Of horrid profpect, fhag the trackless plain :
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, ftill more and more aftray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth
In many a vain attempt. How finks his foul!
What black despair, what horror, fills his heart!
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage rifing through the fnow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track, and bleft abode of man;
While round him night refistless closes fast,
And every tempeft, howling o'er his head,
Renders the favage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire defcent! beyond the power of frost;
Of faithlefs bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with fnow; and, what is land, unknown,
What water of the ftill unfrozen spring,
In the loose marfh or folitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
These check his fearful fteps; and down he finks 305
Beneath the shelter of the fhapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots
Through the wrung bofom of the dying man,
His wife, his children, and his friends unfeen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares
The fire fair-blazing, and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling ftorm, demand their fire,
With tears of artlefs innocence. Alas!
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor facred home. On every nerve
The deadly winter seizes; fhuts up fenfe;
And, o'er his inmoft vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the fnows, a ftiffen'd corfe,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern blast.
Ah, little think the gay licentious proud,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence furround;
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste;
Ah, little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death
And all the fad variety of pain.
How many fink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame. How many bleed,
By fhameful variance betwixt man and man.
How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms;
Shut from the common air, and common ufe
Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of mifery. Sore pierc'd by wintery winds,
How many fhrink into the fordid hut-
Of cheerlefs poverty. How many fhake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded paffion, madness, guilt, remorse;
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life,
They furnish matter for the Tragic Mufe.
Ev'n in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell,
With friendship, peace, and contemplation join'd,
How many,
rack'd with honeft paffions, droop
In deep retir'd diftrefs. How many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one inceffant ftruggle render life,
One fcene of toil, of fuffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appall'd,
And heedless rambling Impulfe learn to think;
The confcious heart of Charity would warm,
And her wide with Benevolence dilate;
The focial tear would rife, the focial figh;
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss,
Refining ftill, the focial paffions work.
And here can I forget the generous * band,
Who, touch'd with human woe, redreffive fearch'd
Into the horrors of the gloomy jail?
Unpitied, and unheard, where mifery moans;
Where fickness pines; where thirst and hunger burn, And poor
misfortune feels the lafh of vice.
While in the land of liberty, the land
Whofe every street and public meeting glow
With open freedom, little tyrants rag'd;
Snatch'd the lean morfel from the ftarving mouth;
* The Gapl Committee, in the year 1729.
Tore from cold wintery limbs the tatter'd weed;
Ev'n robb'd them of the last of comforts, fleep;
The free-born Briton to the dungeon chain'd,
Or, as the luft of cruelty prevail'd,
At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious stripes;
And crush'd out lives, by fecret barbarous ways,
That for their country would have toil'd, or bled. 375
O, great defign! if executed well, }
With patient care,
and wisdom-temper'd zeal.
Ye fons of mercy! yet refume the fearch;
Drag forth the legal monsters into light,
Wrench from their hands oppreffion's iron rod,
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much ftill untouch'd remains; in this rank age,
Much is the patriot's weeding hand requir❜d.
The toils of law, (what dark infidious men
Have cumberous added to perplex the truth,
And lengthen fimple juftice into trade)
How glorious were the day! that faw these broke,
And every man within the reach of right.
By wintery famine rous'd, from all the tract
Of horrid mountains which the shining Alps,
And wavy Appenine, and Pyrenees,
Branch out ftupendous into diftant lands;
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave!
Burning for blood! bony, and ghaunt, and grim !
Affembling wolves in raging troops descend;
And, pouring o'er the country, bear along,
Keen as the north-wind sweeps the glossy snow.
All is their prize. They faften on the steed,
Prefs him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.
Nor can the bull his awful front defend,
Or shake the murdering favages away.
Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fly,
And tear the screaming infant from her breast.
The godlike face of man avails him nought.
Ev'n beauty, force divine! at whofe bright glance 405
The generous lion stands in soften'd gaze,
Here bleeds, a haplefs undiftinguish'd prey.
But if, appriz'd of the fevere attack,
The country be fhut up, lur'd by the scent,
On church-yards drear (inhuman to relate!)
The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig
The fhrouded body from the grave; o'er which,
Mix'd with foul fhades, and frighted ghofts, they howl.
Among thofe hilly regions, where embrac'd
In peaceful vales the happy Grifons dwell;
Oft, rufhing fudden from the loaded cliffs,
Mountains of fnow their gathering terrors roll.
From steep to steep, loud-thundering down they come,
A wintery wafte in dire commotion all;
And herds, and flocks, and travellers, and swains, 420
And fometimes whole brigades of marching troops,
Or hamlets fleeping in the dead of night,
Are deep beneath the fmothering ruin whelm'd.
Now, all amid the rigours of the year,
In the wild depth of winter, while without
The ceafelefs winds blow ice, be my retreat,
Between the groaning forest and the shore
Beat by the boundless multitude of waves,
|