Falls horrible! Such was the Briton's1 fate,
As with first prow (what have not Britons dar'd?)
He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caught,
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate seal'd, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glu'd
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.
Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing stream Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men ; And, half enliven'd by the distant sun, That rears and ripens man, as well as plants, Here human nature wears its rudest form. Deep from the piercing Season sunk in caves, Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer, They waste the tedious gloom. Immers'd in furs, Doze the gross race: nor sprightly jest, nor song, Nor tenderness they know; nor aught of life, Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without: Till Morn at length, her roses drooping all, Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their fields, And calls the quiver'd savage to the chase. What cannot active government perform,
New-moulding man? Wide-stretching from these shores,
A people savage from remotest time,
A huge neglected empire, one vast mind,
By heaven inspir'd, from Gothic darkness call'd.
Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! He
His stubborn country tam'd,-her rocks, her fens,
1 'Briton: ' Sir Hugh Willoughby, sent by Queen Elizabeth to discover the north-east passage.
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons;
And while the fierce barbarian he subdu'd,
To more exalted soul he rais'd the man.
Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toil'd
Through long successive ages to build up
A labouring plan of state, behold at once
The wonder done! behold the matchless prince,
Who left his native throne, where reign'd till then
A mighty shadow of unreal power;
Who greatly spurn'd the slothful pomp of courts;
And, roaming every land, in every port
His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand
Unwearied plying the mechanic tool;
Gather'd the seeds of trade, of useful arts,
Of civil wisdom, or of martial skill!
Charg'd with the stores of Europe, home he goes:
Then cities rise amid th' illumin'd waste;
O'er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign;
Far-distant flood to flood is social join'd;
Th' astonish'd Euxine hears the Baltic roar;
Proud navies ride on seas that never foam'd
With daring keel before; and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repressing here
The frantic Alexander of the North,
And aweing there stern Othman's shrinking sons.
Sloth flies the land, and Ignorance, and Vice,
Of old dishonour proud: it glows around,
Taught by the royal hand that rous'd the whole,
One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade:
For what his wisdom plann'd, and power enforc'd,
More potent still, his great example show'd.
Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point,
Blow hollow-blust' ring from the South. Subdu'd,
The frost resolves into a trickling thaw.
Spotted the mountains shine: loose sleet descends, 991
And floods the country round. The rivers swell,
Of bonds impatient. Sudden from the hills,
O'er rocks and woods, in broad brown cataracts,
A thousand snow-fed torrents shoot at once;
And, where they rush, the wide-resounding plain
Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas,
That wash'd th' ungenial Pole, will rest no more
Beneath the shackles of the mighty North,
But, rousing all their waves, resistless heave.
And, hark! the lengthening roar continuous runs
Athwart the rifted deep at once it bursts,
And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds.
Ill fares the bark, with trembling wretches charg'd,
That, toss'd 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 force endure
Th' assembled mischiefs that besiege them round ?—
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness,
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceasing, now renew'd with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main.
More to embroil the deep, Leviathan
And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempest the loosen'd brine; while through the gloom,
Far from the bleak inhospitable shore,
Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl
Of famish'd monsters, there awaiting wrecks.
Yet PROVIDENCE, that ever-waking Eye,
Looks down with pity on the feeble toil
Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe,
Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate.
'Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms,
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year.
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies!
How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man!
See here thy pictur'd life; pass some few years,
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength, Thy sober Autumn fading into age,
And pale concluding Winter comes at last,
Ah! whither now are fled
Those dreams of greatness, those unsolid hopes
Of happiness, those longings after fame,
Those restless cares, those busy bustling days,
Those gay-spent festive nights, those veering thoughts
Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life?
All now are vanish'd! Virtue sole survives,
Immortal, never-failing friend of man,
His guide to happiness on high.-And see!
"Tis come, the glorious morn, the second birth
Of heav'n and earth! Awakening Nature hears
The new-creating word, and starts to life,
In every heighten'd form, from pain and death
For ever free. The great eternal scheme,
Involving all, and in a perfect whole
Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads,
To Reason's eye refin'd clears up apace.
Ye vainly wise! ye blind presumptuous! now,
Confounded in the dust, adore that POWER
And WISDOM oft arraign'd: see now the cause
Why unassuming worth in secret liv'd,
And died neglected; why the good man's share
In life was gall and bitterness of soul;
Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd
In starving solitude, while Luxury
In palaces lay straining her low thought
To form unreal wants; why heav'n-born Truth,
And Moderation fair, wore the red marks
Of Superstition's scourge; why licens'd Pain,
That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe,
Embitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distress'd!
Ye noble few, who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure! yet bear up a while
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more :
The storms of Wintry Time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded Spring encircle all.
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 soft'ning 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-whisp'ring gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfin'd,
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful Thou! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest roll'd,
Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
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