James Thomson(1700–1748)
From Winter (lines 223-358)
From Winter
The keener tempests come: and, fuming dundark; murky
From all the livid east or piercing north,
Thick clouds ascend, in whose capacious womb
A vapory deluge lies, to snow congealed.
Heavy they roll their fleecy world along,
And the sky saddens with the gathered storm.
Through the hushed 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 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 sunfrozen, icy
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox
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,1 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 kind2
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad-dispersed,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.
N o w , shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind;
Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens
W i t h food at will; lodge t h e m below the storm,
And watch them strict, for, from the bellowing east,
In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing
Sweeps up the burden of whole wintry plains
In one wide weft, and o'er the haplessflocks, web
Hid in the hollow of two neighboring hills,
The billowy tempest whelms, 0 till, upward urged,pours
The valley to a shining mountain swells,
Tipped with a wreath high-curling in the sky.
As thus the snows arise, and, foul and fierce,
All Winter drives along the darkened air,
In his own loose-revolving 0 fields the swain 0giddily turning I rustic
Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow, and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain;make shaggy
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 h o m e — t h e thoughts of h o m e
Rush on his nerves and call their vigor forth
In many a vain attempt. H o w sinks his soul!
W h a t black despair, what horror fills his heart,
W h e n , for the dusky spot w h i c h fancy feigned
His tufted 0 cottage rising through the snow,tree-surrounded
He m e e t s 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,
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
T h e n throng the busy shapes into his mind
Of covered pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost;
Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge,
S m o o t h e d up with snow; and (what is land unknown,
W h a t water) of the still unfrozen spring,
In the loose marsh or solitary lake,
W h e r e the fresh fountain from the bottom boils.
T h e s e c h e c k his fearful steps; and down he sinks
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mixed with the tender anguish nature shoots
Through the wrung bosom of the dying m a n —
His wife, his children, and his friends unseen.
In vain for him the officious wife preparesdutiful
T h e fire fair-blazing and the vestment warm;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire
W i t h tears of artless i n n o c e n c e . Alas!
Nor wife nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred h o m e . On every nerve
T h e deadly winter seizes, shuts up sense,
And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold,
Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse,corpse
Stretched out and bleaching in the northern blast.
Ah! little think the gay licentious proud,
W h o m pleasure, power, and affluence surround—
They w h o their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel, riot w a s t e —revelry
Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
H o w many feel, this very m o m e n t , death
And all the sad variety of pain;
H o w many sink in the devouring flood,
Or more devouring flame; h o w many bleed,
By shameful variance 0 betwixt man and man;quarreling
H o w many pine in want, and dungeon glooms,lack
Shut from the c o m m o n air and c o m m o n use
Of their own limbs; h o w many drink the cup
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery; sore pierced by wintry winds,
H o w many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty; h o w many shake
W i t h all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
U n b o u n d e d passion, madness, guilt, remorse—
W h e n c e , tumbled headlong from the height of life,
They furnish matter for the Tragic Muse;3
Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell,valley
W i t h friendship, peace, and contemplation joined,
H o w many, racked with honest passions, droop
In deep retired distress; h o w many stand
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends,
And point 0 the parting anguish! Thought fond manaccentuate
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills
That one incessant struggle render life,4
O n e s c e n e of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
And heedless rambling Impulse learn to think;
The conscious 0 heart of Charity would warm,sympathetic
And her wide wish Benevolence dilate 0diffuse
T h e social tear would rise, the social sigh;
And into clear perfection, gradual 0 bliss,progressive
Refining still, the social passions work.
HYMNS1