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 cropped 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 powdered 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 gossipped side by side, Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call The feathered 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 scattered 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. Resigned To sad necessity, the cock foregoes His wonted strut; and, wading at their head With well-considered steps, seems to resent His altered gait and stateliness retrenched.
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; the imprisoned worm is safe Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs Lie covered 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 perched aloft By the way-side, or stalking in the path, Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track, Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them, Of voided pulse or half-digested grain.
The streams are lost amid the splendid blank, O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood, Indurated and fixt, the snowy weight
Lies undissolved; 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 gulph 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 embroidered 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 congealed, Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
And prop the pile they but adorned before. Here grotto within grotto safe defies
The sun-beam; there, embossed 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 fortuitous and random strokes Performing such inimitable feats,
As she with all her rules can 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 armory of winter; where his troops, The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet, Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail,
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 asked
Than water interfused to make them one.
Lamps gracefully disposed, and of all hues, Illumined every side: a watery light
Gleamed through the clear transparency, that seemed Another moon new risen, or meteor 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 feared no enemy but warmth, Blushed on the pannels. Mirror needed none Where all was vitreous; but in order due Convivial table and commodious seat
(What seemed 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 undesigned 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 seemed, Intrinsically precious; to the foot
Treacherous and false; it smiled, and it was cold.
Great princes have great playthings. Some have played
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 assigned their lot To all the nations. Ample 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 ploughed, and sowed,
And reaped 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 washed it out; but left unquenched 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; And the first smith was the first murderer's son. His art survived the waters; and ere long,
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