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Incontinent; and busy frenzy talks
Of blood and battle; cities overturn'd,

And late at night in swallowing earthquake
sunk,

Or hideous wrapt in fierce ascending flame,
Of sallow famine, inundation, storm;
Of pestilence, and every great distress;
Empires subvers'd, when ruling fate has struck
Th'unalterable hour: even Nature's self
Is deem'd to totter on the brink of time.
Not so the Man of philosophic eye,
And inspect sage; the waving brightness he
Curious surveys, inquisitive to know
The causes, and materials, yet unfix'd,
Of this appearance beautiful and new.
Now black, and deep, the night begins to fall,
A shade immense. Sunk in the quenching
gloom,

Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.
Order confounded lies: all beauty void;
Distinction lost; and gay variety
One universal blot: such the fair power
Of light, to kindle and create the whole.
Drear is the state of the benighted wretch,
Who then, bewilder'd, wanders thro' the dark,
Full of pale fancies, and chimeras huge;
Nor visited by one directive ray,
From cottage streaming, or from airy hall.
Perhaps impatient as he stumbles on,
Struck from the root of slimy rushes, blue,
The wild-fire scatters round, or, gather'd trails
A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss:
Whither decoy'd by the fantastic blaze,
Now lost and now renew'd, he sinks absorpt,
Rider and horse, amid the miry gulph:
While still, from day to day, his pining wife
And plaintive children his return await,
In wild conjecture lost. At other times,
Sent by the better Genius of the night,
Innoxious, gleaming on the horse's mane,
The meteor sits; and shows the narrow path,
That winding leads thro' pits of death, or else
Instructs him how to take the dangerous ford.
The lengthen'd night elaps'd, the morning

shines

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Awaiting renovation? When oblig'd,
Must you destroy? Of their ambrosial food
Can you not borrow; and, in just return,
Afford them shelter from the wintry winds;
Or, as the sharp year pinches, with their own
Again regale them on a smiling day?
See where the stony bottom of their town
Looks desolate and wild; with here and there
A helpless number, who the ruin'd state
Survive, lamenting weak, cast out to death.
Thus a proud city, populous and rich,
Full of the works of peace, and high in joy,
At theatre or feast, or sunk in sleep,
(As late, Palermo, was thy fate) is seis'd
By some dread earthquake, and convulsive
hurl'd

Sheer from the black foundation, stench-in-
volv'd,

Into a gulph of blue sulphurons flame.

Hence every harsher sight! for now the day, O'er heav'n and earth diffus'd, grows warm and high,

Infinite splendor! wide investing all.
How still the breeze! save what the filmy

threads

Of dew evaporate brushes from the plain.
How clear the cloudless sky! how deeply
ting'd

With a peculiar blue! the ethereal arch
How swell'd immense! amid whose azure
thron'd

The radiant sun how gay! how calm below
The gilded earth! the harvest-treasures all
Now gather'd in, beyond the rage of storms,
Sure to the swain; the circling fence shut up:
And instant Winter's utinost rage defy'd.
While loose to festive joy, the country round
Laughs with the loud sincerity of mirth,
Shook to the wind their cares. The toil strung
youth

By the quick sense of music taught alone,
Leaps wildly graceful in the lively dance.
Her very charm abroad, the village-toast,
Young, buxom, warm, in native beauty rich,
Darts not unmeaning looks; and, where
her eye

Points an approving smile, with double force,
The cudgel rattles, and the wrestler twines.
Age too shines out and garrulous, recounts
The feats of youth. Thus they rejoice; nor

think

That,

That, with to-morrow's sun, their annual toil Begins again the never-ceasing round.

Oh knew he but his happiness, of men The happiest he! who, far from public rage, Deep in the vale, with a choice few retir'd, Drinks the pure pleasures of the Rural Life. What tho' the dome be wanting, whose proud

gate,

Mad into tumult the seditious herd, Or melt them down to slavery. Let these Insnare the wretched in the toils of law, Fomenting discord, and perplexing right, An iron race! and those of fairer front, But equal inhumanity, in courts, Delusive pomp, and dark cabals, delight; Wreathe the deep bow, diffuse the lying smile, And tread the weary labyrinth of state. While he, from all the stormy passions free glitter-That restless men involve, hears, and but hears, At distance safe, the human tempest roar, Wrapt close in conscious peace. The fall of kings,

Each morning vomits out the sneaking crowd
Of Batterers false, and in their turn abus'd?
Vile intercourse! What though the
ing robe,

Of every hue reflected light can give,
Or floating loose or stiff with mazy gold,
The pride and gaze of fools! oppress him not?
What tho' from utmost land and sea purvey'd,
For him each rarer tributary life
Bleeds not, and his insatiate table heaps
With luxury, and death? What tho' his bowl
Flames not with costy juice; nor sunk in beds,
Oft of gay care he tosses out the night,
Or melts the thoughtless hours in idle state?
What tho' he knows not those fantastic joys,
That still amuse the wanton, still deceive;
A face of pleasure, but a heart of pain ;
Their hallow moments undelighted all?
Sure peace is his: a solid life, estrang'd
To disappointment, and fallacious hope:
Rich in content, in Nature's bounty rich,
In herbs and fruits; whatever greens the Spring,
When heaven descends in showers; or bends
the bough

When Summer reddens, and when Autumn beams;

Or in the wintry glebe whatever lies Conceal'd, and fattens with the richest sap: These are not wanting; nor the milky drove, Luxuriant, spread o'er all the lowing vale: Nor bleating mountains, nor the chide

streams,

of

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The rage of nations, and the crush of states,
Move not the Mau, 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, thro' 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 busting
geins,

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 with 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 fickled swain into the field,
Seis'd by the gen'ral joy, his heart distends
With gentle throes; and thro' 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.

swift wing,

With

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 barns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels;
The modest eye, whose beams on his alore
Ecstatic shine; the little strong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck,
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The foud paternal 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

And guilty cities, never knew; the life,
Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt,

When angels dwelt, and God himself, with
Man!

Oh, Nature! all sufficient! over all!
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders
there,

World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely scatter'd o'er the blue immense,
Show me; their motions, periods, and their
laws,

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Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;

Or seen the deep fermenting tempest brew'd In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time,

Till thro' the lucid chambers of the south
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and
smil'd.

To thee, the patron of her first essay,
The Muse, O Wilmington! renews her song
Since has she rounded the revolving year:
Skim'd the gay Spring; on eagle pinions borne,
Attempted thro' the Summer-blaze to rise;

Give me to scan thro' the disclosing deep
Light my blind way; the mineral strata there,Then
Thrust, blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that the rising system, more complex,
Of animals; and higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded thought,
And where the mixing passions endless shift;
These ever open to my ravish'd eye;

A search, the flight of time can ne'er exhaust!
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition; under closing shades,
Inglorious, lay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From Thee begin,
Dwell all on Thee, with Thee conclude my

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The subject proposed.
Wilmington.- - First approach of Winter.-
According to the natural course of the season,
various storms described.- Rain. Wind.
-Snow.

The driving of the snows: a man

swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy
gale;

And now among the wint'ry clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling storm, she tries to soar;
To swell her note with all the rushing winds;
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,
And how to make a mighty people thrive :
But equal goodness, sound integrity,
A firmi unshaken uncorrupted soul
Amid a sliding age, and burning strong,
Not vainly blazing on for thy country's weal,
A steady spirit, regularly free;

These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse
Record what envy dares not flattery call.

Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius, stains th' inverted year;
Hung o'er the farthest verge of heaven, the

sun

Scarce spreads thro' ether the dejected day. perishing among them; whence reflections on Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot the wants and miserics of human life. The His struggling rays in horizontal lines, wolves descending from the Alps and Apen-Thro' the thick air; as cloth'd in cloudy storm, nines. -A winter-evening described; as | Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern spent by philosophers; by the country-people; in the city. Frost. A view of Winter within the polar circle. A thaw. - The whole concluding with moral reflections on a future state.

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sky,

And soon-descending, to the long dark night,
Wide-standing all, the prostrate world resigns.
Nor is the night unwish'd; while vital heat,
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake.
Meantime, in sable cincture, shadows vast,
Deep-ting'd and damp, and congregated clouds,
And all the vapory turbulence to heaven,
Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls
A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,
Thro' Nature shedding influence malign,
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.
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, theduu-discolor'd flocks,
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm ;
And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,
Na

And

And fractured mountains wild, the brawling | Begin to flush around. The reeling clouds

brook

And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan,
Resounding long in listening Fancy's ear.
Then comes the father of the tempest forth,
Wrapt in black glooms. First joyless rains
obscure

Drive thro' the mingling skies the vapor foul; Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods,

That grumbling wave below. The unsightly plain

Lies a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds
Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still
Combine, and deep'ning into night shut up
The day's fair face. The wanderers of heaven,
Each to his home retire, save those that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
Or skimming flutter round the dimply pool.
The cattle from the untasted fields return,
And ask, with meaning lowe, their wonted
stalls,

Or ruminate in the contiguous shade.
Thither the houshold feathery people crowd,
The crested cock, with all his female train,
Pensive, and dripping; while the cottage hind
Hangs o'er the enlivening blaze, and taleful

there

Recounts his simple frolic: much he talks, And much he laughs, nor recks the storms that blows

Without, and rattles on his humble roof.

Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swell'd,

Stagger with dizzy poize, as doubting yet
Which master to obey; while rising slow,
Blank in the leaden-color'd east, the moon
Wears a wan circle round her blunted horns.
Seen thro' the turbid fluctuating air,
The stars obtuse emit a shiver'd ray;
Or frequent seem to emit a shiver'd gloom,
And long behind them trail the whitening
blaze.

Snatch'd in short eddies, plays the wither'd leaf,

And on the flood the dancing feather floats.
With broaden'd nostrils to the sky up-turn'd,
The conscious heifer snuffs the stormy gale.
Even as the matron at her nightly task,
With pensive labor draws the flaxen thread,
The wasted taper and the cracking flame
Foretel the blast. But chief the plumy race,
The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.
Retiring from the downs, where all day long
They pick'd their scanty fare, a black'ning

train

Of clamrous rocks thick urge ther weary flight,
And seek the closing shelter of the grove;
Assiduous in his bower the wailing ow!
Plies his sad song. The cormorant on high
Wheels from the deep, and screams along the
land.

Loud shrieks the soaring heron; and with wild-wing,

The circling sea-fowl cleave the flaky clouds.
Ocean, unequal press'd, with broken tide
And blind cominotion heaves; while from the
shore,

Ate into caverns by the restless wave,

And the mix'd ruin of its banks o'erspread,
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|Then issues forth the storm with sudden burst,

far:

Then o'er the sanded valley floating spreads Calm, sluggish, silent; till again, constrain'd Between two meeting hills, it bursts away, Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid

stream;

There gathering triple force, rapid and deep, It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.

Nature! great parent! whose unceasing hand Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year, How mighty, how majestic, are thy works! With what a pleasing dread they swell the soul!

That sees astonish'd! and astonish'd sings!
Ye too, ye winds! that now begin to blow,
With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you:
Where are your stores ye powerful beings! say,
Where are your aërial magazines reserv'd,
To swell the brooding terrors of the storm?
In what far distant region of the sky,
Hush'd in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm?
When from the pallid sky, the sun descends,
With many a spot that o'er his glaring orb
Uncertain genders, stain'd: red fiery streaks

And forest rustling mountain, comes a voice,
That solemn sounding bids the work! prepare,

And hurls the whole precipitated air,
Down in a torrent. On the passive main
Descends th' æthereal force, and with strong

gust

Turns from its bottom the discolor'd deep.
Thro' the black night that sits immense around,
Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn:
Meantime the mountain-billows to the clouds
In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge,
Burst into chaos with tremendous roar,
And anchor'd navies from their station drives,
Wide as the winds across the howling waste
Of mighty waters; now the inflated wave
Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot
Into the secret chambers of the deep,
The wintry Baltic thundering o'er their head,
Emerging thence again, before the breath
Of full-exerting heaven they wings their course,
And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp rock,
Or shoal insidious break not their career,
And in loose fragments fling them floating

round.

Nor less at land the loosen'd tempest reigns: The mountain thunders; and its sturdy sons

Stoop

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Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.
Thus struggling thro' the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And on the cottage thatch'd, or fordly roof,
Keen fastening, shakes them to the solid base.
Sleep frighted flies, and round the rocking
dome,

For entrance eager, howls the savage blast.
Then too, they say, thro' all the burden'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

With stars swift gliding sweep along the sky, All Nature reels. Till Nature's King, who oft'

Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone,
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm;
Then straight air, sea, and earth, are hush'd at

once.

As yet 'tis midnight deep. The weary clouds, Slow meeting, iningle into solid gloom. Now while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep, Let me associate with the serious Night, And Contemplation her sedate compeer! Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day, And lay the meddling senses all aside.

Where now, ye lying vanities of life! Ye ever-tempting ever-cheating train! Where are you now, and what is your amount! Vexation, disappointment, and remorse. Sad, sickening thought! and yet deluded Man, A scene of crude disjointed visions past, And broken slumbers rises still resolv'd, With new-flush'd hopes, to run the giddy

round.

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 With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;

Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!

The keener tempests rise and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congeal'd Heavy they roll their fleecy world along : And the sky saddens with the gather'd storm. Thro' the hush'd air the whitening shower descends,

At first thin-wav'ring; 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.
"Tis 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 buries wide
The works of Man. Drooping, the laborer-ox
Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then de-

mands

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 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. 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 fourth their brown inhabitants.
hare,

The

Tho' timorous of heart, and hard beset By death in various forms, and dark snares, and dogs,

And more unpitying Men, the garden seeks, Urg'd on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the bleak heav'n, and next the glist'ning earth,

With looks of dumb despair; then sad dispers'd, Dig for the wither'd herb thro' heaps of snow. Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be

kind,

Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens
With food at will, lodge them below the storm,
And watch them strictly for from the bellow-
ing east,

In this dire season, oft' the whirlwind's wing
Sweeps up the burthen of whole wintry plains
At 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.

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 thro' the drifted heaps,"
Nn 2

Stung

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