SEE, WINTER comes, to rule the varied year,
Sullen and fad, with all his rifing train;
Vapours, and Clouds, and Storms. Be these my theme,
These! that exalt the foul to folemn thought,
And heavenly mufing. Welcome, kindred glooms!
Congenial horrors, hail! with frequent foot,
Pleas'd have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nurs'd by careless folitude I liv'd,
And fung of Nature with unceafing joy,
Pleas'd have I wander'd thro' your rough domain;
Trod the pure virgin-fnows, myself as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;
Or feen the deep-fermenting tempeft brew'd,
In the grim evening fky. Thus pass'd the time,
Till thro' the lucid chambers of the fouth
Look'd out the joyous SPRING, look'd out, and fmil'd.
To thee, the patron of her firft effay,
The Mufe, O WILMINGTON! renews her fong.
Since has she rounded the revolving year :
Skim'd the gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne,
Attempted thro' the Summer-blaze to rise;
Then fwept o'er Autumn with a shadowy gale;
And now among the wintry clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling ftorm, fhe tries to foar;
To fwell her note with all the rufhing winds;
To fuit her founding cadence to the floods;
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy! could fhe fill thy judging ear
With bold defcription, and with manly thought.
Nor art thou fkill'd in awful schemes alone,
And how to make a mighty people thrive ;
But equal goodness, found integrity,
A firm unfhaken uncorrupted foul
Amid a fliding age, and burning strong,
Not vainly blazing for thy country's weal,
A fteady fpirit regularly free;
These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; thefe, 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, ftains th' inverted year;
Hung o'er the fartheft verge of heaven, the fun
Scarce fpreads thro' ether the dejected day.
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His ftruggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Thro' the thick air; as cloth'd in cloudy ftorm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the fouthern sky;
And, foon-defcending, to the long dark night,
Wide-shading all, the proftrate world refigns.
Nor is the night unwifh'd; while vital heat,
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake.
Meantime, in fable cincture, fhadows vaft,
Deep-ting'd and damp, and congregated clouds,
And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven,
Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls,
A heavy gloom oppreffive o'er the world,
Thro' Nature shedding influence malign,
And roufes up the feeds of dark disease.
The foul 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-difcoloured flocks,
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.
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