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A SKETCH OF

THE ALPS AT DAY-BREAK.

ROGERS.

THE sun-beams streak the azure skies;
And line with light the mountain's brow;
With hounds and horns the hunters rise,
And chace the roe buck through the snow.

From rock to rock, with giant-bound,
High on their iron poles they pass;
Mute, lest the air, convuls'd by sound,
Bend from above a frozen mass. †

The goats wind slow their wonted way,
Up craggy steeps and ridges rude;
Mark'd by the wild wolf for his prey,
From desert cave or hanging wood.
And while the torrent thunders loud,
And as the echoing cliffs reply,
The huts peep o'er the morning cloud,
Perch'd like an eagle's nest on high.

THE HAMLET.

WARTON.

THE hinds how blest, who ne'er beguil'd
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn wild;
Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main,
For splendid care, and guilty gain!

When morning's twilight tinctur'd beam
Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam,

+ There are passes in the Alps, where the guides tell you to move on with speed, and say nothing, lest the agitation of the air should loosen the snows above-GRAY. Sect v. Let: 4.

They rove abroad in ether blue,
To dip the scythe in fragrant dew:
The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell
That nodding shades a craggy deli.

Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear,
Wild nature's sweetest notes they hear :
On green untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue;

In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds,
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds:
And startle from her ashen spray,
Across the glen, the screaming jay:
Each native charm their steps explore
Of solitude's sequester'd store.

For them the moon with cloudless ray
Mounts, to illume their homeward way:
Their weary spirits to relieve,

The meadow's incense breathe at eve.
No riot mars the simple fare

That o'er a glimmering hearth they share:
But when the curfew's measur'd roar

Duly, the dark'ning vallies o'er,
Has echo'd from the distant town,
They wish no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.

Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or through the primros'd coppice stray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay:
Or quaintly braid the cowslip twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;
Or hasten from the sultry hill
To loiter at the shady rill;

Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest

To rob the raven's ancient nest.

Their humble porch with honied flowers, The curling woodbine's shade embowers: From the small garden's thymy mound

Their bees in busy swarms resound:

Nor fell Disease, before his time,
Hastes to consume life's golden prime:
But when their temples long have wore
The silver crown of tresses hoar;
As studious still calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flow'ry turf they sleep.

HYMN TO THE RISING SUN.

LANGHORNE.

FROM the red wave rising bright,
Lift on high thy golden head;
O'er the misty mountain spread
Thy smiling rays of orient light;
See the golden God appear!
Flies the fiend of darkness drear;
Flies, and in her gloomy train,
Sable grief, and caré, and pain!
See the golden god advance!

On Taurus' heights his coursers prance;
With him haste the vernal hours,
Breathing sweets and dropping flowers,
Laughing summer at his side,

Waves her locks in rosy pride;
And autumu bland, with aspect kind,
Bears his golden sheaf behind,
O haste, and spread the purple day
O'er all the wide ethereal way!
Nature mourns at thy delay:
God of glory haste away!
From the red wave rising bright,
Lift on high thy golden head;
O'er the misty mountains spread
Thy smiling rays of orient light!

WINTER PIECE.

PHILLIPS..

FROM frozen climes, and endless tracts of snow,
From streams which Northern winds forbid to flow,
What present shall the muse to Dorset bring,
Or how, so near the pole, attempt to sing?
The hoary winter here conceals from sight
All pleasing objects which to verse invite.
The hills and dales, and the delightful woods,
The flow'ry plains, and silver-streaming floods,
By snow disguis'd, in bright confusion lie,
And with one dazzling waste fatigue the eye.
No gentle breathing breeze prepares the spring,
No birds within the desert region sing:
The ships unmov'd the boist'rous winds defy,
While rattling chariots o'er the ocean fly.
The vast laviathan wants room to play,
And spout his waters in the face of day.
The starving wolves along the main sea prowl,
And to the moon in icy valleys howl;
O'er many a shining league the level main,
Here spreads itself into a glassy plain;
There solid billows of enormous size,
Alps of green ice, in wild disorder rise:

And yet but lately have I seen, e'en here-
The winter in a lovely dress appear,

Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasur'd snow,
Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow,
At evening a keen breeze arose,

And the descending rain unsully'd froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn disclos'd at once to view
The face of nature in a rich disguise,
And brighten'd every object to my eyes:
For every shrub and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn seem'd wrought in glass i

G 3..

In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow.
The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes yield,
Seem'd polish'd lances in a hostile field.

The stag, in limpid currents, with surprize,
Sees chrystal branches on his forehead rise:
The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine,
Glaz'd over, in the freezing ether shine;
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
Which wave and glitter in the distant sun.
When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies,

The cracking wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled show'r the prospect ends:
Or, if a southern gale the region warm,
And by degrees unbind the wintry charm,
The traveller a miry country sees,

And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees:
Like some deluded peasant, Merlin leads
Through fragrant bow'rs, and through delicious
meads,

While here enchanted gardens to him rise,
And airy fabrics there attract his eyes,
His wand'ring feet the magic paths pursue,
And, while he thinks the fair illusion true,
The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air,
And woods, and wilds, and thorny ways appear,
A tedious road the weary wretch returns,
And, as he goes, the transient vision mourns.

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