Branch'd out, in many a long canal extends,
From every province swarming, void of care,
Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep,

On sounding skates, a thousand different ways,
In circling poise, swift as the winds, along,-
The then gay land is madden'd all to joy.
Nor less the northern courts, wide o'er the snow,
Pour a new pomp. Eager, on rapid sleds,
Their vigorous youth, in bold contention, wheel
The long-resounding course. Meantime, to raise
The manly strife, with highly-blooming charms,
Flush'd by the season, Scandinavia's dames,
Or Russia's buxom daughters, glow around.
Pure, quick, and sportful, is the wholesome day,
But soon elaps'd. The horizontal sun,
Broad o'er the south, hangs at his utmost noon;
And, ineffectual, strikes the gelid cliff:
His azure gloss the mountain still maintains,
Nor feels the feeble touch. Perhaps the vale
Relents awhile to the reflected ray;

Or from the forest falls the cluster'd snow;
Myriads of gems, that in the waving gleam
Gay twinkle as they scatter. Thick around
Thunders the sport of those, who with the gun,
And dog impatient bounding at the shot,
Worse than the Season, desolate the fields;
And, adding to the ruins of the year,
Distress the footed or the feather'd game.
But what is this? Our infant Winter sinks,
Divested of his grandeur, should our eye
Astonish'd shoot into the frigid zone;
Where, for relentless months, continual Night
Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.
There, thro' the prison of unbounded wilds,
Barr'd by the hand of Nature from escape,
Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around

85 0

800

Strikes his sad eye but deserts lost in snow,
And heavy loaded groves, and solid flood,
That stretch, athwart the solitary vast,
Their icy horrors to the frozen main;

15

420

And cheerless towns far distant, never bless'd,"
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay,*
With news of human kind. Yet there life glows;
Yet cherish'd there, beneath the shining waste, -
The furry nations harbour, tipp'd with jet,
Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press;
Sables, of glossy black; and dark-embrown'd,
Or beauteous freak'd with many a mingled hue,
Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts.
There warm together press'd, the trooping deer
Sleep on the new fall'n snows; and, scarce his head
Rais'd o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss.
The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils;-
Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives
The fearful flying race; with pond'rous clubs,
As weak against the mountain heaps they push
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray,
He lays them quivering on th' ensanguin'd snows;«-
And with loud shouts rejoicing, bears them home.
There, thro' the piny forest, half absorpt,
Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear,
With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn;
Slow-pac'd and sourer as the storms increase,
He makes his bed beneath th' inclement drift,
And with stern patience, scorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against assailing want..
Wide o'er the spacious regions of the north,

That see Bootes urge his tardy wain,

* The old name for China.

A boisterous race, by frosty Caurus* pierc'd,
Who little pleasure know, and fear no pain,
Prolific swarm. They once relum'd the flame
Of lost mankind in polish'd slavery sunk;

Drove martial horde on horde,† with dreadful sweep
Resistless rushing o'er th' enfeebled south,
And gave the vanquish'd world another form.
Not such the sons of Lapland: wisely they
Despise th' insensate barbarous trade of war;
They ask no more than simple Nature gives,
They love their mountains, and enjoy their storms.
No false desires, no pride-created wants,
Disturb the peaceful current of their time;
And through the restless ever-tortur'd maze
Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it rage..

Their rein-deer form their riches. These, their tents,
Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth
Supply, their wholesome fare, and cheerful cups:
Obsequious at their call, the docile tribe

860

Yield to the sled their necks, and whirl them swift
O'er hill and dale, heap'd into one expanse
Of marbled snow, as far as eye can sweep,
With a blue crust of ice unbounded glaz'd,
By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless shake
A waving blaze refracted o'er the heavens,
And vivid moons, and stars that keener play
With double lustre from the glossy waste;
E'en in the depth of polar night, they find
A wondrous day: enough to light the chase,
Or guide their daring steps to Findland fairs.
Wish'd Spring returns, and from the hazy south,

While dim Aurora slowly moves before,
The welcome sun, just verging up at first,

*The North-west wind.

†The wandering Scythian clans.

965

By small degrees extends the swelling curve;
Till seen at last for gay rejoicing months,-
Still round and round, his spiral course he winds
And as he nearly dips his flaming orb,
Wheels up again, and re-ascends the sky.
In that glad season, from the lakes and flood,
Where pure Niemi's* fairy mountains rise,
And, fring'd with roses, Tengliof rolls his stream,
They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve,
They, cheerful loaded, to their tents repair;
Where, all day long in useful cares employ'd,
Their kind unblemish'd wives the fire prepare.-0
Thrice happy race! by poverty secur'd
From legal plunder and rapacious power:
In whom fell interest never yet has sown

885

The seeds of vice: whose spotless swains ne'er knew
Injurious deed; nor, blasted by the breath
Of faithless love, their blooming daughters wo.
Still pressing on beyond Tornea's lake,
And Hecla flaming through a waste of snow,
And furthest Greenland, to the pole itself,

* M. de Maupertuis, in his book on the Figure of the Earth, after having described the beautiful lake and mountains of Niemi, in Lapland, says, " From this height we had an opportunity several times to see those vapours rise from the lake which the people of the country call Haltios, and which they deem to be the guardian spirits of the mountains. We had been frighted with stories of bears that haunted this place, but saw none. It seemed rather a place of resort for fairies and genii, than bears."

The same author observes, "I was surprised to see upon the banks of this river (the Tenglio) roses of as lively a red as any that are in our gardens.

1

1

Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out,-
The Muse expands her solitary flight;

895

And, hovering o'er the wild, stupendous scene,
Beholds new seas beneath another sky,*
Thron'd in his palace of cerulean ice,
Here Winter holds his unrejoicing court-
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is for ever 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 pil'd,
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 vold
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 other hemisphere.