English Poets of the Eighteenth Century · Chapter 29James Thomson
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The keener tempests come; and, fuming dun From all the livid east or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend, in whose capacious womb A vapoury deluge lies, to snow congealed. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along, And the sky saddens with the gathered storm. Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends, At first thin wavering, till at last the flakes Fall broad and wide and fast, dimming the day With a continual flow. The cherished fields Put on their winter robe of purest white; 'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current; low the woods Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun Faint from the west emits his evening ray, Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill, Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven, Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around The winnowing store, and claim the little boon Which Providence assigns them. One alone, The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit: half-afraid, he first Against the window beats; then brisk alights On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is, Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Though timorous of heart and hard beset By death in various forms—dark snares, and dogs, And more unpitying men,—the garden seeks, Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the black heaven, and next the glistening earth, With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispersed, Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.
Now, shepherds, to your helpless charge be kind: Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens With food at will; lodge them below the storm, And watch them strict, for from the bellowing east, In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing Sweeps up the burthen of whole wintry plains At one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks, Hid in the hollow of two neighbouring hills, The billowy tempest whelms, till, upward urged, The valley to a shining mountain swells, Tipped with a wreath high-curling in the sky.
As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce All Winter drives along the darkened air, In his own loose-revolving fields the swain Disastered stands; sees other hills ascend, 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 through the drifted heaps, Stung with the thoughts of home. The thoughts of home Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour 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 feigned
His tufted cottage rising through 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, Renders the savage wilderness more wild! Then throng the busy shapes into his mind Of covered pits unfathomably deep (A dire descent!), beyond the power of frost; Of faithless bogs; of precipices huge, Smoothed up with snow; and—what is land unknown, What water—of the still unfrozen spring, In the loose marsh or solitary lake, Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. These check his fearful steps; and down he sinks Beneath the shelter of the shapeless drift, Thinking o'er all the bitterness of death, Mixed with the tender anguish nature shoots Through the wrung bosom of the dying man— His wife, his children, and his friends unseen. In vain for him th' officious wife prepares 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! Nor wife nor children more shall he behold, Nor friends nor sacred home: on every nerve The deadly Winter seizes, shuts up sense, And, o'er his inmost vitals creeping cold, Lays him along the snows a stiffened corse, Stretched out and bleaching in the northern blast.
Ah, little think the gay licentious proud Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround; They who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth And wanton, often cruel, riot waste; Ah, little think they, while they dance along, How many feel, this very moment, death And all the sad variety of pain: How many sink in the devouring flood, Or more devouring flame; how many bleed, By shameful variance betwixt man and man; How many pine in want, and dungeon glooms,
Shut from the common air, and common use Of their own limbs; how many drink the cup Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread Of misery; sore pierced 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; Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell, With friendship, peace, and contemplation joined, How many, racked with honest passions, droop In deep retired distress; how many stand Around the deathbed of their dearest friends, And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man 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 appalled, And heedless rambling impulse learn to think; The conscious heart of charity would warm, And her wide wish benevolence dilate; The social tear would rise, the social sigh; And into clear perfection, gradual bliss, Refining still, the social passions work.
From SUMMER
Forever running an enchanted round, Passes the day, deceitful vain and void, As fleets the vision o'er the formful brain, This moment hurrying wild th' impassioned soul, The nest in nothing lost. 'Tis so to him, The dreamer of this earth, an idle blank; A sight of horror to the cruel wretch, Who all day long in sordid pleasure rolled, Himself an useless load, has squandered vile, Upon his scoundrel train, what might have cheered A drooping family of modest worth.
But to the generous still-improving mind, That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy, Diffusing kind beneficence around, Boastless,—as now descends the silent dew,— To him the long review of ordered life Is inward rapture, only to be felt.
Come, gentle Spring, ethereal mildness, come! And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, While music wakes around, veiled in a shower Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend!
O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts With unaffected grace, or walk the plain With Innocence and Meditation joined In soft assemblage, listen to my song, Which thy own season paints, when nature all Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.
And see where surly Winter passes off, Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts: His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill, The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale; While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch— Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost— The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed, And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day delightless; so that scarce The bittern knows his time, with bill engulfed, To shake the sounding marsh, or from the shore The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath And sing their wild notes to the listening waste. At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun, And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more Th' expansive atmosphere is cramped with cold, But, full of life and vivifying soul, Lifts the light clouds sublime and spreads them thin, Fleecy and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven;
Forth fly the tepid airs, and, unconfined, Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays. Joyous, th' impatient husbandman perceives Relenting nature, and his lusty steers Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost; There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil, Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark; Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share The master leans, removes th' obstructing clay, Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe. White through the neighbouring fields the sower stalks, With measured step, and liberal throws the grain Into the faithful bosom of the ground; The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.
Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow! Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend! And temper all, thou world-reviving sun, Into the perfect year! Nor ye who live In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride, Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear. Such themes as these the rural Maro sung To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined. In ancient times, the sacred plough employed The kings and awful fathers of mankind; And some, with whom compared your insect tribes Are but the beings of a summer's day, Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm Of mighty war, then with victorious hand, Disdaining little delicacies, seized The plough, and, greatly independent, scorned All the vile stores corruption can bestow. Ye generous Britons, venerate the plough; And o'er your hills and long-withdrawing vales Let Autumn spread his treasures to the sun, Luxuriant and unbounded! As the sea, Far through his azure, turbulent domain, Your empire owns, and from a thousand shores Wafts all the pomp of life into your ports,
So with superior boon may your rich soil Exuberant, Nature's better blessings pour O'er every land, the naked nations clothe, And be th' exhaustless granary of a world.
Nor only through the lenient air this change, Delicious, breathes: the penetrative sun, His force deep-darting to the dark retreat Of vegetation, sets the steaming power At large, to wander o'er the verdant earth, In various hues—but chiefly thee, gay green! Thou smiling Nature's universal robe, United light and shade, where the sight dwells With growing strength and ever new delight. From the moist meadow to the withered hill, Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs, And swells and deepens to the cherished eye. The hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, Till the whole leafy forest stands displayed In full luxuriance to the sighing gales, Where the deer rustle through the twining brake, And the birds sing concealed. At once, arrayed In all the colours of the flushing year By Nature's swift and secret-working hand, The garden glows, and fills the liberal air With lavished fragrance, while the promised fruit Lies yet a little embryo, unperceived, Within its crimson folds. Now from the town, Buried in smoke and sleep and noisome damps, Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields, Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk; Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains, And see the country, far diffused around, One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower Of mingled blossoms, where the raptured eye Hurries from joy to joy, and, hid beneath The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.
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What is this mighty breath, ye sages, say, That in a powerful language, felt not heard, Instructs the fowl of heaven, and through their breast These arts of love diffuses? What but God? Inspiring God! who boundless spirit all, And unremitting energy, pervades, Adjusts, sustains, and agitates the whole. He ceaseless works alone, and yet alone Seems not to work; with such perfection framed Is this complex, stupendous scheme of things. But, though concealed, to every purer eye Th' informing author in his works appears: Chief, lovely Spring, in thee, and thy soft scenes, The smiling God is seen; while water, earth, And air attest his bounty; which exalts The brute creation to this finer thought, And annual melts their undesigning hearts Profusely thus in tenderness and joy,
Still let my song a nobler note assume, And sing th' infusive force of Spring on man, When heaven and earth, as if contending, vie To raise his being, and serene his soul. Can he forbear to join the general smile Of nature? Can fierce passions vex his breast, While every gale is peace, and every grove Is melody? Hence from the bounteous walks Of flowing Spring, ye sordid sons of earth, Hard, and unfeeling of another's woe; Or only lavish to yourselves; away! But come, ye generous minds, la whose wide thought, Of all his works, creative bounty burns With warmest beam!
But see! the fading many-coloured woods, Shade deepening over shade, the country round Imbrown, a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue from wan declining green To sooty dark. These now the lonesome Muse, Low-whispering, lead into their leaf-strown walks, And give the season in its latest view. Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm Fleeces unbounded ether, whose least wave Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn The gentle current, while, illumined wide, The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun, And through their lucid veil his softened force Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time, For those whom wisdom and whom nature charm, To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd, And soar above this little scene of things, To tread low-thoughted Vice beneath their feet, To soothe the throbbing passions into peace, And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks. Thus solitary, and in pensive guise, Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard One dying strain to cheer the woodman's toil. Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint, Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse; While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks, And each wild throat whose artless strains so late Swelled all the music of the swarming shades, Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock, With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, And naught save chattering discord in their note. Oh, let not, aimed from some inhuman eye, The gun the music of the coming year Destroy, and harmless, unsuspecting harm, Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey, In mingled murder fluttering on the ground! The pale descending year, yet pleasing still, A gentler mood inspires: for now the leaf Incessant rustles from the mournful grove, Oft startling such as, studious, walk below, And slowly circles through the waving air; But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams, Till, choked and matted with the dreary shower, The forest walks, at every rising gale, Roll wide the withered waste and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields, And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign; even what remained Of stronger fruits fall from the naked tree; And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around, The desolated, prospect thrills the soul.
These, as they change, Almighty Father, these, Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth In the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide-flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense, and every heart is joy. Then comes thy glory in the summer-months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year: And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks; And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales. Thy bounty shines in autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In winter awful thou' with clouds and storms Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing, Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore, And humblest nature with thy northern blast.
Mysterious round! what skill, what force Divine Deepfelt, in these appear! a simple train, Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, Such beauty and beneficence combined: Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade; And all so forming an harmonious whole;
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. But wandering oft, with brute unconscious gaze, Man marks not Thee, marks not the mighty hand; That, ever-busy, wheels the silent spheres; Works in the secret deep; shoots, steaming, thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring: Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth; And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, With transport touches all the springs of life.
Nature, attend! join every living soul, Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join; and ardent raise One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales, Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes. Oh, talk of Him in solitary glooms Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religious awe; And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven Th' impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; And let me catch it as I muse along. Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall. So roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. Ye forests, bend, ye harvests, wave to Him; Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. Ye that keep watch in Heaven, as earth asleep Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams; Ye constellations, while your angels strike, Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre.
Great source of day! blest image here below Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide, Prom world to world, the vital ocean round, On nature write with every beam His praise. The thunder rolls: be hushed the prostrate world, While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks, Retain the sound; the broad responsive low, Ye valleys, raise; for the Great Shepherd reigns, And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Ye woodlands, all awake; a boundless song Burst from the groves; and when the restless day, Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles; At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all, Crown the great hymn! in swarming cities vast, Assembled men to the deep organ join The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear, At solemn pauses, through the swelling base; And, as each mingling flame increases each, In one united ardour rise to Heaven. Or if you rather choose the rural shade, And find a fane in every sacred grove, There let the shepherd's lute, the virgin's lay, The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, Or Winter rises in the blackening east— Se my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more, And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.
Should Fate command me to the furthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me; Since God is ever present, ever felt, In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes, there must be joy. When even at last the solemn hour shall come, And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, I cheerfully will obey; there with new powers, Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go Where Universal Love not smiles around, Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns; From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression. But I lose Myself in Him, in Light ineffable! Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise.
When Britain first, at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sang this strain: Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves! Britons never will be slaves!
The nations not so blest as thee, Must in their turns to tyrants fall, Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free, The dread and envy of them all. Rule, Britannia, etc.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise, More dreadful from each foreign stroke; As the loud blast that tears the skies, Serves but to root thy native oak. Rule, Britannia, etc.
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame; And their attempts to bend thee down Will but arouse thy generous flame, But work their woe and thy renown. Rule, Britannia, etc.
To thee belongs the rural reign; Thy cities shall with commerce shine; All thine shall be the subject main, And every shore it circles thine. Rule, Britannia, etc.
The Muses, still with freedom found, Shall to thy happy coast repair; Blest isle, with matchless beauty crowned, And manly hearts to guard the fair! Rule, Britannia, etc.
From THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE
O mortal man, who livest here by toil, Do not complain of this thy hard estate: That like an emmet thou must ever moil Is a sad sentence of an ancient date; And, certes, there is for it reason great, For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, Withouten that would come an heavier bale— Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round, A most enchanting wizard did abide, Than whom, a fiend more fell is nowhere found. It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground; And there a season atween June and May, Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrowned, A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, No living wight could work, ne carèd even for play.
Was naught around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest, From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played, And hurlèd everywhere their waters sheen, That, as they bickered through the sunny glade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
Joined to the prattle of the purling rills, Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, And flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills, And vacant shepherds piping in the dale; And now and then sweet Philomel would wail, Or stock doves 'plain amid the forest deep, That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale; And still a coil the grasshopper did keep: Yet all these sounds, yblent, inclinèd all to sleep.
Pull in the passage of the vale, above, A sable, silent, solemn forest stood, Where naught but shadowy forms was seen to move, As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood; And up the hills, on either side, a wood Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro, Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood; And where this valley winded out, below, The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.
A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was: Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky. There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures, always hovered nigh; But whate'er smacked of 'noyance or unrest Was far, far off expelled from this delicious nest.
The landskip such, inspiring perfect ease, Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight) Close-hid his castle mid embowering trees, That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright, And made a kind of checkered day and night. Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate, Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight Was placed; and, to his lute, of cruel fate And labour harsh complained, lamenting man's estate.
Thither continual pilgrims crowded still, From all the roads of earth that pass there by; For, as they chaunced to breathe on neighbouring hill, The freshness of this valley smote their eye, And drew them ever and anon more nigh, Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung, Ymolten with his syren melody. While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung, And to the trembling chords these tempting verses sung:
'Behold, ye pilgrims of this earth, behold! See all but man with unearned pleasure gay! See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May. What youthful bride can equal her array? Who can with her for easy pleasure vie? From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.
'Behold the merry minstrels of the morn, The swarming songsters of the careless grove, Ten thousand throats that, from the flowering thorn, Hymn their good God and carol sweet of love, Such grateful kindly raptures them emove! They neither plough nor sow; ne, fit for flail, E'er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove; Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale, Whatever crowns the hill or smiles along the vale.
'Outcast of Nature, man! the wretched thrall Of bitter-dropping sweat, of sweltry pain, Of cares that eat away thy heart with gall, And of the vices, an inhuman train, That all proceed from savage thirst of gain: For when hard-hearted Interest first began To poison earth, Astraea left the plain; Guile, violence, and murder seized on man, And, for soft milky streams, with blood the rivers ran.'
He ceased. But still their trembling ears retained The deep vibrations of his 'witching song, That, by a kind of magic power, constrained To enter in, pell-mell, the listening throng: Heaps poured on heaps, and yet they slipped along In silent ease; as when beneath the beam Of summer moons, the distant woods among, Or by some flood all silvered with the gleam, The soft-embodied fays through airy portal stream.
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Of all the gentle tenants of the place, There was a man of special grave remark; A certain tender gloom o'erspread his face, Pensive, not sad; in thought involved, not dark; As soote this man could sing as morning lark, And teach the noblest morals of the heart; But these his talents were yburied stark: Of the fine stores he nothing would impart, Which or boon Nature gave, or nature-painting Art.
To noontide shades incontinent he ran, Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound, Or when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began, Amid the broom he basked him on the ground, Where the wild thyme and camomil are found; There would he linger, till the latest ray Of light sate trembling on the welkin's bound, Then homeward through the twilight shadows stray, Sauntering and slow: so had he passed many a day.
Yet not in thoughtless slumber were they passed; For oft the heavenly fire, that lay concealed Beneath the sleeping embers, mounted fast, And all its native light anew revealed; Oft as he traversed the cerulean field, And marked the clouds that drove before the wind, Ten thousand glorious systems would he build, Ten thousand great ideas filled his mind: But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace behind.