ARGUMENT OF THE FIFTH BOOK.
A frosty morning.-The foddering of cattle.-The woodman and his dog.-The poultry.-Whimsical effects of frost at a waterfall.-The empress of Russia's palace of ice.-Amusements of monarchs. -War one of them.-Wars, whence.-And whence monarchy. The evils of it.-English and French loyalty contrasted.-The Bastille, and a prisoner there. Liberty the chief recommendation of this country. Modern patriotism questionable, and why. The perishable nature of the best human institutions. Spiritual liberty not perishable.The slavish state of man by nature.-Deliver him, Deist, if you can.-Grace must do it. The re spective merits of patriots and martyrs stated.Their different treatment.-Happy freedom of the man whom grace makes free.-His relish of the works of God.-Address to the Creator.
'TIS morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb Ascending, fires the 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,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, And, tingeing all with his own rosy hue, From every herb and every 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 I 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, Preposterous sight! the legs without the man. The verdure of the plain lies buried deep Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents, And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest, Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, And, fledged with icy feathers, nod superb. The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man, Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,
And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. He from the stack carves out the accustom'd load, Deep-plunging, and again deep plunging oft, His broad keen knife into the solid mass: Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no heedless care, Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd 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 cropp'd 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 powder'd 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 gossipp'd side by side, Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call The feather'd 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 scatter'd 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. Resign'd To sad necessity, the cock foregoes His wonted strut; and, wading at their head With well-consider'd steps, seems to resent His alter'd gait and stateliness retrench'd. 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 naught; the imprison'd worm is safe
Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs Lie cover'd 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 perch'd aloft By the wayside, 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 fix'd, 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,
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