(As lands, and cities with their glitt'ring spires
To the poor shatter'd bark, by sudden storm
Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there ;)
Will toys amuse?-No: thrones will then be toys,
And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale,
Redeem we time?-its loss we dearly buy.
What pleads Lorenzo for his high-priz'd sports?
He pleads time's num'rous blanks; he loudly pleads
The straw-like trifles on life's common stream.
From whom those blanks and trifles, but from thee?
No blank, no trifle, nature made or meant.
Virtue, or purpos'd virtue, still be thine :
This cancels thy complaint at once; this leaves
In act no trifle, and no blank in time.
This greatens, fills, immortalizes all:
This, the blest art of turning all to gold;
This, the good heart's prerogative to raise
A royal tribute, from the poorest hours,
Immense revenue! every moment pays.
If nothing more than purpose in thy pow'r,
Thy purpose firm, is equal to the deed:
Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does wel!, acts nobly; angels could no more.
Our outward act, indeed, admits restraint;
'Tis not in things o'er thought to domineer;
Guard well thy thoughts; our thoughts are heard in heaven.
On all-important time, thro' ev'ry age,
Tho' much, and warm, the wise have urg'd; the man
Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour.
"I've lost a day"-the prince who nobly cried,
Had been an emperor without his crown.
He spoke, as if deputed by mankind,
So should all speak: so reason speaks in all.
From the soft whispers of that God in man,
Why fly to folly, why to phrenzy fly,
For rescue from the blessing we possess?
Time, the supreme!-Time is eternity;
Pregnant with all eternity can give,
Pregnant with all that makes arch-angels smile:
Who murders time, he crushes in the birth
A pow'r ethereal, only not ador'd.
LO! where the rosy-bosom'd Hours,
Fair Venus' train, appear;
Disclose the long-expected flow'rs,
And wake the purple year!
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of Spring;
While whisp'ring pleasure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs thro' the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.
Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader, browner shade;
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'ercanopies the glade;
Beside some water's rushy brink,
With me the Muse shall sit and think
(At ease reclin'd in rustic state)
How vain the ardour of the crowd,
How low, how little are the proud,
How indigent the great!
Still is the toiling hand of care;
The panting herds repose;
Yet hark, how thro' the peopled air
The busy murmur glows!
The insect youth are on the wing,
Eager to taste the honey'd spring,
And float amid the liquid noon:
Some lightly o'er the current skim,
Some show their gaily-gilded trim
Quick-glancing to the sun.
To contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man;
And they that creep, and they that fly,
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay
But flutter thro' life's little day,
In fortune's varying colours drest;
Brush'd by the hand of rough mischance,
Or chill'd by age, their airy dance
They leave in dust to rest.
Description of winter at Copenhagen.
FROM frozen climes, and endless tracts of snow,
From streams that northern winds forbid to flow,
What present shall the Muse to Dorset bring,
Or how, so near the Pole, attempt to sing?
The hoary winter here conceals from sight
All pleasing objects that to verse invite.
The hills and dales, and the delightful woods,
The flow'ry plains, and silver streaming floods,
By snow disguis'd, in bright confusion lie,
And with one dazzling waste fatigue the eye.
No gentle breathing breeze prepares the spring; No birds within the desert region sing.
The ships, unmov'd, the boist'rous winds defy,
While rattling chariots o'er the ocean fly,
The vast leviathan wants room to play,
And spout his waters in the face of day.
The starving wolves along the main sea prowl,
And to the Moon in icy valleys howl.
For many a shining league the level main
Here spreads itself into a glassy plain:
There solid billows, of enormous size,
Alps of green ice, in wild disorder rise.
And yet but lately have I seen, e'en here,
The winter in a lovely dress appear.
Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasur'd snow,
Or winds began through hazy skies to blow,
At ev'ning a keen eastern breeze arose;
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn disclos'd at once to view
The face of nature in a rich disguise,
And brighten'd ev'ry object to my eyes:
For ev'ry shrub, and ev'ry blade of grass,
And ev'ry pointed thorn seem'd wrought in glass..
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorn show,
While thro' the ice the crimson berries glow.
The thick-sprung reeds the wat'ry marshes yield
Seem polish'd lances in a hostile field.
The Stag, in limpid currents, with surprise
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise
The spreading oak, the beech, and tow'ring pine,
Glaz'd over, in the freezing ether shine.
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
That wave and glitter in the distant sun.
When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies;
The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled show'r the prospect ends:
Or if a southern gale the region warm,
And by degrees unbind the wint'ry charm,
The traveller a miry country sees,
And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees.
Like some deluded peasant Merlin leads
Thro' fragrant bow'rs, and thro' delicious meads;
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