Such was the portrait an apostle drew;
The bright original was one he knew ;
Heaven held his hand-the likeness must be true.
'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds, That crowd away before the driving wind, More ardent as the disc emerges more, Resemble most some city in a blaze, Seen through the leafless wood. Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, And, tinging all with his own rosy hue, From every herb and every spiry blade Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field. The verdure of the plain lies buried deep Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents, And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest, Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, And, fledged with icy feathers, nod superb. The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man, Fretful if unsupplied: but silent, meek,
And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. He from the stack carves out the accustom'd load, Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, His broad keen knife into the solid mass: Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no heedless
Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe, And drive the wedge, in yonder forest drear, From morn to eve his solitary task.
Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears, And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur, His dog attends him. Close behind his heel Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout: Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy. Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught, But now and then with pressure of his thumb To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. Now from the roost, or from the neighbouring pale, Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam Of smiling day, they gossip'd side by side, Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call The feather'd tribes domestic. Half on wing, And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves, To seize the fair occasion; well they eye The scatter'd grain, and thievishly resolved To escape the impending famine, often scared As oft return, a pert voracious kind.
Clean riddance quickly made, one only care Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, Or shed impervious to the blast. Resign'd To sad necessity, the cock foregoes His wonted strut; and wading at their head With well-consider'd steps, seem to resent His alter'd gait and stateliness retrench'd. How find the myriads, that in summer cheer The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs, Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?
Earth yields them nought: the imprison'd worm is safe Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs Lie cover'd close; and berry-bearing thorns, That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose), Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.
The long-protracted rigour of the year Thins all their numerous flocks.
Ten thousand seek an unmolested end, As instinct prompts; self-buried ere they die. The very rooks and daws forsake the fields, Where neither grub, nor root, nor earth-nut now Repays their labour more; and perch'd aloft By the way-side, or stalking in the path, Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track,
Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them, Of voided pulse or half-digested grain.
The streams are lost amid the splendid bank, O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood, Indurated and fix'd, the snowy weight Lies undissolv'd, while silently beneath, And unperceived, the current steals away. Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel, And wantons in the pebbly gulf below: No frost can bind it there; its utmost force Can but arrest the light and smoky mist, That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. And see where it has hung the embroider'd banks With forms so various, that no powers of art, The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene! Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high (Fantastic misarrangement!) on the roof Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops, That trickle down the branches, fast congeal'd, Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
And prop the pile they but adorn'd before.
Here grotto within grotto safe defies
The sun-beam; there, emboss'd and fretted wild,
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain
The likeness of some object seen before. Nature works as if to mock at Art, defiance of her rival powers;
e fortuitous and random strokes
COUNTRY SOUNDS.-PATRIOTISM.
Performing such inimitable feats,
As she with all her rules can never reach.
NOR rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid Nature.
Mighty winds, That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood Of ancient growth, make music not unlike The dash of Ocean on his winding shore, And lull the spirit while they fill the mind; Unnumber'd branches waving in the blast, And all their leaves fast fluttering, all at once. Nor less composure waits upon the roar Of distant floods, or on the softer voice Of neighbouring fountain, or of rills that slip Through the cleft rock, and, chiming as they fall Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length In matted grass, that with a livelier green Betrays the secret of their silent course. Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds, But animated nature sweeter still, To soothe and satisfy the human ear.
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The livelong night: nor these alone whose notes Nice-finger'd Art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime In still-repeated circles, screaming loud, The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl, That hails the rising moon, have charms for me: Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh, Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns, And only there, please highly for their sake.
PATRIOTS have toil'd, and in their country's cause Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they deserve, Receive proud recompense. We give in charge Their names to the sweet lyre. Th' historic Muse,
Proud of the treasure, marches with it down To latest times; and Sculpture, in her turn, Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass To guard them, and to immortalise her trust: But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid, To those who, posted at the shrine of Truth, Have fallen in her defence. A patriot's blood, Well spent in such a strife, may earn indeed, And for a time insure, to his loved land The sweets of liberty and equal laws; But martyrs struggle for a brighter prize, And win it with more pain. Their blood is shed In confirmation of the noblest claim,- Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the skies.
Yet few remember them. They lived unknown, Till persecution dragg'd them into fame,
And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew— No marble tells us whither. With their names
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song: And history, so warm on meaner themes, Is cold on this. She execrates indeed The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire, But gives the glorious sufferers little praise.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves besides. There's not a chain That hellish foes, confederate for his harm, Can wind around him, but he casts it off With as much ease as Samson his
He looks abroad into the varied field Of nature, and though poor perhaps compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
A Winter Walk at Noon.
THERE is in souls a sympathy with sounds; And as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleased With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave :
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