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, seems 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 Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs [safe 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 [holes 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 blank, O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood, Indurated and fix'd, the snowy weight Lies undissolved; while silently beneath, And unperceived, the current steals away. Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps The milldam, 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 sunbeam; 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.
BEAUTEOUS thy blue uprising, mist-robed Morn; All thy bright glittering of fantastic dews
With their thin tissue silkening the green meads, And all thy music of blithe leaves that dance In the caressing breeze, and matin's gay From all the living woodland; Sleep is pleased To be so sweetly banish'd her soft reign. But dreary are thy sounds, and sad thy light On the lewd wassail, riot orgies rude, Polluting day with sights that shame dark night.
A FOGGY MORNING.
NOT pleasureless the morn, when dismal fog Rolls o'er the dewy plain, or thin mist drives; When the lone timber's saturated branch
Drips freely, and with large redundant drop The spread umbrella pelts, which the chill'd tooth Screens, and o'ercanopies the languid lock. Shorn of his glory, through the dim profound With melancholy aspect looks the orb
Of stifled day, and while he strives to pierce And dissipate the slow reluctant gloom Seems but a rayless globe, an autumn moon That gilds opaque the purple zone of eve, Nor yet distributes of her thrifty beam. Lo! now he conquers; now, subdued awhile, Awhile subduing, the departed mist
Yields us a brighter beam, or darker clouds His crimson disk obscure. Through the thin veil Of his foul mantle reads the bard, well pleased, A kindling glimpse of the pure azure field Of heaven's unbounded champaign, and the hour Of winter's noon serene with inward joy
Greets ere it bless his sight. To him who walks Now in the shelter'd mead, loud roars above Among the naked branches of the elm, Still freshening as the hurried cloud departs, The strong Atlantic gale. Not louder falls The foamy lasher's cataract superb
In fullest flood-time, when impatient Thames Fights with the lock which chains him to his seat, And strives to burst his manacles in vain.
As, when the daw-throng on the steeple perch, Ambitious of its loftiest vane, and smoke Shot upwards from the funnel mounts erect, Fair day succeeds; so when the turbid stream That issues from the chimney falls depress'd, And travels foglike o'er the dewy field, While at a distance the loud western bell Distinctly sings, day foul and pluvious comes. Dim the nocturnal sky; its feebler lights Lost in the dense profound, its brighter gems Obscurely visible. If chance the moon Cross the quench'd Empyrean, her sad orb Shines with abated beam, and seems to wear A misty atmosphere. Far in the void
An ampler circle with capacious zone Her central disk encloses. Spiritless
At his round table sits the farmer lord;
A drowsy yawn his pipe-inhaling jaws Relaxes often. At his foot the cur [dreams, Sleeps on the hearth outstretch'd, and yelping Or lifts his head, astonish'd at the dance Of frisking puss who on the sanded floor Gambols excessive. Such ere close of day Were the wild antics of the frantic herd (Alike prophetic of the morrow storm)
Who leap'd and raced and bellow'd in the mead, And clash'd their horny foreheads, staring fierce. Dim in the socket burns the sulky wick, Nor heeds the trimming hand which oft divides The kindled fibres of its nape in vain, And to the oil redundant, that would drown Its feeble flame, relieving sluice affords.
WILD flies the midday vapour dense and foul, And soon shall come the fall. O'er the blue deep Of beauteous ether trails the lazy cloud,
A sable fleece, repository dark
Of murky snows unwinnow'd, stooping low, Lambent already of the topmost hill.
Few flakes of every size float through the air, And undetermined or to rise or fall,
Caught by the circling eddy of the breeze, Lo! now they mingle all in rapid dance, And with a sweep descend. A feathery shower Of flakes enormous follows, lighting soft As cygnet's down, or egret from the head Of thistle ravish'd. Oft against the shower Homeward returns the steeple-loving daw, But, blinded still, with agitated wing,
Down drops, struggling in vain, and to the branch, Which midway meets him in his worried flight, Retires defeated. To his early couch, The golden lap of the vast western cloud Which spreads beneath him its capacious bed, Hastens the sun, or through the saffron skirt Of the dark cloud that overtakes his orb Snow-shedding, with dishevel'd beams aslant Disorder'd smiles. In his pale watery ray Glitter the distant vane and gilded clock. Night follows muffled in profoundest gloom, The sullen gale howls in the dismal elm, Or in the chimney groans, with sudden gust Oft forcing downward a sulphureous puff Noisome below. Against the window pelts Scarce heard, at intervals, the frozen shower,
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