Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance
I view the muscular proportioned limb
Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair,
As they defigned to mock me, at my fide
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plastered wall,
Prepofterous fight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents,
And coarfer grass, upfpearing o'er the reft,
Of late unfightly and unfeen, now shine
Confpicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man,
Fretful if unfupplied; but filent, meek,
And patient of the flow-paced swain's delay.
He from the ftack carves out the accuftomed load,
Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft,
His broad keen knife into the folid mafs:
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With fuch undeviating and even force
He fevers it away: no needlefs care,
Left ftorms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned
The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder foreft drear,
From morn to eve his folitary task.
Shaggy, and lean, and fhrewd, with pointed ears
And tail cropped fhort, half lurcher and half cur,
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Now creeps he flow; and now, with many a frifk
Wide-fcampering, fnatches up the drifted snow
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his fnout;
Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy.
Heedlefs of all his pranks, the fturdy churl
Moves right toward the mark; nor ftops for aught,
But now and then with preffure of his thumb
To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,
That fumes beneath his nofe: the trailing cloud
Streams far behind him, fcenting all the air.
Now from the rooft, or from the neighbouring pale,
Where, diligent to catch the firft faint gleam
Of fmiling day, they goffiped fide by fide,
Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call
The feathered tribes domeftic. Half on wing,
And half on foot, they bruth the fleecy flood,
Confcious and fearful of too deep a plunge.
The fparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves
To feize the fair occafion. Well they eye
The scattered grain, and thievifhly refolved
To escape the impending famine, often scared
As oft return, a pert voracious kind.
Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
Remains to each, the fearch of funny nook,
Or fhed impervious to the blast. Refigned
To fad neceffity, the cock foregoes
His wonted ftrut; and wading at their head
With well-confidered fteps, feems to refent
His altered gait and ftateliness retrenched.
How find the myriads, that in fummer cheer
The hills and vallies with their ceafelefs fongs,
Due fuftenance, or where fubfift they now?
Earth yields them nought; the imprisoned worm is fafe
Beneath the frozen clod; all feeds of herbs
Lie covered clofe; and berry-bearing thorns,
That feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose)
Afford the fmaller minstrels no fupply.
The long protracted rigour of the year
Thins all their numerous flocks.
Ten thousand feek an unmolefted end,
As inftinct prompts; felf-buried ere they die.
The very rooks and daws forfake the fields,
Where neither grub, nor root, nor earth-nut, now
Repays their labour more; and perched aloft
By the way-fide, or stalking in the path,
Lean penfioners upon the traveller's track,
Pick up their naufeous dole, though fweet to them,
Of voided pulfe or half digefted grain.
The ftreams are loft amid the splendid blank,
O'erwhelming all diftinction. On the flood,
Indurated and fixt, the fnowy weight
Lies undiffolved; while filently beneath,
And unperceived, the current fteals away.
Not fo where, fcornful of a check, it leaps
The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel,
And wantons in the pebbly gulph below :
No froft can bind it there; its utmost force
Can but arreft the light and fmoky mist,
That in its fall the liquid fheet throws wide.
And fee where it has hung the embroidered banks
With forms fo various, that no powers of art,
The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene!
Here glittering turrets rife, upbearing high
(Fantastic mifarrangement!) on the roof
Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees
And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops,
That trickle down the branches, faft congealed,
Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
prop the pile they but adorned before. Here grotto within grotto fafe defies
The fun-beam; there, emboffed and fretted wild,
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
Capricious, in which fancy feeks in vain
The likeness of fome object feen before.
Thus nature works as if to mock at art,
And in defiance of her rival powers;
By thefe fortuitous and random ftrokes
Performing fuch inimitable feats,
As the with all her rules can never reach.
Lefs worthy of applause, though more admired,
Because a novelty, the work of man,
Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Rufs!
Thy moft magnificent and mighty freak,
The wonder of the North. No foreft fell
When thou wouldst build; no quarry fent its ftores
To enrich thy walls: but thou didft hew the floods,
And make thy marble of the glaffy wave.
In fuch a palace Ariftæus found
Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale
Of his loft bees to her maternal ear:
In fuch a palace poetry might place
The armory of winter; where his troops,
The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy fleet,
Skin-piercing volley, bloffom-bruifing hail,
And fnow, that often blinds the traveller's course,
And wraps him in an unexpected tomb.
|