Sees CALEDONIA, in romantic view;
Her airy mountains, from the waving main,
Invested with a keen diffusive sky;
Breathing the soul acute; her forests huge,
Incult, robust and tall, by Nature's hand
Planted of old; her azure lakes between,
Pour'd out extensive, and of watery wealth,
Full; winding deep, and green, her fertile
vales.
10
Nurse of a people, in misfortune's school,
Train'd up to hardy deeds; soon visited
By Learning, when before the Gothic rage
She took her western flight. A manly race,
Of unsubmitting spirit, wise and brave;
Who still thro' bleeding ages struggled hard,
(As well unhappy WALLACE can attest,
Great patriot hero! ill-requitted chief!)
To hold a generous, undiminish'd state;
Too much in vain! Hence of unequal bounds
Impatient, and by tempting glory borne 21
O'er every land, for every land their life
Has flow'd profuse, their piercing genius
plann'd,
And swell'd the pomp of peace their faithful
toil;
As from their own clear north, in radiant
streams,
Bright over Europe, bursts the Boreal Morn.
NO. 134. THE HAPPY SWAIN.
H, knew he but his happiness, of men
The happiest he who ihr ifrom, publicerage,
Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired,
Drinks the pure pleasures of the RURAL LIFE. 4
What tho' the dome be wanting, whose proud
gate,
Each morning, vomits out the sneaking croud
Of flatterers false, and in their turn, abus'd?
Vile intercourse! What the' the glittering robe
Of every hue, reflected light can give,
Or floating loose, or stiff with mazy gold,
The pride and gaze of fools, oppress him
What tho', from utmost land and sea, purvey'd
For him, each rarer tributary life
Bleeds not, and his insatiate table heaps
With luxury and death? What tho' his bowl
Flames not with costly juice, nor sunk in beds,
Oft of gay care, he tosses out the night,
Or melts the thoughtless hours in idle state?
What tho' he knows not those fantastic joys,
That still amuse the wanton, still deceive; 20
A face of pleasure, but a heart of pain;
Their hollow moments, undelighted all?
Sure peace is his; a solid life, estrang'd
To disappointment, and fallacious hope;
Rich in content, in Nature's bounty rich,
In herbs and fruits, whatever greens the Spring,
When Heaven descends in showers, or bends
the bough,
When Summer reddens, and when Autumn
beams;
Or in the wint'ry glebe, whatever lies
Conceal'd, and fattens with the richest sap; 30
These are not wanting; nor the milky drove,
Luxuriant, spread o'er all the lowing vale;
Nor bleating mountains; nor the chide of
Rush into blood, the sack of cities seek;
Let such as deem it glory to destroy,
Unpierc'd, exulting in the widow's wail,
The virgin's shriek, the infant's trembling cry.
Let some, far distant from their native soil,
Urg'd on by want, or harden'd avarice,
Find other lands beneath another sun.
Let this thro' cities work his eager way,
By legal outrage and establish'd guile,
The social sense extinct; and that ferment
into tumult the seditious herd,
Madant them do ti se slavery. Let these 55
Insnare the wretched in the toils of law,
Fomenting discord and perplexing right,
An iron race! and those of fairer front,
But equal inhumanity, in courts,
Delusive pomp, and dark cabals, delight; 60
Wreathe the deep brow, diffuse the lying
smile,
And tread the weary labyrinth of state.
While he, from all the stormy passions free,
That restless men involve, hears and but hears,
At distance safe, the human tempest roar, 65
Wrapt close in conscious peace. The fall of
kings,
World beyond world, in infinite extent,
Profusely scatter'd o'er the blue immense, 10
Shew me; their motions, periods and their
laws,
Give me to scan; thro' the disclosing deep,
Light my blind way; the mineral strata there;
Thrust blooming, thence the vegetable world;
O'er that, the rising system, more complex, 15
Of animals; and higher still, the mind,
The varied scene of quick-compounded tho't,
And where the mixing passions endless shift;
These ever open to my ravish'd eye;
A search the flight of time can n'er exhaust. 20
But if to that unequal; if the blood,
In sluggish streams about my heart, forbid
That best ambition; under closing shades,
Inglorious iay me by the lowly brook,
And whisper to my dreams. From THEE be-
gin,
25 Dwell all on THEE, with THEE conclude my song;
And let me never, never stray from THEE !
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Lies a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds 95 Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still Combine, and, deepening into night, shut up The day's fair face. The wanderers of hea9
O'er land and sea, imagination roams;
Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind,
Elates his being, and unfolds his powers;
Or in his breast, heroic virtue burns.
The touch of kindred too and love he feels;
The modest eye. whose beams on his alone
Ecstatic shine, the little, strong embrace
Of prattling children, twin'd around his neck.
And emulous to please him, calling forth
The fond parental soul.
NO. 135. WONDERS OF NATURE.
ATURE! great parent! whose unceas-
ing hand
Rolls round the seasons of the changeful year,
How mighty, how majestic are thy works!
With what a pleasing dread they swell the
soul!
That sees astonish'd! and astonish'd sings! 5
Oh NATURE! all-sufficient! over all!
Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works!
Snatch me to heaven; thy rolling wonders
Where rocks and woods o'er hang the turbid| With stars swift-gliding, sweep along the sky.
25 All Nature reels. Till Nature's KING, who oft
Amid tempestuous darkness dwells alone, 45
And on the wings of the careering wind
Walks dreadfully serene, commands a calm ;
Then straight air, sea and earth are hush'd at.
There gathering triple force, rapid and deep, It boils and wheels and foams and thunders through.
NO. 137. THE WINTER STORM.
HEN issues forth the storm, with sudden
burst,
And hurls the whole precipitated air
Down in a torrent. On the passive main,
NO. 138. THE PERISHING SWAIN.
Descends th' ethereal force, and with strong AS thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce
Turns from its bottom the discolor'd deep, Thro' the black night, that sits immense
Lash'd into foam, the fierce conflicting brine
Seems o'er a thousand raging waves, to burn.
Meantime the mountain billows, to the clouds
In dreadful tumult swell'd, surge above surge,
Burst into chaos with tremendous roar,
11
And anchor'a navies from their stations drive,
Wild as the winds, across the howling waste
Of mighty waters. Now th' inflated wave 14
Straining they scale, and now impetuous shoot
Into the secret chambers of the deep,
The wint'ry Baltic thund'ring o'er their head.
Emerging thence again, before the breath
Of full-exerted heaven, they wing their course,
And dart on distant coasts; if some sharp
rock,
20
Or shoal insidious break not their career,
And in loose fragments fling them floating
Nor less at land, the loosen'd tempest reigns. The mountain thunders; and its sturdy sons Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade. 25 Lone on the midnight steep, and all aghast, The dark wayfaring stranger breathless toils, And often falling, climbs against the blast. Low waves the rooted forest, vex'd, and sheds What of its tarnish'd honors yet remain ; 30 Dash'd down, and scatter'd, by the tearing winds'
Assiduous fury, its gigantic limbs.
Thus struggling thro' the dissipated grove, The whirling tempest raves along the plain; And on the cottage thatch'd, or lordly roof, 35 Keen-fastening, shakes them to the solid base. Sleep frighted flies; and round the rocking dome,
For entrance eager, howls the savage blast. Then too, they say, thro' all the burthen'd air,
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds and distant sights,
That, utter'd by the Demon of the night, Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death. Huge uproar lords it wide. The clouds commix'd
All Winter drives along the darkened air; In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend, 4 Of unknown, joyless brow; and other scenes, Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain; Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on From hill to dale, still more and more astray; Impatient flouncing thro' the drifted heaps, 10 Stung with the thoughts of home ; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigor forth
In many a vain attempt. How sinks his soul!
What black despair, what horror fills his heart,
When for the dusky spot, which fancy feign'd
His tufted cottage, rising thro' the snow,
He meets the roughness of the middle waste,
Far from the track and blest abode of man;
While round him, night resistless closes fast,
And every tempest, howling o'er his head, 20
Renders the savage wilderness more wild.
Then throng the busy shapes into his mind,
Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep,
A dire descent! beyond the power of frost ;
Of faithles bogs; of precipices huge,
Smooth'd up with snow; and, what is land,
unknown;
Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift,
Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death,
Mix'd with the tender anguish Nature shoots
Thro' the wrung bosom of the dying man,
His wife, his children and his friends, unseen.
In vain for him th' officious wife prepares 36
The fire fair-blazing and the vestment warm ;
In vain his little children, peeping out
Into the mingling storm, demand their sire,
With tears of artless innocence. Alas! 40
Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home.
On every
The deadly Winter seizes; shuts up sense; And o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows, a stiffened corse,
Stretch'd out, and bleaching in the northern Or hamlets sleeping in the dead of night, 46 Are deep beneath the smothering ruin. whelm'd.
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread
Of misery--sore pierc'd by wintry winds,
How many shrink into the sordid hut
Of cheerless poverty-How many shake
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind,
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse;
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of
life,
They furnish matter for the tragic Muse-- 20 Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell,
With friendship, peace, and contemplation join'd,
How many, rack'd with honest passions, droop In deep retir'd-distress-how many stand 24 Around the death-bed of their dearest friends, And point the parting anguish. Thought fond
Of these, and all the thousand-nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appall'd, 30
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think.
NO 140. THE AVALANCHE.
MONG those hilly regions, where embrac'd
In peaceful vales, the happy Grisons dwell, Oft, rushing sudden from the loaded cliffs, Mountains of snow their gathering torrents roll.
From steep to steep, loud thundering, down they come,
A wintry waste in dire commotion all;
And herds, and flocks, and travellers and
NO. 141. THE ARCTIC ZONE.
TILL pressing on, beyond Tornea's lake,
And Hecla, flaming through a waste of
With which he now oppresses half the globe. 15 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 pil❜d, 20
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 return'd,
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 chain'd,
And bid to roar no more; a bleak expanse,
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless and
void
Of everv life, that from the dreary months,
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they!
Who, here entangled in the gath'ring ice, 35
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 dar'd!)
He for the passage sought, attempted since 5 So much in vain, and seeming to be shut By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
And sometimes whole brigades of marching troops,
+ The other hemisphere.
Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth, to discover the north-east passage.
In these fell regions, in Arsina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate seal'd, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glu'd
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness.
45 The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renew'd with louder rage,
And in dire echoes, bellowing round the main.
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan
And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Hard by these shores, where scarce his Tempest the loosen'd brine, while thro' the freezing stream
Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men ;
And half-enliven'd by the distant sun
That rears and ripens man, as well as plants,
Here human nature wears its rudest form. 54
Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves,
Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer,
They waste the tedious gloom. Immers'd in
furs,
Doze the gross race. Nor sprightly jest, nor
Far from the bleak inhospitable shore,
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Of famish'd monsters, there awaiting wrecks.
Yet PROVIDENCE, that ever-waking Eye, 96
Looks down with pity on the feeble toil
Of mortals, lost to hope, and lights them safe,
Thro' all this dreary labyrinth of fate.
NO. 142. PETER THE GREAT. WHAT WHAT cannot active government perform, New-moulding man! Wide-stretching from these shores,
A people, savage from remotest time,
A huge neglected empire, ONE VAST MIND,
By HEAVEN inspir'd, from Gothic darkness
call'd.
Immortal PETER ! first of monarchs! He
His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her
fens,
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons;
And while the fierce barbarian he subdu'd,
To more exalted soul, he rais'd the man.
de- Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye, who toil'd
Thro' long successive ages, to build up
A laboring plan of state, behold at once,
The wonder done! behold the matchless
prince!
And floods the country round. The rivers swell,
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills, O'er rocks and woods, in broad, brown cata-Who left his native throne, where reign'd till racts,
15 A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once; A mighty shadow of unreal power; And, where they rush, the wide resounding Who greatly spurn'd the slothful pomp of
And roaming every land, in every port
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unweari'd plying the mechanic tool,
Gather'd the seeds of trade, of useful arts,
Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill.
Charg'd with the stores of Europe, home he
goes!
Then cities rise amid th' illumin'd waste;
O'er joyless deserts, smiles the rural reign ; 25
Far-distant flood to flood is social join'd;
Th' astonish'd Euxine hears the Baltic roar ;
Proud navies ride on seas, that never foam'd
With daring keel before; and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repressing
The frantic Alexander of the north,
And awing there stern Othman's shrinking
85 Sloth flies the land, and Ignorance and Vice,
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