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He lays them quivering in the ensanguined snows,
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home,
There through the piny forest half absorped,
Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear,
With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn;
Slow-paced, and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath the inclement drift ;
And, with stern patience, scorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against assailing want.

Still pressing on, beyond Tornea's lake, And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow, And farthest Greenland, to the pole itself, Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out, The Muse expands her solitary flight; And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene, Beholds new scenes beneath another sky. Throned in his palace of cerulean ice, Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court; And through his airy hall the loud misrule Of driving tempest is forever heard : Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath; Here arms his winds with all-subduing frost; Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his snows, With which he now oppresses half the globe. Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's coast, She sweeps the howling margin of the main; Where undissolving, from the first of time, Snows swell on snows, amazing, to the sky; And icy mountains, high on mountains piled,

Seem to the shivering sailor from afar,
Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds.
Projected huge, and horrid o'er the surge,
Alps frown on Alps; or, rushing hideous down,
As if old Chaos was again returned,

Wide rend the deep, and shake the solid pole.
Ocean itself no longer can resist
The binding fury; but in all its rage
Of tempest, taken by the boundless frost,
Is many a fathom to the bottom chained,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagged o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they!
Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost,
The long, long night, incumbent o'er their heads
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's fate,

As with first prow, (what have not Britons dared!)
He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.

In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship

Immediate sealed, he, with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.

TO AMANDA.

Come, dear Amanda, quit the town,
And to the rural hamlets fly;
Behold! the wintry storms are gone:
A gentle radiance glads the sky.
The birds awake, the flowers appear,
Earth spreads a verdant couch for thee;
'Tis joy and music all we hear, ~
'Tis love and beauty all we see.

Come, let us mark the gradual spring, How peeps the bud, the blossom blows; "Till Philomel begins to sing,

And perfect May to swell the rose.

E'en so thy rising charms improve,

As life's warm season grows more bright; And opening to the sighs of love,

Thy beauties glow with full delight.

TO THE SAME.

Unless with my Amanda bless'd,
In vain I twine the woodbine bower;
Unless to deck her sweeter breast,
In vain I rear the breathing flower.
Awaken'd by the genial year,

In vain the birds around me sing;
In vain the freshening fields appear :-
Without my love there is no spring.

YOUNG

MIDNIGHT

TIRED Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays

Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes:
Swift on his downy pinion flies from wo,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturbed repose
I wake: how happy they who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wrecked desponding thought,
From wave to wave of fancied misery

At random drove, her helm of reason lost.

Though now restored, 'tis only change of pain,

(A bitter change!) severer for severe :

The day too short for my distress; and night,
E'en in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.

Night, sable Goddess! from her ebon throne,

In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.

Silence how dead! and darkness how profound!
Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
And let her prophecy be soon fulfilled:
Fate! drop the curtain; I can lose no more.
Silence and darkness! solemn sisters! twins
From ancient Night, who nurse the tender thought
To reason, and on reason build resolve,

That column of true majesty in man,)
Assist me I will thank you in the grave;

The grave, your kingdom: there this frame shall fall A victim sacred to your dreary shrine.

But what are ye?—

Thou, who didst put to flight

Primoval silence, when the morning star
Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball:

O Thou! whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark, the sun, strike wisdom from my soul;
My soul, which flies to thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest.
Through this opaque of nature and of soul,
This double night, transmit one pitying ray,
To lighten and to cheer. O lead my mind,
(A mind that fain would wander from its wo,)
Lead it through various scenes of life and death,
And from each scene the noblest truths inspire.
Nor less inspire my conduct than my song;
Teach my best reason, reason; my best will
Teach rectitude; and fix my firm resolve
Wisdom to wed, and pay her long arrear:

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