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What should be, and what was an hour-glass once, In the red einders, while with poring eye
Becomes a dice-box, and a billard mace

Well does the work of his destructive scythe.
Thus deck'd, he charms a world whom fashion blinds
To his true worth, most pleas'd when idle most;
Whose only happy are their wasted hours.
Ev'n misses, at whose age their mothers wore
The backstring and the bib, assume the dress
Of womanhood, fit pupils in the school
Of card-devoted Time, and night by night
Plac'd at some vacant corner of the board,
Learn ev'ry trick, and soon play all the game.
Bat truce with censure. Roving as I rove,
Where shall I find an end, or how proceed!
As he that travels far oft turns aside

To view some rugged rock or mould'ring tow'r,
Which seen delights him not; then coming home
Describes and prints it, that the world may know
How far he went for what was nothing worth;
So I, with brush in hand and pallet spread,
With colors mix'd for a far diff'rent use.
Paint cards and dolls, and ev'ry idle thing,
That Fancy finds in her excursive flights.

Come, Ev'ning, once again, season of peace;
Retum, sweet Ev'ning, and continue long!
Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,
With matron step slow moving, while the Night
Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employ'd
In letting fall the curtain of repose

On bird and beast, the other charg'd for man
With sweet oblivion of the cares of day:
Not sumptuously adorn'd, not needing aid,
Like homely-featur'd Night, of clust ring gems;
A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow,
Suffices thee; save that the Moon is thine
No less than hers, not worn indeed on high
With ostentatious pageantry, but set
With modest grandeur in thy purple zone,
Resplendent less, but of an ampler round.
Come then, and thou shalt find thy vot'ry calm,
Or make me so. Composure is thy gift:
And, whether I devote thy gentle hours
To books, to music, or the poet's toil;

To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit;
Or twining silken threads round iv'ry reels,

I gaz'd, myself creating what I saw.
Nor less amos'd have I quiescent watch'd
The sooty films, that play upon the bars
Pendulous, and foreboding in the view
Of superstition, prophesying still,

Though suli deceiv'd, some stranger's near approach
Tis thus the understanding takes repose

In indolent vacuity of thought,

And sleeps and is refresh'd. Meanwhile the face
Conceals the mood lethargie with a mask

Of deep deliberation, as the man

Were task'd to his fuil strength, absorb'd and lost.
Thus oft reelin'd at ease. I lose an hour

At ev'ning, till at length the freezing blast.
That sweeps the boited shutter, summons home
The recollected pow'rs, and snapping short
The glassy threads, with which the Fancy weares
Her brittle toils, restores me to myself
How calm is my recess! and how the frost,
Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear
The silence and the warmth enjoy'd within!
I saw the woods and fields at close of day
A variegated show; the meadows green,
Though faded; and the lands, where lately wav'd
The golden harvest, of a mellow brown,
Upturn'd so lately by the forceful share.
I saw far off the weedy fallows smile
With verdure not unprofitable, graz'd

By flocks, fast feeding, and selecting each
His fav'rite herb; while all the leafless groves,
That skirt th' horizon, wore a sable hue,
Scarce notic'd in the kindred dusk of eve.
To-morrow brings a change, a total change!
Which even now, though silently perform'd,
And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face
Of universal nature undergoes.
Fast falls a fleecy show'r: the downy flakes
Descending, and with never-ceasing lapse.
Softly alighting upon all below,

Assimilate all objects. Earth receives

Gladly the thick'ning mantle; and the green
And tender blade, that fear'd the chilling blast,
Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.

In such a world, so thorny, and where none

When they command whom man was born to Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found,

please;

I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still.
Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze
With lights, by clear reflection multiplied
From many a mirror, in which he of Gath,
Goliath, might have seen his giant bulk
Whole without stooping, tow'ring crest and all,
My pleasures, too, begin. But me perhaps
The glowing hearth may satisfy awhile
With faint illumination, that uplifts
The shadows to the ceiling, there by fits
Dancing uncouthly to the quiv'ring flame.
Not undelightful is an hour to me

So spent in parlor twilight: such a gloom
Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind,
The mind contemplative, with some new theme
Pregnant, or indispos'd alike to all.

Laugh, ye who boast your more mercurial pow'rs
That never felt a stupor, know no pause,
Nor need one; I am conscious, and confess
Fearless a soul, that does not always think.
Me oft has Fancy ludicrous and wild
Sooth'd with a waking dream of houses, tow'rs,
Trees, churches, and strange visages, express'd

Without some thistly sorrow at its side;
It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin
Against the law of love, to measure lots
With less distinguish'd than ourselves; that thus
We may with patience bear our mod rate ills,
And sympathize with others suff'ring more.
Ill fares the trav'ller now, and he that stalks
In pond'rous boots beside his reeking team.
The wain goes heavily, impeded sore
By congregated loads adhering close

To the clogg'd wheels; and in its sluggish pace
Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow.
The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide,
While ev'ry breath, by respiration strong
Fore'd downward, is consolidated soon
Upon their jutting chests. He, form'd to bear
The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night,
With half-shut eyes, and pucker'd cheeks, and teeth
Presented bare against the storm, plods on.
One hand secures his hat, save when with both
He brandishes his pliant length of whip,
Resounding oft, and never heard in vain.
O happy! and in my account denied
That sensibility of pain, with which

Refinement is endu'd, thrice-happy thou!
Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed
The piercing cold, but feels it unimpair'd.
The learned finger never need explore
Thy vig'rous pulse; and the unhealthful east,
That breathes the spleen, and searches ev'ry bone
Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee.

Thy days roll on exempt from household care;
Thy wagon is thy wife; and the poor beasts,
That drag the dull companion to and fro,
Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care.
Ah treat them kindly! rude as thou appear'st,
Yet show that thou hast mercy! which the great,
With needless hurry whirl'd from place to place,
Humane as they would seem, not always show.
Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat,
Such claim compassion in a night like this,
And have a friend in ev'ry feeling heart.
Warm'd, while it lasts, by labor, all day long
They brave the season, and yet find at eve,
Ill clad, and fed but sparely, time to cool.
The frugal housewife trembles when she lights
Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear,
But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys.
The few small embers left she nurses well;
And, while her infant race, with outspread hands
And crowded knees, sit cow'ring o'er the sparks,
Retires, content to quake, so they be warm'd.
The man feels least, as more inur'd than she
To winter, and the current in his veins
More briskly mov'd by his severer toil;
Yet he too finds his own distress in theirs.
The taper soon extinguish'd, which I saw
Dangled along at the cold finger's-end

Just when the day declin'd; and the brown loaf
Lodg'd on the shelf, half eaten without sauce
Of sav'ry cheese, or butter, costlier still;
Sleep seems their only refuge: for, alas!
Where penury is felt, the thought is chain'd,
And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few!
With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care,
Ingenious Parsimony takes, but just
Saves the small inventory, bed, and stool,
Skillet, and old carv'd chest, from public sale.
They live, and live without extorted alms
From grudging hands; but other boast have none,
Te soothe their honest pride, that scorns to beg,
Nor comfort else, but in their mutual love.
I praise you much, ye meek and patient pair,
For ye are worthy; choosing rather far
A dry but independent crust, hard earn'd,
And eaten with a sigh, than to endure
The rugged frowns and insolent rebuffs
Of knaves in office, partial in the work

Of distribution; lib'ral of their aid

To clam'rous Importunity in rags,

But oft-times deaf to suppliants, who would blush
To wear a tatter'd garb however coarse,
Whom famine cannot reconcile to filth:
These ask with painful shyness, and, refus'd
Because deserving, silently retire!
But be ye of good courage! Time itself
Shall much befriend you. Time shall give increase;
And all your num'rous progeny, well-train'd
But helpless, in few years shall find their hands,
And labor too. Meanwhile ye shall not want
What, conscious of your virtues, we can spare,
Nor what a wealthier than ourselves may send.
I mean the man, who, when the distant poor
Need help, denies them nothing but his name.

But poverty with most, who whimper forth
Their long complaints, is self-inflicted woe;
The effect of laziness or sottish waste.
Now goes the nightly thief prowling abroad
For plunder; much sclicitous how best
He may compensate for a day of sloth,
By works of darkness and noctural wrong.
Woe to the gard'ner's pale, the farmer's hedge,
Plash'd neatly, and secur'd with driven stakes
Deep in the loamy bank. Uptorn by strength,
Resistless in so bad a cause, but lame
To better deeds, he bundles up the spoil,
An ass's burden, and, when laden most
And heaviest, light of foot steals fast away
Nor does the boarded hovel better guard
The well-stack'd pile of riven logs and roots
From his pernicious force. Nor will he leave
Unwrench'd the door, however well secur'd,
Where Chanticleer amidst his harem sleeps
In unsuspecting pomp. "Twitch'd from the perch,
He gives the princely bird, with all his wives,
To his voracious bag, struggling in vain,
And loudly wond'ring at the sudden change.
Nor this to feed his own. "Twere some excuse,
Did pity of their suff'rings warp aside
His principle, and tempt him into sin
For their support, so destitute. But they
Neglected pine at home; themselves, as more
Expos'd than others, with less scruple made
His victims, robb'd of their defenceless all.
Cruel is all he does. "Tis quenchless thirst
Of ruinous ebriety, than prompts
His ev'ry action, and imbrutes the man.
O for a law to noose the villain's neck,
Who starves his own; who persecutes the blood
He gave them in his children's veins, and hates
And wrongs the woman he has sworn to love!

Pass where we may, through city or through town,
|Village, or hamlet, of this merry land,
Though lean and beggar'd, ev'ry twentieth pace
Conducts th' unguarded nose to such a whiff
Of stale debauch, forth-issuing from the styes
That law has licens'd, as makes Temp'rance reel.
There sit, involv'd and lost in curling clouds
Of Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor,
The lackey, and the groom: the craftsman there
Takes a Lethean leave of all his toil;
Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears,
And he that kneads the dough; all loud alike,
All learned, and all drunk! The fiddle screams
Plaintive and piteous, as it wept and wail'd
Its wasted tones and harmony unheard:
Fierce the dispute, whate'er the theme; while she,
Fell Discord, arbitress of such debate,
Perch'd on the sign-post, holds with even hand
Her undecisive scales. In this she lays
A weight of ignorance; in that, of pride;
And smiles delighted with the eternal poise.
Dire is the frequent curse, and its twin sound,
The cheek-distending oath, not to be prais'd
As ornamental, musical, polite,

Like those which modern senators employ,
Whose oath is rhet'ric, and who swear for faine!
Behold the schools, in which plebeian minds
Once simple are initiated in arts,

Which some may practise with politer grace,
But none with readier skill!-'Tis here they learn
The road, that leads from competence and peace
To indigence and rapine; till at last
Society, grown weary of the load,

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ape are alien i now. The rirai ass,
som ince er ran modesty and pace,
Her aries manners, and her seat attice.
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Than the fair thegheries of out mmance,
Ja teen no more The character is inst
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And randa reaming ray inperbly rais 1.
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Indenter to anme mart wig-weaver's hand
For more than hair the tresses it mistains:
Her escova ruffled and her sortiring form

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ice, and winelines mva

Less taint than becames us gave misce

La nemnye enneems. Etamine weil
His mik-white and the palms amily team-
But here and there in igy much appears
Fan
was a be hat lett i he has 'buch I
Cormation. Wieso sees an andit Jere
Proitions, pays his bute, game or ish.
What-fowi or ten wn; and as errani meris.
Bat ister fe und more than al he rest.

A nocie cause, which one, who bears a spurs
Of pubuc virtue, ever wish i removi

Iamppid upon Franen neeis; she might be deem'd Works the deplord and muschievous effect

But that the basket dangling on her arm
Interprete her more truly, of a rank
Ton prond for dairy work, or me of erra.
Expect her woon with footboy at her heels,
No longer Muaking for her awkward load,
Her train and ner ombrella all her care!

Tis universal sidership has sta1⁄40 1
The heart of merit in the meaner class.
Arme, through the vanity and brunless rage
Of those that bear them, in whatever muse,
Seem most at variate with all nori good,
And incompatible with serious UVGİL

The town has tung'd the country; and the stain The clown, the end of Nature, without gule, Appears a spot opon a vestai's mobe,

The worse for what it via The fashion runa
Down into scenes still rural; but, alas!
Scenes rarely grac'd with rural manners now!
Time was when in the pastoral retreat
Th' angnarded door was safe; men did not watch
Tinvade another's right, or guard their own
Then sleep was undisturb'd by fear, unscar'd
By drunken howling; and the chilling tale
Of midnight murder was a wonder heard
With doubtful credit, told to frighten babes.
But farewell now to unsuspicious nights,
And slumbers unalarm'd! Now, ere you sleep,
See that your polish'd arms be prim'd with care,
And drop the night-bolt-ruffians are abroad;

Best with an infant's Ignorance of ail
Bot his own simple pleasures: now and then
A wrestling-match, a for-rare, or a fur;
Is balloted, and trenes at the news:
Steepish he dois his hat, and mumbling swears
A Bible-cash to be whate'er they please,
To do he knows not what. The task perform'd,
That instant he becomes the sergeant's care,
His pupil, and his torment, and his jest.
His awkward gait, his introverted toes,
bet knees, round shoulders, and dejected looks,
Procure him many a curse. By slow degrees,
Unapt to learn, and form'd of stubborn stuff,
He yet by slow degrees puts off himself,
Grows conscious of a change, and likes it well

He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk;
He steps right onward, martial in his air,
His form, and movement; is as smart above
As meal and larded locks can make him; wears
His hat, or his plum'd helmet, with a grace;
And, his three years of heroship expir'd,
Returns indignant to the slighted plow.
He hates the field, in which no fife or drum
Attends him; drives his cattle to a march;
And sighs for the smart comrades he has left.
"T were well if his exterior change were all-
But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost
His ignorance and harmless manners too.
To swear, to game, to drink; to show at home
By lewdness, idleness, and Sabbath-breach,
The great proficiency he made abroad;
T'astonish and to grieve his gazing friends;

To break some maiden's and his mother's heart;
To be a pest where he was useful once;
Are his sole aim, and all his glory, now.
Man in society is like a flow'r

Blown in its native bed: 'tis there alone
His faculties, expanded in full bloom,
Shine out; there only reach their proper use.
But man, associated and leagu'd with man
By regal warrant, or self-join'd by bond
For int'rest-sake, or swarming into clans
Beneath one head for purposes of war,
Like flow'rs selected from the rest, and bound
And bundled close to fill some crowded vase,
Fades rapidly, and, by compression marr'd,
Contracts defilement not to be endur'd.
Hence charter'd boroughs are such public plagues;
And burghers, men immaculate perhaps
In all their private functions, once combin'd,
Become a lothesome body, only fit
For dissolution, hurtful to the main.
Hence merchants, unimpeachable of sin
Against the charities of domestic life,
Incorporated seem at once to lose
Their nature; and, disclaiming all regard
For mercy and the common rights of man,
Build factories with blood, conducting trade
At the sword's point, and dying the white robe
Of innocent commercial Justice red.
Hence too the field of glory, as the world
Misdeems it, dazzled by its bright array,
With all its majesty of thund'ring pomp,
Enchanting music, and immortal wreaths,
Is but a school, where thoughtlessness is taught
On principle, where foppery atones
For folly, gallantry for ev'ry vice.

But slighted as it is, and by the great
Abandon'd, and, which still I more regret,
Infected with the manners and the modes
It knew not once, the country wins me still.
I never fram'd a wish, or form'd a plan
That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss,
But there I laid the scene. There early stray'd
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice

Had found me, or the hope of being free.
My very dreams were rural; rural too
The first-born efforts of my youthful Muse,
Sportive and jingling her poetic bells,

Ere yet her ear was mistress of their pow'rs.
No bard could please me but whose lyre was tun'd
To Nature's praises. Heroes and their feats
Fatigu'd me, never weary of the pipe
Of Tityrus, assembling, as he sang,
The rustic throng beneath his fav'rite beech.

Then Milton had indeed a poet's charms:
New to my taste, his Paradise surpass'd
The struggling efforts of my boyish tongue
To speak its excellence. I danc'd for joy.
I marvell'd much that at so ripe an age
As twice seven years, his beauties had then first
Engag'd my wonder; and admiring still,
And still admiring, with regret suppos'd
The joy half lost, because not sooner found.
There, too, enamour'd of the life I lov'd,
Pathetic in its praise, in its pursuit
Determin'd, and possessing it at last
With transports, such as favor'd lovers feel,
I studied, priz'd, and wish'd that I had known,
Ingenious Cowley! and, though now reclaim'd
By modern lights from an erroneous taste,
I cannot but lament thy splendid wit
Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.

I still revere thee, courtly though retir'd;

Though stretch'd at ease in Chertsey's silent bow'rs
Not unemploy'd; and finding rich-amends

For a lost world in solitude and verse.

"Tis born with all: the love of Nature's works

Is an ingredient in the compound man,
Infus'd at the creation of the kind.

And, though th' Almighty Maker has throughout
Discriminated each from each, by strokes
And touches of his hand, with so much art
Diversified, that two were never found
Twins at all points-yet this obtains in all,
That all discern a beauty in his works,

And all can taste them: minds that have been form'd
And tutor'd, with a relish more exact,

But none without some relish, none unmov'd.
It is a flame, that dies not even there,
Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds,
Nor habits of luxurious city life,

Whatever else they smother of true worth
In human bosoms, quench it or abate.
The villas, with which London stands begirt,
Like a swarth Indian with his belt of beads,
Prove it. A breath of unadulterate air,

The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer
The citizen, and brace his languid frame!
Ev'n in the stifling bosom of the town,
A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms
That soothe the rich possessor; much consol'd,
That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint,
Of nightshade, or valerian, grace the well
He cultivates. These serve him with a hint,
That Nature lives; that sight-refreshing green
Is still the liv'ry she delights to wear,
Though sickly samples of th' exub'rant whole.
What are the casements lin'd with creeping herbs,
The prouder sashes fronted with a range

?

Of orange, myrtle, or the fragrant weed,
The Frenchman's darling? Are they not all proofs
That man, immur'd in cities, still retains
His inborn inextinguishable thirst
Of rural scenes, compensating his loss
By supplemental shifts, the best he may
The most unfurnish'd with the means of life,
Are they, that never pass their brick-wall bounds,
To range the fields, and treat their lungs with air,
Yet feel the burning instinct: over-head
Suspend their crazy boxes, planted thick,
And water'd duly. There the pitcher stands
A fragment, and the spoutless tea-pot there;

* Mignonette.

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zian, neraire, satznes n seau 1 and ease, Lad ontem station, rear-ennsoung o Lamie Heasures he aring i ocde Of nudes intowa a fe Aide au : *o*. ʼn the pursuit fw emolutuent, or me;

! anal, not add maeid to such a chase,
That he attems, se enmy us succes.

me must be great Great offices will have
Great talenta And God se ry man
Te true, temper undervanding, taste,
That Lfs him into life, and era um fall
ist in the niche he was setan i bil
To the devrer of an njur á land
Herves a songue t'enlarge upon, a heart
T. Seel, and enumge to redress her wrongs;
To monama dignty: to juízes sense;
To arbata ingenuity and skill í

To me an unambtors mind, content
In the low sale of life, that early feis
A wah for ease and leisure, and ere-iong
Fund here that lessure and that ease I wish'¿

BOOK V.

THE WINTER-MORNING WALK

Argument.

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Shaggy, and lean, and shrew i, with printed ears. And all croce i short, half limber and half eur, His dog attends him. Cose beand his beei Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a fre Wide-scamp ning, snatches up the drited snuw With iv'ry teeth, or plows it with his spent: Then shakes his powder'd cont, and barss ir joy. Heediess of all his pranks, the sturdy enuri A fraty morning The fiddening of cattle. The Moves right toward the mark; nor store fur augh woodman and his dog. The poultry. Whimsica! But now and then with pressure of his humo effects of frost at a waterfall. The Empress of T adjust the fragrant charge of a short tibe. Russia's palace of ice. Amusements of monarchs. That fumes beneath his nose: the traing cod War, one of them. Wars, whence; and whence Streams far behind him, scenting all the air monarchy. The evils of it. English and French Now from the roost, or from the neighbining pake loyalty contrasted. The Bastile, and a prisoner Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam there. Liberty the chief recommendation of this Of smiling day, they gossip'd side by side. country. Modern patriotism questionable, and Come trooping at the housewife's well-known ca why. The perishable nature of the best human The feather'd tribes domestic. Half on wing, institutions. Spiritual liberty not perishable. The And half on foot, they brush the fleecy food. slavish state of man by nature. Deliver him, Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. Deist, if you can. Grace must do it. The re- The sparrows peep, and quit the shelt ning eaves spective merits of patriots and martyrs stated. To seize the fair occasion; well they eye Their different treatment. Happy freedom of the The scatter'd grain, and, thievishly resolv'd man whom grace makes free. His relish of the T' escape th' impending famine, often scar'd works of God. Address to the Creator.

Tis morning; and the Sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires th' horizon; while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,

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

Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray His alter'd gait and stateliness retrench'd.

Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hne,
From ev'ry herb and ev'ry 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
. 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,

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; th' imprison'd worm is safet
Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herts
Lie cover'd close; and berry-bearing thor..s,
That feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose)
Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.

The long-protracted rigor of the year,

Thins all their num'rous 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

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