James Thomson

“ For light too fine, th' etherial niter flies;
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air ⁠695
Storing afresh with elemental life.
Close crouds the shining atmosphere; and binds
Our strengthen'd bodies in its cold embrace,
Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood;
Refines our spirits, thro' the new-strung nerves, ⁠700
In swifter sallies darting to the brain;
Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.
All Nature feels the renovating force
Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye ⁠705
In ruin seen. ”

“ Thro' the thick air; as cloath'd in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And, soon descending, to the long dark night,⁠50
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.
Nor is the night unwish'd; while vital heat,
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake.
Mean-time, in fable cincture, shadows vast,
Deep-ting'd and damp, and congregated clouds,⁠55
And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven
Involve the face of things. ”

“ Resistless rushing o'er th' enfeebled south,
And gave the vanquish'd world another form.
Not such the sons of Lapland: wisely they
Despise th' insensate barbarous trade of war;
They ask no more than simple Nature gives, ⁠845
They love their mountains and enjoy their storms.
No false desires, no pride-created wants,
Disturb the peaceful current of their days;
And thro' the restless ever-tortur'd maze
Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it rage. ⁠850
Their rain-deer form their riches. ”

“ Attempted thro' the summer-blaze to rise;
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale;
And now among the wintry clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling florin, she tries to soar;
To swell her note with all the rushing winds;⁠25
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods;
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy! could she fill thy judging ear
With bold description, and with manly thought.
Nor art thou skill'd in awful schemes alone.⁠30
And how to make a mighty people thrive ”

“ And by the frost refin'd the whiter snow, ⁠755
Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread
Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks
His pining flock, or from the mountain-top,
Pleas'd with the slippery surface, swift descends.
⁠On blithsome frolicks bent, the youthful swains, ⁠760
While every work of Man is laid at rest,
Fond o'er the river croud, in various sport
And revelry dissolv'd; where mixing glad,
Happiest of all the train! the raptur'd boy
Lashes the whirling top. ”

“ Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast. ⁠190
Then too, they say, thro' all the burthen'd air,
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds, and distant sighs,
That utter'd by the Demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death.
⁠Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds commix'd ⁠195
With stars swift-gliding sweep along the sky.
All Nature reels. ”

“ That wash th' ungenial pole, will rest no more
Beneath the shackles of the mighty north; ⁠1000
But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave.
And hark! the lengthening roar continuous runs
Athwart the rifted deep: at once it bursts,
And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds.
Ill fares the bark with trembling wretches charg'd, ⁠1005
That, soft amid the floating fragments, moors
Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,
While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks
More horrible. Can human force endure
Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege them round? ”

“ Retiring from the downs, where all day long
They pick'd their scanty fare, a blackening train ⁠140
Of clamorous rooks thick-urge their weary flight.
And seek the closing shelter of the grove;
Assiduous, in his bower, the wailing owl
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the land. ⁠145
Loud shrieks the soaring hern; and with wild wing
The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds. ”

“ A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,
Thro' Nature shedding influence malign,
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.⁠60
The soul of Man dies in him, loathing life,
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop; and o'er the furrow'd land,
Fresh from the plough, the dun discolour'd flocks,
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.⁠65
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm ”

“ Keen as the north-wind sweeps the glossy snow.
All is their prize. They fasten on the steed,
Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.
Nor can the bull his awful front defend. ⁠400
Or shake the murdering savages away.
Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fly,
And tear the screaming infant from her breast.
The godlike face of Man avails him nought.
Even beauty, force divine! ”

“ Ye noble few! who here unbending stand ⁠1065
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd Evil is no more:
The storms of Wintry Time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all! ”

“ Thro' shades and plains, along the smoothest stream
Of rural life: or snatch'd away by hope,
Thro' the dim spaces of futurity,
With earnest eye anticipate those scenes ⁠605
Of happiness, and wonder; where the mind,
In endless growth and infinite ascent,
Rises from state to state, and world to world. ”

“ Wheels up again, and reascends the sky.
In that glad season, from the lakes and floods,
Where pure [11] Niemi's fairy mountains rise, ⁠875
And fring'd with roses [12] Tenglio rolls his stream,
They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve,
They cheerful-loaded to their tents repair;
Where, all day long in useful cares employ'd,
Their kind unblemish'd wives the fire prepare. ⁠880
Thrice happy race! by poverty secur'd
From legal plunder and rapacious power:
In whom fell interest never yet has sown
The seeds of vice ”

“ Of faithless love, their blooming daughters woe.
⁠Still, pressing on, beyond Tornea's lake,
And Hecla flaming thro' a waste of snow,
And farthest Greenland, to the pole itself, ⁠890
Where failing gradual life at length goes out,
The Muse expands her solitary flight ”

“ ⁠Father of light and life! thou Good supreme!
O teach me what is good! teach me Thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit! and feed my soul ⁠220
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss! ”

“ And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'erspread, ⁠95
At last the rous'd-up river pours along:
Resistless, roaring, dreadful, down it comes,
From the rude mountain, and the mossy wild,
Tumbling thro' rocks abrupt, and sounding far;
Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads, ⁠100
Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrain'd,
Between two meeting hills, it bursts a way,
Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream;
There gathering triple force, rapid, and deep,
It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders thro'. ⁠105
⁠Nature! ”

“ His tufted cottage rising thro' the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track, and blest abode of Man:
While round him night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head, ⁠295
Renders the savage wilderness more wild. ”

“ New-moulding Man? Wide-stretching from these shores,
A people savage from remotest time,
A huge neglected empire One vast Mind,
By Heaven inspir'd, from gothic darkness call'd. ⁠955
Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! he
His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons;
And while the fierce Barbarian he subdu'd,
To more exalted soul he raised the Man. ⁠960
Ye f hades of antient heroes, ye who toil'd
Thro' long successive ages to build up
A laboring plan of state, behold at once
The wonder done! behold the matchless prince! ”

“ Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave! ”

“ And fierce Aquarius, stains th' inverted year;
Hung o'er the farthest verge of heaven, the sun
Scarce spreads o'er ether the dejected day.⁠45
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Thro' the thick air; ”

“ Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm;
And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,
And fractur'd mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan⁠70
Resounding long in listening Fancy's ear. ”

“ SEE, Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
Sullen, and sad, with all his rising train;
Vapours, and Clouds, and Storms. ”

“ Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.
⁠There, thro' the prison of unbounded wilds,
Barr'd by the hand of Nature from escape, ⁠800
Wide-roams the Russian exile. Nought around
Strikes his sad eye, but desarts lost in snow;
And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods,
That stretch, athwart the solitary vast,
Their icy horrors to the frozen main; ⁠805
And cheerless towns far-distant, never bless'd,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich [8] Cathay
With news of human-kind. Yet there life glows ”

“ Thunders the sport of those, who with the gun,
And dog impatient bounding at the shot, ⁠790
Worse than the season, desolate the fields; ”

“ dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, ⁠1025
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. ”

“ but who can count the stars of heaven?
Who sing their influence on this lower world? ”

“ Shines out intensely keen; and, all one cope ⁠740
Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole.
From pole to pole the rigid influence falls,
Thro' the still night, incessant, heavy, strong,
And seizes Nature fast. It freezes on ”

“ There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the Mighty Dead; ”

“ The red-breast, sacred to the houshold 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. ”

“ The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the sidelong maid, ⁠625
On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep:
The leap, the slap, the haul; ”

“ Or ruminate in the contiguous shade. ”

“ that now begin to blow,
With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you.
Where are your stores, ye powerful beings! say,
Where your aërial magazines reserv'd,
To swell the brooding terrors of the storm? ”

“ Sweeps up the burthen of whole wintry plains ⁠270
In one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks,
Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills,
The billowy tempest whelms; 'till, upward urg'd,
The valley to a shining mountain swells,
Tipt with a wreath, high-curling in the sky. ⁠275
⁠As thus the snows arise ”

“ Snow. The driving of the snows: a Man perishing among them; whence reflections on the wants and miseries of human life. The wolves defending from the Alps and Apennines. A winter evening described: as spent by philosophers ”