From every herb and every spiry blade Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field. Mine, spindling into longitude immense, In spite of gravity, and sage remark That I myself am but a fleeting shade, Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance I view the muscular proportion'd limb Transform'd to a lean shank. The shapeless pair, As they design'd to mock me, at my side Take step for step; and, as I near approach The cottage, walk along the plaster'd wall, Preposterous sight! the legs without the man. The verdure of the plain lies buried deep Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents, And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest, Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, And, fledged with icy feathers, nod superb. The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man, Fretful if unsupplied: but silent, meek, And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. He from the stack carves out the accustom'd load, Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, His broad keen knife into the solid mass: Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no heedless care, ⚫ Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd 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 cropp'd 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 powder'd 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 gossip'd 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 scatter'd 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. Resign'd To sad necessity, the cock foregoes
His wonted strut: and wading at their head With well-consider'd steps, seem 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 naught; the imprison'd worm is safe Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs
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. In chinks and holes
Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,
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 wayside, or stalking in the path,
Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track,
Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to thein, of voided pulse or half-digested grain.
The streams are lost amid the splendid bank, O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood, Indurated and fix'd, the snowy weight Lies undissolv'd, while silently beneath, And unperceived, the current steals away. Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps The mill-dam, 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,
the pile they but adorn'd before. Here grotto within grotto safe defies
The sun-beam; 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. Thus Nature works as if to mock at Art, And in defiance of her rival powers; By these fortu tous and random strokes Performing such inimitable feats,
As she with all her rules an never reach. Less worthy of applause, though more admired, Because a novelty, the work of man,
Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ, Thy most magnificent and mighty freak, The wonder of the North. No forest fell,
When thou wouldst build, no quarry sent its stores To enrich thy walls: but thou didst hew the floods, And make thy marble of the glassy wave.
In such a palace Aristæus found
Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale Of his lost bees to her maternal ear:
In such a palace Poetry might place
The armoury of Winter; where his troops, The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet, Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail, And snow, that often blinds the traveller's course, And wraps him in an unexpected tomb.
Silently as a dream the fabric rose;
No sound of hammer or of saw was there: Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts
Were soon conjoined, nor other cement ask'd Than water interfused to make them one. Lamps gracefully disposed and of all hues, Illumined every side; a watery light
Gleam'd through the clear transparency, that seem'd Another moon new risen, or ineteor fallen From heaven to earth, of lambent flame serene. So stood the brittle prodigy; though smooth And slippery the materials, yet frost-bound Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within, That royal residence might well befit,
For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths of flowers, that fear'd no enemy but warmth,
Where all was vitreous; but in order due Convivial table and commodious seat
(What seem'd at least commodious seat) were there Sofa, and couch, and high-built throne august, The same lubricity was found in all,
And all was moist to the warm touch; a scene Of evanescent glory, once a stream, And soon to slide into a stream again. Alas! 'twas but a mortifying stroke Of undesign'd severity, that glanced (Made by a monarch) on her own estate, On human grandeur and the courts of kings. 'Twas transient in its nature, as in show 'Twas durable; as worthless as it seem'd Intrinsically precious; to the foot
Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was col
Great princes have great playthings. Some have play'd At hewing mountains into men, and some At building human wonders mountain-high. Some have amused the dull sad years of life (Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad) With schemes of monumental fame; and sought By pyramids and mausolean pomp,
Short-lived themselves, to immortalize their bones. Some seek diversion in the tented field,
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.
But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at. Nations would do well To extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds Are gratified with mischief; and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy the World. When Babel was confounded, and the great Confederacy of projectors wild and vain Was split into diversity of tongues, Then, as a shepherd separates his flock, These to the upland, to the valley those, God drave asunder, and assign'd their lot To all the nations. Arrple was the boon He gave them, in its distribution fair
And equal; and he bade them dwell in peace.
Peace was awhile their care; they plough'd and sow'd, And reap'd their plenty without grudge or strife.
But violence can never longer sleep
Than human passions please. In every heart Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war; Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze. Cain had already shed a brother's blood: The Deluge wash'd it out; but left unquench'd The seeds of murder in the breast of man. Soon by a righteous judgment in the line Of his descending progeny was found The first artificer of death; the shrewd Contriver, who first sweated at the forge, And forced the blunt and yet unbloodied steel To a keen edge, and made it bright for war. Him, Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times, The sword and falchion their inventor claim:
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