CONFESS'D from yonder slow extinguish'd clouds,
All ether softening, sober evening takes
Her wonted station in the middle air; A thousand shadows at her beck. First this She sends on earth; then that of deeper dye, Steals soft behind; and then a deeper still, In circle following circle, gathers round, To close the face of things. A fresher gale Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn; While the quail clamours for his running mate. Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze, A whitening shower of vegetable down Amusive floats. The kind impartial care Of nature nought disdains: thoughtful to feed Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year, From field to field the feather'd seeds she wings.
His folded flock secure, the shepherd home Hies, merry-hearted; and by turns relieves The ruddy milk-maid of her brimming pail: The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart, Unknowing what the joy-mixt anguish means, Sincerely loves, by that best language shown Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. Onward they pass, o'er many a panting height, And valley sunk and unfrequented; where At fall of eve the fairy people throng, In various game and revelry, to pass The summer night, as village stories tell. But far about they wander from the grave Of him, whom his ungentle fortune urg'd Against his own sad breast to lift the hand Of impious violence. The lonely tower Is also shunn'd; whose mournful chambers hold, So night-struck fancy dreams, the yelling ghost.
Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, The glow worm lights his gemn; and, through the dark, A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields The world to night; not in her winter-robe Of massy stygian woof, but loose array'd In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray, Glanc'd from th' imperfect surfaces of things, Flings half an image on the straining eye; While wavering woods, and villages, and streams, And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain'd Th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, Uncertain if beheld.
BUT see the fading many-colour'd woods, Shade deepening over shade, the country round Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun, Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty black. These now the lonesome Muse, Low whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks, And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm Fleeces unbounded ether; whose least wave Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn The gentle current: while illumin'd wide, The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun, And through their lucid veil his soften'd force Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time, For those whom wisdom and whom nature charm, To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd, And soar above this little scene of things; To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet; To soothe the throbbing passions into peace; And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.
Thus solitary, and in pensive guise, Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,
And through the sadden'd grove, where scarce is heard One dying strain, to cheer the woodman's toil. Haply some widow'd songster pours his plaint, Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse: While congregated thrushes, linnets, la ks, And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late Swell'd all the music of the swarming shades, Robb'd of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock; With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, And nought save chattering discord in their note. O let not, aim'd from some inhuman eye, The gun the music of the coming year Destroy; and harmless, unsuspecting harm, Lay the weak tribes, a miserable prey, In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground.
The pale descending year, yet pleasing still, A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf Incessant rustles from the mournful grove; Oft startling such as, studious, walk below, And slowly circles through the waving air. But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streains;
Till chok'd, and matted with the dreary shower, The forest-walks, at every rising gale,
Roll wide the wither'd waste, and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign. Even what remain'd Of stronger fruits, falls from the naked tree; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around, The desolated prospect thrills the soul.
THE PLEASURES OF RURAL RETIREMENT.
THE rage of nations, and the crush of states, Move not the man, who, from the world escap'd, In still retreats, and flowery solitudes,
To Nature's voice attends, from month to month, And day to day, through the revolving year; Admiring, sees her in her every shape;
Feels all her sweet emotions at his heart; Takes what she liberal gives, nor thinks of more. He, when young spring protrudes the bursting germ, Marks the first bud, and sucks the healthful gale Into his freshen'd soul; her genial hours He full enjoys; and not a beauty blows, And not an opening blossom breathes in vain. In summer he, beneath the living shade, Such as o'er frigid Tempe wont to wave, Or Hemus cool, reads what the muse, of these Perhaps, has in immortal numbers sung; Or what she dictates writes: and, oft an eye Shot round, rejoices in the vigorous year.
When autumn's yellow lustre gilds the world, And tempts the sickled swain into the field, Seiz'd by the general joy, his heart distends With gentle throes; and, through the tepid gleams Deep musing, then he best exerts his song. Even winter wild to him is full of bliss. The mighty tempest, and the hoary waste, Abrupt, and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth, Awake to solemn thought. At night the skies, Disclos'd and kindled by refining frost,
Pour every lustre on th' exalted eye.
A friend, a book, the stealing hours secure,
And mark them down for wisdom. With swift wing O'er land and sea imagination roams;
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind, Elates his being, and unfolds his powers; Or in his breast heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels: The modest eye, whose beams on his alone Ecstatic shine; the little strong embrace Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck, And emulous to please him, calling forth The fond parental soul. Nor purpose gay, Amusement, dance, or song, he sternly scorns; For happiness and true philosophy
Are of the social still, and smiling kind. This is the life which those who fret in guilt, And guilty cities never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,
When angels dwelt, and God himself with man.
THE keener tempests rise: and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend, in whose capacious womb A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congeal'd. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; And the sky saddens with the gather'd storm.
Through the hush'd air the whitening 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 cherish'd fields Put on their winter robe of purest white.
'T is 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 wild dazzling waste, that burns wide The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of Heaven, Tam'd by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing store, and claim the little boon Which Providence assigns them. One alone, The red-breast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of th' 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, Urg'd on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth, With looks of dumb despair; then, sad-dispers'd; Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of snow.
TRAVELLER PERISHING IN THE SNOWS.
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,
Smooth'd 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 unseen. In vain for him th' 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,
« AnkstesnisTęsti » |