La Belle Assemblée

Bends to the golden coast of rich Catbay *, With news of human kind. Yet there life glows;

Yet cherish'd there, beneath the shining waste,
The furry nations harbour: tipt with jet,
Fair ermines, spotless as the suows they press;
Sables, of glossy black; and dark embrown'd,
Or beauteous freak'd with many a mingled hue,
Thousand besides, the costly pride of courts.
There, warm together press'd, the trooping

[head

decr Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and, scarce his Rais'd o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk Lies lumbering sullen in the white abyss. The ruthless hnuter wants not dogs nor toils, Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives The fearful flying race; with ponderous clubs, As weak against the mountain heaps they push Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray, He lays them quivering on th' ensanguin'd snows, [home. And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them There through the piny forest half absorpt, Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear,

With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn; Slow-pac'd, and sourer as the storms increase, He makes his bed beneath th' inclement drift, And, with stern patience, scorning weak complaint,

Hardens his heart against assailing want.

Wide o'er the spacious regions of the north, That sees Bootes urge his tardy wain, A boisterous race, by frosty Caurus† piere'd, Who little pleasure know, and fear no pain, Prolific swarm. They once relum'd the flame Of lost mankind in polish'd slavery sunk, Drove martial horde on horde †, with dreadful

sweep

Resistless rushing o'er th' enfeebled south, And gave the vanquish'd world another form. Not such the sons of Lapland: wisely they Despise th' insensate barbarous trade of war; They ask no more than simple nature gives, They love their mountains and enjoy their

storms,

No false desires, no pride-created wants, Disturb the peaceful current of their time; And through the restless ever-tortur'd maze Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it rage. Their rein-deer form their riches. These their tents, [wealth Their robes, their beds, and all their homely Supply, their wholesome fare, and cheerful cups.

The old name for China, Drb'et The north-west wind.

Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe Yield to the sled their neck, and whirl them swift

The wandering Scythian clans.

O'er hill and dale, heap'd into one expanso
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glaz'd.
By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless shake
A waving blaze refracted o'er the heavens,
And vivid moons, and stars that keener play
With doubled lastre from the glossy waste,
Even in the depth of polar night, they find
A wondrous day: enough to light the chase,
Or guide their daring steps to Finland fairs.
Wish'd Spring returns; and from the hazy
south,

While dim Aurora slowly moves before,
The welcome sun, just verging up at first,
By small degrees extends the swelling curve;
Till seen at last for gay rejoicing months,
Still round and round his spiral course he
winds;

And as he nearly dips his flaming orb,
Wheels up again, and re-ascends the sky.
In that glad season, from the lakes and Bloods,
Where pure Niemi's § fairy mountains rise,
And fring'd with roses Tenglio rolls his

stream,

They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve,
They cheerful loaded to their tents repair;
Where, all day long in useful cares employ'd,
Their kind unblemished wives the fire prepare.
Thrice happy race! by poverty secur'd
From regal plunder and rapacious power:
In whom fell int'rest never yet has sown
The seeds of vice: whose spotless swains ne'er
knew

Injurious deed, nor, blasted by the breath
Of faithless love,their blooming daughters woe.

Still pressing on beyond Tornea's lake,
And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow,
And farthest Greenland, to the pole itself,
Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out,

§ M. de Maupertuis, in his book on the figure of the earth, after having described the beautiful lake and mountain of Niemi, in Lapland, says, "From this height we had opportunity several times to see those vapours rise from the lake which the people of the country call Haltios, and which they deem to be the guardian spirits of the mountains, We had been frighted with the stories of bears that haunted this place, but saw none. It seemed rather a place of resort for fairies and genii, than bears."

The same author observes: "I was sur prised to see upon the banks of this river (the Tenglio) roses of as lively a red as any that are in our gardens".

The muse expands her solitary flight;
And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene,
Beholds new seas beneath another sky*.
Thron'd in his palace of cerulean ice,
Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court;
And through his airy hall the loud inisrule
Of driving tempests is for ever beard:
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath;
Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost;
Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his

snows,

With which he now oppresses half the globe.
Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's
coast,

She sweeps the howling margin of the main;
Where undissolving, from the first of time,
Snows swells on snows amazing to the sky;
And icy mountains high on mountains pil'd,
Seem to the shivering sailor from afar,
Shapeless and white an atmosphere of clouds.
Projected, huge and horrid, o'er the surge,
Alps frown
on Alps; or rushing hideous
down,
As if old chaos was again return'd,

Wide rend the deep, and shake the solid pole.
Ocean itself no longer can resist
The binding fury; but, in all its rage

Of tempest taken by the boundless frost,
Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless and
void

Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they!
Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold
frost,

And half enlivened by the distant sun,
That rears and ripens man, as well as plants,
Here human nature wears his rudest form.
Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves,
Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer,
They waste the tedious gloom. Immers' in
furs,
(sung,
Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor
Nor tenderness they know; nor ought of life,
Beyond the kindred bears that stalks without.
Till morn at length, her roses drooping all,
Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their
fields,

heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's + fate
As with first prow (what have not Briton's
dar'd!)

He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate scal'd, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glu'd
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.
Hard by these shores, where scarce his
ing stream

Rolls the wild Oby, lives the last of men ;

And calls the quivered savage to the chase.'
What cannot active government perform,
New moulding man? Wide-stretching from
these shores,

And roaming every land and every port,
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unwearied plying the mechanic's tool,

The long long night, incumbent o'er their Gather'd the seeds of trade, of useful arts,
Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill.

Charg'd with the stores of Europe, home he

A people savage from remotest time,.
A huge neglected empire, one vast mind,
By Heaven inspir'd, from Gothic darknes call'd.

Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! He
His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her
fens,

Her foods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons;
And while the fierce barbarian he subdu'd,
To more exalted soul he rais'd the man.
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toil'd
Through long successive ages to build up
A labouring plan of state, behold at once
The wouder done! behold the matchless prince!
Who left his native throne, where reign'd till
then

*The other hemishere.

Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen
Elizabeth to discover the north-east passage.

A mighty shadow of unreal power;
Who greatly spurn'd the slothful pomp of.
courts,

goes;

Then cities rise amid the illumin'd waste;
O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign:
Far-distant flood to flood is social join'd;
Th' astonish'd Euxine bears the Baltic roar ;
Proud navies ride on seas that never foam'd
With daring keel before; and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repressing here
The frantic Alexander of the north,
And awing there stern Othman's shrinking

sons.

freez-Sloth flies the land, and ignorance, and vice,
Of old dishonour proud: it glows around,
Taught by the royal hand that rous'd the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade:
For what has wisdom plann'd, and power en-
forc'd,

More potent still, his great example show'd

Blow hollow blustering from the south.
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw.
Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet de

scenas,

[swell, And floods the country round. The rivers Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts,

Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted, How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
point
[du'd, His desolate domain. Behold, fond mau !
Sub-See here thy pictur'd life! Pass some few
years,
[strength,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent
Thy sober Autumn fading into age,
And pale concluding Winter comes at last,
And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are
fled
[hopes
Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid
Of happiness? those longings after fame?
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days?
Those gay-spent festive nights? those veering
thoughts,

A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once;
And, where they rush, the wide-resounding
plain

Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas,
That wash'd th' ungenial pole, will rest no more
Beneath the shackles of the mighty north;
But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave.
And, hark! the lengthening roar continuous

runs

Athwart the rifted deep at once it bursts,
And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds. Of heaven and earth!
Ill fares the bark with trembling wretches

hears

charg'd,

More horrible. Can human force endure
Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege them
round?

That, toss'd amid the floating fragments, moors
Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,
While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror || involving all, and in a perfect whole

looks

Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.

Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that Power,
And Wisdom oft arraign'd: see now the cause,
Why unassuming worth in secret liv'd,
And died neglected: why the good man's
share

Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness,
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renew'd with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main.
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan
And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempest the loosened brine, while thro' the
gloom,

Far from the bleak inhospitable shore,
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Of famish'd monsters there awaiting wrecks.
Yet Providence, that ever waking eye,
Looks down with pity on the feeble toil
Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe,
Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.

'Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest
glooms,

Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life!
All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal never-failing friend of man,

And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!

His guide to happiness on high. And see!
'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second
birth

Awakening nature

The new creating word, and starts to life,
in every heightened form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,

In life was gall and bitterness of soul:
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In starving solitude; while luxury,
In palaces, lay straining her low thought
To form uureal wants: why heav'n-born truth,
Aud moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of superstition's courage: why licens'd pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe,
Imbitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distrest!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more:
The storms of Wintry Time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.

END OF THE SEASONS.