoarse-murmuring fell, and plaintive breeze that played

Among the bending willows, falsely he

Of Musidora's cruelty complained.

She felt his flame; but deep within her breast,

In bashful coyness or in maiden pride,

The soft return concealed; save when it stole

In side-long glances from her downcast eye,

Or from her swelling soul in stifled sighs.

Touched by the scene, no stranger to his vows,

He framed a melting lay to try her heart;

And, if an infant passion struggled there,

To call that passion forth. Thrice happy swain!

A lucky chance, that oft decides the fate

Of mighty monarchs, then decided thine!

For, lo! conducted by the laughing Loves,

This cool retreat his Musidora sought:

Warm in her cheek the sultry season glowed;

And, robed in loose array, she came to bathe

Her fervent limbs in the refreshing stream.

What shall he do? In sweet confusion lost,

And dubious flutterings, he a while remained.

A pure ingenuous elegance of soul,

A delicate refinement, known to few,

Perplexed his breast and urged him to retire:

But love forbade. Ye prudes in virtue, say,

Say, ye severest, what would you have done?

Meantime, this fairer nymph than ever blest

Arcadian stream, with timid eye around

The banks surveying, stripped her beauteous limbs

To taste the lucid coolness of the flood.

Ah! then, not Paris on the piny top

Of Ida panted stronger, when aside

The rival goddesses the veil divine

Cast unconfined, and gave him all their charms,

Than, Damon, thou; as from the snowy leg

And slender foot the inverted silk she drew;

As the soft touch dissolved the virgin zone;

And, through the parting robe, the alternate breast,

With youth wild-throbbing, on thy lawless gaze

In full luxuriance rose. But, desperate youth,

How durst thou risk the soul-distracting view

As from her naked limbs of glowing white,

Harmonious swelled by nature's finest hand,

In folds loose-floating fell the fainter lawn,

And fair exposed she stood, shrunk from herself,

With fancy blushing, at the doubtful breeze

Alarmed, and starting like the fearful fawn?

Then to the flood she rushed: the parted flood

Its lovely guest with closing waves received;

And every beauty softening, every grace

Flushing anew, a mellow lustre shed –

As shines the lily through the crystal mild,

Or as the rose amid the morning dew,

Fresh from Aurora's hand, more sweetly glows.

While thus she wantoned, now beneath the wave

But ill-concealed, and now with streaming locks,

That half-embraced her in a humid veil,

Rising again, the latent Damon drew

Such maddening draughts of beauty to the soul

As for a while o'erwhelmed his raptured thought

With luxury too daring. Checked, at last,

By love's respectful modesty, he deemed

The theft profane, if aught profane to love

Can e'er be deemed, and, struggling from the shade,

With headlong hurry fled: but first these lines,

Traced by his ready pencil, on the bank

With trembling hand he threw – »Bathe on, my fair,

Yet unbeheld save by the sacred eye

Of faithful love: I go to guard thy haunt;

To keep from thy recess each vagrant foot

And each licentious eye.« With wild surprise,

As if to marble struck, devoid of sense,

A stupid moment motionless she stood:

So stands the statue that enchants the world;12

So, bending, tries to veil the matchless boast,

The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.

Recovering, swift she flew to find those robes

Which blissful Eden knew not; and, arrayed

In careless haste, the alarming paper snatched.

But, when her Damon's well-known hand she saw,

Her terrors vanished, and a softer train

Or mixed emotions, hard to be described,

Her sudden bosom seized: shame void of guilt,

The charming blush of innocence, esteem

And admiration of her lover's flame,

By modesty exalted, even a sense

Of self-approving beauty stole across

Her busy thought. At length, a tender calm

Hushed by degrees the tumult of her soul;

And on the spreading beech, that o'er the stream

Incumbent hung, she with the sylvan pen

Of rural lovers this confession carved,

Which soon her Damon kissed with weeping joy:

»Dear youth! sole judge of what these verses mean,

By fortune too much favoured, but by love,

Alas! not favoured less, be still as now

Discreet: the time may come you need not fly.«

The Sun has lost his rage: his downward orb

Shoots nothing now but animating warmth

And vital lustre; that with various ray,

Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of heaven.

Incessant rolled into romantic shapes,

The dream of waking fancy! Broad below,

Covered with ripening fruits, and swelling fast

Into the perfect year, the pregnant earth

And all her tribes rejoice. Now the soft hour

Of walking comes for him who lonely loves

To seek the distant hills, and there converse

With nature, there to harmonize his heart,

And in pathetic song to breathe around

The harmony to others. Social friends,

Attuned to happy unison of soul –

To whose exulting eye a fairer world,

Of which the vulgar never had a glimpse,

Displays its charms; whose minds are richly fraught

With philosophic stores, superior light;

And in whose breast enthusiastic burns

Virtue, the sons of interest deem romance –

Now called abroad, enjoy the falling day:

Now to the verdant portico of woods,

To nature's vast Lyceum, forth they walk;

By that kind school where no proud master reigns,

The full free converse of the friendly heart,

Improving and improved.