Classic Poem

See! Winter comes to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his varied train,
Vapours, and clouds, and storms: be these my theme,
These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought,
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!
Wished, wintry horrors, hail! With frequent foot,
Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nursed by careless Solitude I lived,
And sung of nature with unceasing joy,
Pleased have I wandered through your rough domains;
Trod the pure, virgin snows, myself as pure,
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst,
Or seen the deep, fermenting tempest brewed
In the red evening sky. Thus passed the time,
Till, through the opening chambers of the south,
Looked out the joyous Spring, looked out and smiled.
Thee too, inspirer of the toiling swain!
Fair Autumn, yellow-robed! I'll sing of thee,
Of thy last, tempered days and sunny calms;
When all the golden Hours are on the wing,
Attending thy retreat and round thy wain,
Slow-rolling onward to the southern sky.
Behold! the well-poised hornet hovering hangs,
With quivering pinions, in the genial blaze;
Flies off in airy circles, then returns,
And hums and dances to the beating ray:
Nor shall the man that musing walks alone,
And heedless strays within his radiant lists,
Go unchastised away. Sometimes a fleece
Of clouds, wide-scattering, with a lucid veil
Soft shadow o'er th' unruffled face of heaven;
And, through their dewy sluices, shed the sun
With tempered influence down. 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 lay their passions in a gentle calm,
And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.
Now solitary, and in pensive guise,
Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,
Or through the pining grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain to cheer the woodman's toil:
Sad Philomel, perchance, pours forth her plaint
Far through the withering copse. Meanwhile, the leaves,
That late the forest clad with lively green,
Nipped by the drizzly night, and sallow-hued,
Fall, wavering, through the air; or shower amain,
Urged by the breeze that sobs amid the boughs.
Then list'ning hares forsake the rustling woods,
And, starting at the frequent noise, escape
To the rough stubble and the rushy fen.
Then woodcocks o'er the fluctuating main,
That glimmers to the glimpses of the moon,
Stretch their long voyage to the woodland glade,
Where, wheeling with uncertain flight, they mock
The nimble fowler's aim. Now Nature droops;
Languish the living herbs with pale decay,
And all the various family of flowers
Their sunny robes resign. The falling fruits,
Through the still night, forsake the parent-bough,
That, in the first grey glances of the dawn,
Looks wild, and wonders at the wintry waste.
The year, yet pleasing but declining fast,
Soft o'er the secret soul, in gentle gales,
A philosophic melancholy breathes,
And bears the swelling thought aloft to heaven.
Then forming fancy rouses to conceive
What never mingled with the vulgar's dream:
Then wake the tender pang, the pitying tear,
The sigh for suffering worth, the wish preferred
For humankind, the joy to see them blessed,
And all the social offspring of the heart!
Oh! bear me then to high, embowering shades,
To twilight groves, and visionary vales,
To weeping grottoes and to hoary caves;
Where angel-forms are seen, and voices heard,
Sighed in low whispers, that abstract the soul
From outward sense, far into worlds remote.
Now, when the western sun withdraws the day,
And humid Evening, gliding o'er the sky,
In her chill progress checks the straggling beams,
And robs them of their gathered, vapoury prey,
Where marshes stagnate and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn: then slow descend,
Once more to mingle with their watry friends.
The vivid stars shine out in radiant files,
And boundless ether glows; till the fair moon
Shows her broad visage in the crimsoned east;
Now, stooping, seems to kiss the passing cloud,
Now o'er the pure cerulean rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats with silver waves,
O'er the skied mountain to the low-laid vale;
From the white rocks, with dim reflection, gleams,
And faintly glitters through the waving shades.
All night, abundant dews unnoted fall,
And, at return of morning, silver o'er
The face of mother-earth; from every branch
Depending, tremble the translucent gems,
And, quivering, seem to fall away, yet cling,
And sparkle in the sun, whose rising eye,
With fogs bedimmed, portends a beauteous day.
Now giddy youth, whom headlong passions fire,
Rouse the wild game, and stain the guiltless grove
With violence and death; yet call it sport
To scatter ruin through the realms of Love,
And Peace, that thinks no ill: but these the Muse,
Whose charity unlimited extends
As wide as Nature works, disdains to sing,
Returning to her nobler theme in view.
For see! where Winter comes, himself confessed,
Striding the gloomy blast. First rains obscure
Drive through the mingling skies with tempest foul;
Beat on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods
That, sounding, wave below. The dreary plain
Lies overwhelmed and lost. The bellying clouds
Combine and, deepening into night, shut up
The day's fair face. The wanderers of heaven,
Each to his home, retire; save those that love
To take their pastime in the troubled air,
And, skimming, flutter round the dimply flood.
The cattle from th' untasted fields return,
And ask, with meaning low, their wonted stalls,
Or ruminate in the contiguous shade:
Thither the household, feathery people crowd,
The crested cock with all his female train,
Pensive and wet. Meanwhile, the cottage-swain
Hangs o'er th' enlivening blaze and, taleful, there
Recounts his simple frolic: much he talks
And much he laughs, nor recks the storm that blows
Without, and rattles on his humble roof.
At last the muddy deluge pours along,
Resistless, roaring; dreadful down it comes
From the chapped mountain and the mossy wild,
Tumbling through rocks abrupt, and sounding far:
Then o'er the sanded valley, floating, spreads,
Calm, sluggish, silent; till again constrained
Betwixt two meeting hills, it bursts a way,
Where rocks and woods o'erhang the turbid stream.
There gathering triple force, rapid and deep,
It boils, and wheels, and foams, and thunders through.
Nature! great parent! whose directing 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, astonished! and astonished sings!
You too, ye winds! that now begin to blow
With boisterous sweep, I raise my voice to you.
Where are your stores, ye viewless beings! say,
Where your aerial magazines reserved,
Against the day of tempest perilous?
In what untravelled country of the air,
Hushed in still silence, sleep you when 'tis calm?
Late, in the louring sky, red, fiery streaks
Begin to flush about; the reeling clouds
Stagger with dizzy aim, as doubting yet
Which master to obey; while rising slow,
Sad, in the leaden-coloured east, the moon
Wears a bleak circle round her sullied orb.
Then issues forth the storm with loud control,
And the thin fabric of the pillared air
O'erturns at once. Prone on th' uncertain main
Descends th' ethereal force, and ploughs its waves
With dreadful rift: from the mid-deep appears,
Surge after surge, the rising, watry war.
Whitening, the angry billows roll immense,
And roar their terrors through the shuddering soul
Of feeble man, amidst their fury caught,
And dashed upon his fate. Then, o'er the cliff
Where dwells the sea-mew, unconfined they fly,
And, hurrying, swallow up the sterile shore.
The mountain growls, and all its sturdy sons
Stoop to the bottom of the rocks they shade:
Lone on its midnight-side, and all aghast,
The dark, wayfaring stranger, breathless, toils,
And climbs against the blast —
Low waves the rooted forest, vexed, and sheds
What of its leafy honours yet remains.
Thus, struggling through the dissipated grove,
The whirling tempest raves along the plain;
And, on the cottage thatched or lordly dome
Keen-fastening, shakes 'em to the solid base.
Sleep, frighted, flies; the hollow chimney howls,
The windows rattle, and the hinges creak.
Then too, they say, through all the burthened air
Long groans are heard, shrill sounds and distant sighs,
That, murmured by the demon of the night,
Warn the devoted wretch of woe and death!
Wild uproar lords it wide: the clouds commixed
With stars, swift-gliding, sweep along the sky.
All nature reels. But hark! the Almighty speaks:
Instant the chidden storm begins to pant,
And dies at once into a noiseless calm.
As yet 'tis midnight's reign; the weary clouds,
Slow-meeting, mingle into solid gloom.
Now, while the drowsy world lies lost in sleep,
Let me associate with the low-browed Night,
And Contemplation, her sedate compeer;
Let me shake off th' intrusive cares of day,
And lay the meddling senses all aside.
And now, ye lying Vanities of life!
You ever-tempting, ever-cheating train!
Where are you now? and what is your amount?
Vexation, disappointment and remorse.
Sad, sickening thought! and yet deluded man,
A scene of wild, disjointed visions past,
And broken slumbers, rises still resolved,
With new-flushed hopes, to run your giddy round.
Father of light and life! Thou Good Supreme,
O! teach me what is good! teach me thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity and vice,
From every low pursuit! and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!
Lo! from 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 th' impending 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. See! sudden hoared,
The woods beneath the stainless burden bow;
Black'ning, along the mazy stream it melts.
Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is all one dazzling waste. 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
That Providence allows. 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 bleak heavens, 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 blast,
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
In one fierce blast, and o'er th' unhappy flocks,
Lodged in the hollow of two neighbouring hills,
The billowy tempest whelms; till, upwards urged,
The valley to a shining mountain swells,
That curls its wreaths amid the freezing sky.
Now, amid all the rigours of the year,
In the wild depth of winter, while without
The ceaseless winds blow keen, be my retreat
A rural, sheltered, solitary scene,
Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join
To chase the cheerless gloom: there let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead,
Sages of ancient times, as gods revered,
As gods beneficent, who blessed mankind
With arts and arms, and humanised a world.
Roused at th' inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-lived volume and, deep-musing, hail
The sacred shades that, slowly-rising, pass
Before my wondering eyes. First, Socrates,
Truth's early champion, martyr for his god;
Solon the next, who built his commonweal
On equity's firm base; Lycurgus then,
Severely good; and him of rugged Rome,
Numa, who softened her rapacious sons;
Cimon sweet-souled, and Aristides just;
Unconquered Cato, virtuous in extreme;
With that attempered hero, mild and firm,
Who wept the brother, while the tyrant bled;
Scipio, the humane warrior, gently brave,
Fair learning's friend, who early sought the shade,
To dwell with Innocence and Truth retired;
And, equal to the best, the Theban, he
Who, single, raised his country into fame.
Thousands behind, the boast of Greece and Rome,
Whom Virtue owns, the tribute of a verse
Demand, but who can count the stars of heaven?
Who sing their influence on this lower world?
But see who yonder comes! nor comes alone,
With sober state and of majestic mien,
The Sister-Muses in his train. 'Tis he!
Maro! the best of poets and of men!
Great Homer too appears, of daring wing!
Parent of song! and, equal, by his side,
The British Muse; joined hand in hand they walk,
Darkling, nor miss their way to fame's ascent.
Society divine! Immortal minds!
Still visit thus my nights, for you reserved,
And mount my soaring soul to deeds like yours.
Silence! thou lonely power! the door be thine:
See on the hallowed hour that none intrude,
Save Lycidas, the friend with sense refined,
Learning digested well, exalted faith,
Unstudied wit, and humour ever gay.
Clear frost succeeds and, through the blue serene,
For sight too fine, th' ethereal nitre flies,
To bake the glebe and bind the slipp'ry flood.
This of the wintry season is the prime;
Pure are the days, and lustrous are the nights,
Brightened with starry worlds till then unseen.
Meanwhile the orient, darkly red, breathes forth
An icy gale that, in its mid-career,
Arrests the bickering stream. The nightly sky,
And all her glowing constellations, pour
Their rigid influence down. It freezes on
Till morn, late-rising, o'er the drooping world
Lifts her pale eye, unjoyous: then appears
The various labour of the silent night,
The pendant icicle, the frost-work fair
Where thousand figures rise, the crusted snow,
Though white, made whiter by the fining north.
On blithesome frolics bent, the youthful swains,
While every work of man is laid at rest,
Rush o'er the watry plains and, shuddering, view
The fearful deeps below; or with the gun
And faithful spaniel range the ravaged fields,
And, adding to the ruins of the year,
Distress the feathery or the footed game.
But hark! the nightly winds, with hollow voice,
Blow blustering from the south. The frost subdued
Gradual resolves into a weeping thaw.
Spotted, the mountains shine; loose sleet descends,
And floods the country round; the rivers swell,
Impatient for the day. Those sullen seas,
That wash th' ungenial pole, will rest no more
Beneath the shackles of the mighty north,
But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave.
And hark! the length'ning roar continuous runs
Athwart the rifted main; at once it bursts,
And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds!
Ill fares the bark, the wretches' last resort,
That, lost amid the floating fragments, moors
Beneath the shelter of an icy isle,
While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks
More horrible. Can human hearts endure
Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege them round:
Unlist'ning hunger, fainting weariness,
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renewed with louder rage,
And bellowing round the main? Nations remote,
Shook from their midnight-slumbers, deem they hear
Portentous thunder in the troubled sky.
More to embroil the deep, leviathan
And his unwieldy train, in horrid sport,
Tempest the loosened brine; while through the gloom,
Far from the dire, unhospitable shore,
The lion's rage, the wolf's sad howl is heard,
And all the fell society of night.
Yet Providence, that ever-waking eye,
Looks down with pity on the fruitless toil
Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe
Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.
'Tis done! Dread Winter has subdued the year,
And reigns tremendous o'er the desert plains!
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His solitary empire. Now, fond Man!
Behold thy pictured life: pass some few years,
Thy flow'ring Spring, thy shortlived Summer's strength,
Thy sober Autumn fading into age,
And pale, concluding Winter shuts thy scene,
And shrouds thee in the grave. Where now are fled
Those dreams of greatness? those unsolid hopes
Of happiness? those longings after fame?
Those restless cares? those busy, bustling days?
Those nights of secret guilt? those veering thoughts,
Flutt'ring 'twixt good and ill, that shared thy life?
All now are vanished! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal, mankind's never-failing friend,
His guide to happiness on high. And see!
'Tis come, the glorious Morn! the second birth
Of heaven and earth! awakening Nature hears
Th' almighty trumpet's voice, and starts to life,
Renewed, unfading. Now th' eternal Scheme,
That dark perplexity, that mystic maze,
Which sight could never trace, nor heart conceive,
To Reason's eye refined, clears up apace.
Angels and men, astonished, pause — and dread
To travel through the depths of Providence,
Untried, unbounded. Ye vain learned! see,
And, prostrate in the dust, adore that Power
And Goodness, oft arraigned. See now the cause,
Why conscious worth, oppressed, in secret long
Mourned, unregarded; why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul;
Why the lone widow and her orphans pined,
In starving solitude; while Luxury,
In palaces, lay prompting her low thought
To form unreal wants; why heaven-born Faith
And Charity, prime grace! wore the red marks
Of Persecution's scourge; why licensed Pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosomed foe,
Imbittered all our bliss. Ye good distressed!
Ye noble few! that here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressures, yet a little while,
And all your woes are past. Time swiftly fleets,
And wished Eternity, approaching, brings
Life undecaying, love without allay,
Pure, flowing joy, and happiness sincere.