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 heard: Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath; Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost; Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his
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 fory; 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,
The long long night, incumbent o'er their 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 freez- ing stream
Rolls the wild Oby, lives the last of men ;
*The other hemishere.
Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth to discover the north-east passage.
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'è in fars, [svug,
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,
And calls the quivered savage to the chase.' What cannot active government perform, New moulding man? Wide-stretching from these shores,
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! His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods, 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
A mighty shadow of unreal power; Who greatly spurn'd the slothful pomp of
And roaming every land and every port, His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand Unwearied plying the mechanic's tool, 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 goes;
Then cities rise amid the illumin'd waste; O'er joyless descrts smiles the rurál reign: Far-distant flood to flood is social join'd; Th' astonish'd Euxine hears 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 hers The frantic Alexander of the north,
And awing there stern Othman's shrinking
Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted, How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends point [du'd, His desolate domain. Behold, fond mau ! Blow hollow blustering from the south. Sub- See here thy pictur'd life! Pass some few The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. years, [strength, Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet de Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent [swell, Thy sober Autumn fading into age, And floods the country round. The rivers And pale concluding Winter comes at last, Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataBled [hopes racts, 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
Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life! All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives, Immortal never-failing friend of man, His guide to happiness on high. And see! 'Tis come, the glorious morn! the second birth
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
That, toss'd amid the floating fragments, moors Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,
The new creating word, and starts to life, in every heightened form, from pain and death For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror || involving all, and in a perfect whole
More horrible. Can human force endure Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege them
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 Provideuce, 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,
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
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:
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. || The storms of Wintry Time will quickly pass, How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.
TO THE MISCELLANEOUS PART OF THE SIXTH VOLUME.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ILLUS- || Hymenæa in search of a husbaud, 72, 104, 137,
Campaign in Spaiu, history of, 56
Character of the Spanish Ladies, 186
Conradiue; or, lunocence triumphant, 10, 51 Cœlibs in search of a wife, 47
Covent Garden Theatre, ceremony of laying the foundation stone, 22
Epitaph on the death of George II. 168 Extracts from Sir John Carr's "Tour in Scot- land," 86
Fashionable world in St. Petersburgb, 112 swinging, 146
Growing young again, 136, 168
Historical notices respecting ancient pas- times, 23
Hulkem; a tale, 91, 118
La Cappriccioso, 27
Man and Wife, ib.
Unconscious Counterfeit, 64 Young, in Macbeth, 28
LA BELLE ASSEMBLEE.
Explanation of the Priuts of Fashion, 29, 65, 97, 129, 161, 193
General Observations on the Fashions, 29, 65, 97, 129, 161, 193
Ladies' Dresses on the anniversary of her Ma
Ladies' Dresses on the anniversary of his Ma- jesty's Birth day, 195
Letters on Dress, 67, 99, 131, 163
TO THE POETICAL PART OF THE SIXTH VOLUME.,
No. 40. Portrait of Alexander Pope.
No. 47. Portraits of Thomson, Gray, Johnson, Dryden, and Goldsmith.
London: Printed by and for J. BELL, Southampton-street, Strand.
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