Winter Amusements.

Till morn, late rising o'er the drooping world, 745

Lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then appears

The various labour of the silent night:

Prone from the dripping cave, and dumb cascade,
Whose idle torrents only seem to roar,

The pendant icicle; the frost-work fair,
Where transient hues, and fancy'd figures rise;
Wide-spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook,
A livid track, cold-gleaming on the morn;
The forest bent beneath the plumy wave;
And by the frost refin'd the whiter snow,
Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread
Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks

His pining flock; or from the mountain top,
Pleas'd with the slippery surface, swift descends.

750

755

On blithsome frolics bent, the youthful swains, 760 While every work of Man is laid at rest, Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport And revelry dissolv'd; where mixing glad, Happiest of all the train! the raptur'd boy Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine Branch'd out in many a long canal extends,

From every province swarming, void of care,

765

Winter Amusements.

Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep,

On sounding skates, a thousand different ways,'
In circling poise, swift as the winds, along,

The then gay land is maddened all to joy.

770

+A

Nor less the northern courts, wide o'er the snow,
Pour a new pomp. Eager, on rapid sleds,
Their vigorous youth in bold contention wheel
The long-resounding course. Meantime, to raise 775
The manly strife, with highly-blooming charms,
Flush'd by the season, Scandinavia's dames, el
Or Russia's buxom daughters, glow around.

1

Pure, quick, and sportful, is the wholesome day;
But soon elaps'd. The horizontal sun,
Broad o'er the south, hangs at his utmost noon;
And, ineffectual, strikes the gelid cliff:
His azure gloss the mountain still maintains,
Nor feels the feeble touch. Perhaps the vale
Relents awhile to the reflected ray;
Or from the forest falls the cluster'd snow,
Myriads of gems, that in the waving gleam
Gay-twinkle as they scatter. Thick around

780

785

Thunders the sport of those, who with the gun,

And dog impatient bounding at the shot,

790

Winter in the Frigid Zone.

Worse than the season, desolate the fields;

And, adding to the ruins of the year,
Distress the footed or the feathered game.

~

But what is this? Our infant Winter sinks, Divested of his grandeur, should our eye Astonish'd shoot into the Frigid Zone;

795

Where, for relentless months, continual Night
Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.
There, through the prison of unbounded wilds,
Barr'd by the hand of Nature from escape,
Wide-roams the Russian exile. Nought around
Strikes his sad eye, but deserts lost in snow;

And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods,

800

That stretch, athwart the solitary waste,

Their icy horrors to the frozen main;

805

And cheerless towns far-distant, never bless'd,

Save when its annual course the caravan

Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,

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 snows they press;
Sables, of glossy black; and dark embrown'd,

810

Winter in the Frigid Zone.

815

820

Or beauteous freakt with many a mingled hue,
Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts.
There, warm together press'd, the trooping deer
Sleep on the new-fall'n snows; and, scarce his head
Rais'd o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss.
The ruthless hunter wants nor 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; 825
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home.
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 see Boötes urge his tardy wain,

A boisterous race, by frosty Caurus pierc'd,

830

835

Laplanders, and the Northern Regions described.

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 840
Resistless rushing o'er the 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.

845

850

Their rein-deer form their riches. These, their tents, Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth Supply, their wholesome fare, and cheerful cups.

Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe

Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swift 855
O'er hill and dale, heap'd into one expanse

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