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The rigid hoar-frost melts before his beam;
And hung on every spray, on every blade
Of grass, the myriad dew-drops twinkle
round.

James Thomson.-Born 1700, Died 1748.

873.-A WINTER LANDSCAPE.

Through the hushed air the whit ning shower descends.

At first thin-wavering, till at last the flakes Fall broad and wide, and fast, dimming the day

With a continual flow. The cherished fields Put on their winter robe of purest white:

'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts

Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid

sun

Faint from the west, emits his evening ray;
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-

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Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands

The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little
boon

Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,

In joyless fields and thorny thickets, leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted

man

His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights

On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor,

Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is:

Till more familiar grown, the table crumbs Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,

Though timorous of heart, and hard beset

By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs,

And more unpitying men, the garden seeks, Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kine

Eye the bleak heaven, and next, the glist'ning earth,

With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed,

Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of

snow.

As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce

All winter drives along the darken'd air,
In his own loose revolving fields the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow, and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain;
Nor finds the river nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray,
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 sinks his soul !

What black despair, what horror, fills his heart!

When for the dusky spot which fancy feign'd,

His tufted cottage rising through the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and bless'd abode of man;
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest howling o'er his head,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge
Smoothed up with snow; and what is land
unknown,

What water of the still unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
Where the fresh fountain from the bottom

boils.

These check his fearful steps, and down he sinks

Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mix'd with the tender anguish nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man,His wife, his children, and his friends, un

seen.

In vain for him the officious wife prepares
The fire fair blazing, and the vestment warm:
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire
With tears of artless innocence. Alas!
Nor wife nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home.
On every

nerve

The deadly winter seizes, shuts up sense,
And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows a stiffen'd corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching on the northern
blast.

James Thomson.-Born 1700, Died 1748.

874.-A HYMN.

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year

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And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks;

And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.

Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives.

In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms

Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,

Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing, Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore, And humblest nature with thy northern blast.

Mysterious round! what skill, what force divine,

Deep felt, in these appear! a simple train,
Yet so delightful mix'd, with such kind art,
Such beauty and beneficence combined;
Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade;
And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still.
But wandering oft, with bruto unconscious
gaze,

Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand,

That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence

The fair profusion that o'erspreads the Spring:

Flings from the Sun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempests forth;

And, as on Earth this grateful change revolves,.

With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul,
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky,
In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general song! To him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness
breathes :

Oh, talk of him in solitary glooms;
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving
pine

Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake th' astonish'd world, lift high to
Heaven

Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage.

His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills;

And let me catch it as I muse along.

Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound;
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze
Along the vale; and thou, majestic main,
A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound his stupendous praise; whose greater
voice

Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers,

In mingled clouds to him; whose Sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.

Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to him; Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart,

As home he goes beneath the joyous Moon. Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as Earth asleep

Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams,
Ye constellations, while your angels strike,
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! best image here below
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide,
From world to world, the vital ocean round,
On Nature write with every beam his praise.
The thunder rolls; be hush'd the prostrate
world;

While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn.

Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks, Retain the sound: the broad responsive low, Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns;

And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song Burst from the groves! and when the restless day,

Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night his praise.

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all,

Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast,

Assembled men, to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking
clear,

At solemn pauses, through the swelling base;
And, as each mingling flame increases each,
In one united ardour rise to Heaven.
Or if you rather chuse the rural shade,
And find a fane in every secret grove;
There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's
lay,

The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre,
Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll.
For me, when I forget the darling theme,
Whether the blossom blows, the Summer-

ray

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O, who can speak the vigorous joy of health?

Unclogg'd the body, unobscured the mind: The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth,

The temperate evening falls serene and kind.

In health the wiser brutes true gladness find.

See how the younglings frisk along the meads,

As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind;

Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds:

Yet what but high-strung health this dancing pleasaunce breeds?"

James Thomson.-Born 1700, Died 1748.

876.-ODE.

O Nightingale, best poet of the grove, That plaintive strain can ne'er belong to thee,

Blest in the full possession of thy love:

O lend that strain, sweet nightingale, to me!

'Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate: I love a maid who all my bosom charms, Yet lose my days without this lovely mate; Inhuman Fortune keeps her from my arms.

You, happy birds! by nature's simple laws Lead your soft lives, sustain'd by Nature's fare;

You dwell wherever roving fancy draws,

And love and song is all your pleasing care:

But we, vain slaves of interest and of pride, Dare not be blest lest envious tongues should blame :

And hence, in vain I languish for my bride; O mourn with me, sweet bird, my hapless flame.

James Thomson.-Born 1700, Died 1748.

877.-HYMN ON SOLITUDE. Hail, mildly pleasing Solitude, Companion of the wise and good, But, from whose holy, piercing eye, The herd of fools and villains fly.

Oh how I love with thee to walk, And listen to thy whisper'd talk, Which innocence and truth imparts, And melts the most obdurate hearts.

A thousand shapes you wear with ease,
And still in every shape you please.
Now wrapt in some mysterious dream,
A lone philosopher you seem;
Now quick from hill to vale you fly,
And now you sweep the vaulted sky;
A shepherd next, you haunt the plain,
And warble forth your oaten strain.
A lover now, with all the grace
Of that sweet passion in your face;
Then, calm'd to friendship, you assume
The gentle-looking Hartford's bloom,
As, with her Musidora, she
(Her Musidora fond of thee)
Amid the long withdrawing vale,
Awakes the rivall'd nightingale.

Thine is the balmy breath of morn,
Just as the dew-bent rose is born;
And while meridian fervours beat,
Thine is the woodland dumb retreat;
But chief, when evening scenes decay,
And the faint landscape swims away,
Thine is the doubtful soft decline,
And that best hour of musing thine.

Descending angels bless thy train,
The virtues of the sage, and swain;
Plain Innocence, in white array'd,
Before thee lifts her fearless head:
Religion's beams around thee shine,
And cheer thy glooms with light divine:
About thee sports sweet Liberty;
And rapt Urania sings to thee.

Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell!
And in thy deep recesses dwell;
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When Meditation has her fill,

I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London's spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then shield me in the woods again.

James Thomson.-Born 1700, Died 1748.

878.-THE HAPPY MAN.

He's not the Happy Man to whom is given
A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven;
Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise,
And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes;
Whose table flows with hospitable cheer,
And all the various bounty of the year;
Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe
the spring,

Whose carved mountains bleat, and forests sing;

For whom the cooling shade in Summer twines,

While his full cellars give their generous wines ;

From whose wide fields unbounded Autumn

pours

A golden tide into his swelling stores;

Whose winter laughs; for whom the liberal gales

Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails;

When yielding crowds attend, and pleasure

serves:

While youth, and health, and vigour string his nerves.

Ev'n not all these, in one rich lot combined, Can make the Happy Man, without the mind;

Where Judgment sits clear-sighted, and

surveys

The chain of Reason with unerring gaze; Where Fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes,

His fairer scenes and bolder figures rise; Where social Love exerts her soft command, And plays the passions with a tender hand, Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife, And all the moral harmony of life.

James Thomson.-Born 1700, Died 1748.

879.-RULE BRITANNIA.

When Britain first, at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sung the strain : Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves! Britons never shall be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee,

Must in their turn to tyrants fall, Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all. Rule Britannia, &c.

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies, Serves but to root thy native oak. Rule Britannia, &c.

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
And work their woe and thy renown.
Rule Britannia, &c.

To thee belongs the rural reign;

Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All shall be subject to the main, And every shore it circles thine. Rule Britannia, &c.

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest isle, with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
Rule Britannia, &c.

James Thomson.-Born 1700, Died 1748.

880.-GRONGAR HILL.

Silent nymph, with curious eye,
Who, the purple evening, lie
On the mountain's lonely van,
Beyond the noise of busy man;
Painting fair the form of things,
While the yellow linnet sings;
Or the tuneful nightingale
Charms the forest with her tale;
Come, with all thy various hues,
Come and aid thy sister Muse;
Now, while Phoebus riding high,
Gives lustre to the land and sky!
Grongar Hill invites my song,
Draw the landscape bright and strong;
Grongar, in whose mossy cells
Sweetly musing Quiet dwells;
Grongar, in whose silent shade,
For the modest Muses made;
So oft I have, the evening still,
At the fountain of a rill,
Sate upon a flowery bed,

With my hand beneath my head;
While stray'd my eyes o'er Towy's flood,
Over mead and over wood,

From house to house, from hill to hill,
Till Contemplation had her fill.

About his chequer'd sides I wind,
And leave his brooks and meads behind,
And groves, and grottoes where I lay,
And vistas shooting beams of day:
Wide and wider spreads the vale,
As circles on a smooth canal:

The mountains round, unhappy fate;
Sooner or later of all height,

Withdraw their summits from the skies,
And lessen as the others rise:
Still the prospect wider spreads,
Adds a thousand woods and meads;
Still it widens, widens still,
And sinks the newly-risen hill.

Now, I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours intervene ;
But the gay, the open scene
Does the face of Nature show,
In all the hues of Heaven's bow!
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly towering in the skies!
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires!
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads!
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks!

Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs.
And beyond the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love!

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