Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned 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 cropped 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 powdered 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 gossiped 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 scattered 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. Resigned To sad necessity, the cock foregoes
His wonted strut; and wading at their head With well-considered steps, seems to resent His altered gait and stateliness retrenched. How find the myriads, that in summer cheer The hills and vallies with their ceaseless songs, Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?
Earth yields them nought; the imprisoned worm is safe Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs Lie covered close; and berry-bearing thorns That feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose) Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.
THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.
THE night was winter in his roughest mood; The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast, The season smiles, resigning all its rage, And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue Without a cloud, and white without a speck The dazzling splendour of the scene below. Again the harmony comes o'er the vale; And through the trees I view th' embattled tower, Whence all the music. I again perceive The soothing influence of the wafted strains, And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms, Whose outspread branches overarch the glade. The roof, though moveable through all its length As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed, And, intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me. No noise is here, or none that hinders thought. The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppressed; Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes From many a twig the pendent drops of ice, That tinkle in the withered leaves below. Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft, Charms more than silence. Meditation here May think down hours to moments. Here the heart May give an useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books. Knowledge and Wisdom far from being one, Have oftimes no connexion. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds, Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems t' enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. Books are not seldom talismans and spells, By which the magic art of shrewder wits Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled. Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment, hoodwinked. Some the style Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds Of error leads them, by a tune entranced.
While sloth seduces more, too weak to bear The insupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice, The total grist unsifted, husks and all. But trees and rivulets, whose rapid course Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, And lanes in which the primrose ere her time
Peeps through the moss, that clothes the hawthorn root, Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth, Not shy, as in the world, and to be won
By slow solicitation, seize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.
THE HAPPINESS OF ANIMALS.
HERE unmolested, through whatever sign The sun proceeds, I wander. Neither mist, Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me, Nor stranger, intermeddling with my joy. Even in the spring and playtime of the year, That calls th' unwonted villager abroad With all her little ones, a sportive train, To gather kingcups in the yellow mead, And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends His long love-ditty for my near approach. Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm, That age or injury has hollowed deep, Where, on his bed of wool and matted leaves, He has outslept the winter, ventures forth To frisk a while, and bask in the warm sun, The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play; He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,
Ascends the neighbouring beech; there whisks his brush, And perks his ears, and stamps, and cries aloud,
With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,
And anger, insignificantly fierce.
The heart is hard in nature, and unfit
For human fellowship, as being void Of sympathy, and therefore dead alike To love and friendship both, that is not pleased With sight of animals enjoying life,
Nor feels their happiness augment his own. The bounding fawn, that darts along the glade
When none pursues, through mere delight of heart, And spirits buoyant with excess of glee;
The horse as wanton, and almost as fleet, That skims the spacious meadow at full speed, Then stops, and snorts, and, throwing high his heels, Starts to the voluntary race again;
The very kine, that gambol at high noon, The total herd receiving first from one, That leads the dance, a summons to be gay, Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent To give such act and utterance, as they may To ecstacy too big to be suppressed- These, and a thousand images of bliss, With which kind Nature graces every scene, Where cruel man defeats not her design, Impart to the benevolent, who wish All that are capable of pleasure pleased, A far superior happiness to theirs, The comfort of a reasonable joy.
ANTICIPATION OF THE MILLENIUM.
THE groans of Nature in this nether world, Which Heaven has heard for ages, have an end. Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, Whose fire was kindled at the prophet's lamp, The time of rest, the promised sabbath, comes. Six thousand years of sorrow have well-nigh Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course Over a sinful world; and what remains Of this tempestuous state of human things Is merely as the working of the sea Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest:
For He, whose car the winds are, and the clouds The dust that waits upon his sultry march, When sin hath moved him, and his wrath is hot, Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend Propitious in his chariot paved with love; And what his storms have blasted and defaced For man's revolt, shall with a smile repair.
Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch: Nor can the wonders it records be sung To meaner music, and not suffer loss. But when a poet, or when one like me, Happy to rove among poetic flowers,
Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last,
On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair, Such is the impulse and the spur he feels To give it praise proportioned to its worth, That not t'attempt it, arduous as he deems The labour, were a task more arduous still.
O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true, Scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see, Though but in distant prospect, and not feel His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy? Rivers of gladness water all the earth,
And clothe all climes with beauty; the reproach Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean, Or fertile only in its own disgrace,
Exults to see its thistly curse repealed. The various seasons woven into one, And that one season an eternal spring,
The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence, For there is none to covet, all are full. The lion, and the libbard, and the bear, Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon Together, or all gambol in the shade
Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. Antipathies are none. No foe to man
Lurks in the serpent now; the mother sees, And smiles to see, her infant's playful hand Stretched forth to dally with the crested worm, To stroke his azure neck, or to receive The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue. All creatures worship man, and all mankind One Lord, one Father. Error has no place: That creeping pestilence is driven away; The breath of Heaven has chased it. No passion touches a discordant string, But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not; the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. One song employs all nations; and all cry, "Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!" The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy ; Till, nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round. Behold the measure of the promise filled; See Salem built, the labour of a God! Bright as a sun the sacred city shines; All kingdoms and all princes of the earth Flock to that light; the glory of all lands
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