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(From The Seasons: Winter)
THENCE winding eastward to the Tartar’s coast, | |
| She sweeps the howling margin of the main, | |
| Where undissolving, from the first of time, | |
| Snows swell on snows, amazing to the sky; | |
| And icy mountains high on mountains piled, | 5 |
| Seem to the shivering sailor from afar, | |
| Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds. | |
| Projected huge, and horrid o’er the surge, | |
| Alps frown on Alps; or rushing hideous down, | |
| As if old Chaos was again returned, | 10 |
| Wide-rend the deep, and shake the solid pole. | |
| Ocean itself no longer can resist | |
| The binding fury: but, in all its rage | |
| Of tempest taken by the boundless frost, | |
| Is many a fathom to the bottom chained, | 15 |
| And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse, | |
| Shagged o’er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void | |
| Of every life, that from the dreary months, | |
| Flies conscious southward. Miserable they! | |
| Who, here entangled in the gathering ice, | 20 |
| Take their last look of the descending sun; | |
| While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost, | |
| The long long night, incumbent o’er their heads, | |
| Falls horrible. Such was the Briton’s fate, | |
| As with first prow, (what have not Britons dared!) | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| Immediate sealed, he with his hapless crew | |
| Each full exerted at his several task, | |
| Froze into statues; to the cordage glued | |
| The sailor, and the pilot to the helm. | |
| Hard by these shores, where scarce his freezing stream | 35 |
| Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men; | |
| And half enlivened 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, | 40 |
| Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer, | |
| They waste the tedious gloom. Immersed 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, | 45 |
| Till morn at length, her roses drooping all, | |
| Shed a long twilight brightening o’er their fields, | |
| And calls the quivered savage to the chase. | |
| What cannot active government perform, | |
| New-moulding man? Wide-stretching from these shores, | 50 |
| A people savage from remotest time, | |
| A huge neglected empire, one vast mind, | |
| By Heaven inspired, from Gothic darkness called. | |
| Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! he | |
| His stubborn country tamed, her rocks, her fens, | 55 |
| Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons: | |
| And while the fierce barbarian he subdued, | |
| To more exalted soul he raised the man. | |
| Ye shades of ancient heroes, ye who toiled | |
| Through long successive ages to build up | 60 |
| A laboring plan of state, behold at once | |
| The wonder done! behold the matchless prince! | |
| Who left his native throne, where reigned till then | |
| A mighty shadow of unreal power; | |
| Who greatly spurned the slothful pomp of courts; | 65 |
| And roaming every land, in every port | |
| His sceptre laid aside, with glorious hand | |
| Unwearied plying the mechanic tool, | |
| Gathered the seeds of trade, of useful arts, | |
| Of civil wisdom, and material skill. | 70 |
| Charged with the stores of Europe home he goes! | |
| Then cities rise amid the illumined waste; | |
| O’er joyless deserts smiles the rural reign; | |
| Far distant flood to flood is social joined; | |
| The astonished Euxine hears the Baltic roar; | 75 |
| Proud navies ride on seas that never foamed | |
| With daring keel before; and armies stretch | |
| Each way their dazzling files, repressing here | |
| The frantic Alexander of the north, | |
| And awing there stern Othman’s shrinking sons. | 80 |
| Sloth flies the land, and ignorance and vice, | |
| Of old dishonor proud: it glows around, | |
| Taught by the royal hand that roused the whole, | |
| One scene of arts, of arms, of rising trade: | |
| For what his wisdom planned, and power enforced, | 85 |
| More potent still, his great example showed. | |
| Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, | |
| Blow hollow blustering from the south. Subdued, | |
| The frost resolves into a trickling thaw. | |
| Spotted the mountains shine; loose sleet descends, | 90 |
| 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 | 95 |
| Is left one slimy waste. Those sullen seas, | |
| That washed the 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 | 100 |
| Athwart the rifted deep: at once it bursts, | |
| And piles a thousand mountains to the clouds. | |
| Ill fares the bark with trembling wretches charged, | |
| That, tossed amid the floating fragments, moors | |
| Beneath the shelter of an icy isle, | 105 |
| While night o’erwhelms the sea, and horror looks | |
| More horrible. Can human force endure | |
| The assembled mischiefs that besiege them round? | |
| Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness, | |
| The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice, | 110 |
| Now ceasing, now renewed 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 loosened brine, while through the gloom, | 115 |
| Far from the bleak inhospitable shore, | |
| Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl | |
| Of famished monsters, there awaiting wrecks. | |
| Yet Providence, that ever-waking eye, | |
| Looks down with pity on the feeble toil | 120 |
| Of mortals lost to hope, and lights them safe, | |
| Through all this dreary labyrinth of fate. | |
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