Classic Poem

SEE ! hoary winter reigns
Resistless, o'er the plains,
Her rigid, dismal desolation spreads:
Sol faintly lends his ray,
To light the shorten'd day,
And shily glances o'er the joyless meads;
Then leaves our shiv'ring isle betimes,
For fairer, more engaging climes.

For see the sullen storm
Each brighter scene deform;
In copious floods the rushing rains descend;
Whilst clouds exhaustless pour
Their congregated store,
Where'er the open'd sluices wide extend,
With rapid force along the pavements roar,
And still their streams unintermitted pour.

By numerous currents swell'd,
Whose force it long repell'd,
No bounds the raging river can contain;
Rushing with rapid force,
It leaves its wonted course,
Bursts o'er its banks, and shoots into the plains;
Once flowery meadows lie in oceans drown'd,
And universal deluge spreads around.

And hark! the angry north
Hath sent rough boreas forth;
The aerial torrent, furious bursts its way,
O'er mountains, feas, and rocks:
All feel the dreadful shock,
And all things yield to its impetuous sway;
The atmosphere is in confusion hurl'd,
And consternation fills th' affrighted world.

The forest vex'd and tore,
Amid the wild uproar,
Mourns her once sturdy sons, now prostrate laid;
Even the stubborn oak,
Must bend beneath the stroke,
And almost sweep the soil it wont to shade;
Whilst every humbler shrub, of pliant form,
Survives the havock, and eludes the storm.

An awful gloom succeeds,
Night her dominion spreads,
In sable robes, of darkest hue, array'd;
No faintly glimm'ring star
Directs its glittering car,
With feeble beam to gild the dismal shade:
Sure ancient chaos re-exerts his reign,
And o'er the world usurps his sway again.

And when returning light
Has dispossess'd the night,
In vain the radiant ruler of our day
Exerts his utmost skill,
From the cloud envelop'd hill,
To drive the hazy, hov'ring, mists away;
The thick'ning vapours gain th' unequal strife,
And hang oppressive on the springs of life.

Where is each rural scene,
The gay enamell'd green,
The firmament's once bright, unsullied blue?
Winter, with louring clouds
Each beauteous object shrouds,
And every charm contracts a dusky hue;
It seems impenetrable, solid gloom,
It seems design'd for languid nature's tomb.

See! down the sadden'd sky,
Soft hov'ring fragments fly,
Anon, in broader flakes, the sleecy snow
Peaceful and calm descends,
No jarring wind contends,
But soft it falls in a continual flow;
And still its swelling down, in constant showers,
Silent and soft through the nocturnal hours.

Behold! when late, and shy,
Pale morning opes her eye,
Astonish'd fancy startles at the sight!
No bright reviving green
Appears to deck the scene,
But one wide boundless waste of shining white:
Nature is like some spotless vestal maid
In robes, the hue of innocence, array'd.

See! for with fix'd surprize,
Our dazzled wond'ring eyes
Again, and yet again, the scene review;
O'er woods, and hills, and plains,
No variation reigns,
But all are of the same unsullied hue;
Sure pitying heaven has sent this snowy veil,
The ravages of winter to conceal.

But now the storm's renew'd,
From yonder pregnant cloud,
Fierce rising blasts attend the drizzling showers;
With complicated force,
The hail directs its course,
And nature shrinks beneath its piercing powers;
The mingled storm obstructs the rays of light,
And seems to hasten the approach of night.

How hapless is the fate
Of him who wanders late,
Far distant from his home, and anxious friends;
Heav'ns! how he shrinks aghast,
Beneath the dreadful blast
Exerts his strength, and with the storm contends!
Perhaps, alas! the next destructive sweep
May overwhelm him in the drifted heap.

He pants, he gasps for breath,
And, dreading instant death,
He longs, in vain, to view some human form;
Froze and benumb'd with cold,
He slips his feeble hold,
And down he sinks, a victim to the storm!
Propitious heav'n! O hear his ardent prayer!
And snatch him at this juncture from despair!

At length the blasts subside,
The sullen clouds divide,
And leave th' expansive Ether clear to view;
The stars, with brilliant light,
Now decorate the night;
The firmament puts on its brightest blue;
The frost with penetrating influence reigns,
And binds the earth in rigid icy chains:

Nor binds the earth alone.
Its power the waters own;
The flowing stream is stopt in its career;
The ice incrusts it o'er,
And joins each distant shore;
For now its strength the weight of man can bear.
Strange! where the crystal river lately flow'd,
Is now a firm substantial solid road.

See! every face is pale,
Pierc'd by the nipping gale,
Even blooming cheeks contract a gelid hue:
Nay beauty's fairest flower,
Can not resist its power,
And lips, once coral, now are chang'd to blue:
Then how must feeble, weak, decrepid age,
Shrink from the blast, and droop beneath its rage.

But why should we complain?
How mild our winter's reign,
If we compare it with the frigid zone;
Where robb'd of useful light,
One half their year is night,
And winter's most tremendous horror's frown!
Or where eternal seas of ice controul
The unknown regions of the arctic pole.

And see! Sol's genial beams
Begin to melt the streams,
A thousand various op'nings spot the hills;
The trees disperse abroad
Their hoary cumbious load,
And universal thaw the prospect fills:
Unwilling nature drops her lucid veil,
Anxious her desolation to conceal.

And great her cause to mourn —
Dejected and forlorn,
Like some sad widow of her all bereft;
For o'er the desart plain
Wide spreading horrors reign,
No verdant traces of her charms are left:
The frowning heav'ns their deepest sables wear,
And dreary winter has subdued the year.

Such is the life of man,
Contracted to a span,
His flowing spring, his short-liv'd summer's strength;
The next succeeding stage
Is autumn's sickly age,
Which, like the rest, is but of transient length:
Nor human help th' impending storm can screen,
But pale concluding winter shuts the scene.

Ye mortals then attend:
Chuse virtue for your friend;
For when the boist'rous storms of life are o'er,
She will the soul convey
To realms of endless day;
And when sin, death, and time shall be no more,
Then shall ye rise triumphant from the tomb,
To dwell where one eternal spring shall bloom.