THE TASK.

BOOK IV.

THE WINTER EVENING.

THE ARGUMENT.

The post comes in.-The newspaper is read.-The world contemplated at a distance.-Address to Winter.-The rural amusements of a winter evening compared with the fashionable ones.-Address to Evening.-A brown study.-Fall of snow in the evening.-The waggoner. A poor family piece.-The rural thief.-Public houses. -The multitude of them censured.-The farmer's daughter: what she was what she is.-The simplicity of country manners almost lost. Causes of the change.-Desertion of the country by the rich. Neglect of magistrates.-The Militia principally in fault.-The new recruit and his transformation.-Reflections on bodies corporate.-The love of rural objects natural to all, and never to be totally extinguished.

HARK! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,

That with its wearisome but needful length.
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;-

The Post comes in.

He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks;

News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge the close packed load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn;

And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful; messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.

Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
With tears, that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.

But oh the important budget! ushered in

The Newspaper is read.

With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tiding? have our troops awaked?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugged,
Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plumed
And jewelled turban with a smile of peace,
Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,"
The popular harangue, the tart reply,

The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,
And the loud laugh-I long to know them all;
I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up the steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Not such his evening, who with shining face
Sweats in the crouded theatre, and, squeezed

The Newspaper.

And bored with elbow-points through both his sides,
Out-scolds the ranting actor on the stage:

Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb,
And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath
Of patriots, bursting with heroic

rage;
Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles.
This folio of four pages, happy work!
Which not e'en critics criticise; that holds
Inquisitive attention, while I read,

Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break;
What is it, but a map of busy life,

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge
That tempts ambition. On the summit see
The seals of office glitter in his eyes;

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them! at his heels,
Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,

And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,

And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.