920

Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies confcious fouthward. Miferable they
Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending fun!
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold froft,
The long, long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the Briton's fate *, 925
As with first prow (what have not Britons dar'd!)
He for the pafssage fought, 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 ftony deep his idle ship
Immediate feal'd, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,

Froze into statues; to the cordage glu'd

930

935

Hard bytheseshores, where scarce his freezingstream

The failor, and the pilot to the helm.

Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of men;

And, half-enlivened by the distant fun,

That rears and ripens man, as well as plants,

Here human nature wears its rudest form.

940

Deep from the piercing season sunk in caves,

Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer, They wafte the tedious gloom. Immers'd in furs Doze the gross race: nor sprightly jest, nor song,

• Sir Hugh Willoughby, fent by Queen Elizabeth to discover the North-eaft paffage.

Nor tenderness they know, nor aught of life 945
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 quivered savage to the chafe,

What cannot active government perform,

950

[thores,

New-moulding Man? Wide-stretching from these
A people lavage 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

955

His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her fens, Her floods, her feas, her ill-fubmitting sons; And while the fierce Barbarian he subdu'd,

To more exalted foul he rais'd the Man.

Ye Shades of ancient heroes! ye who toil'd
Thro' long fucceffive ages to build up
A labouring plan of state, behold at once

960

The wonder done! behold the matchless prince! Who left his native throne, where reign'd, till then,

A mighty fhadow of unreal power;

965

Who greatly fpurn'd the flothful pomp of courts,
And roaming every land, in every port

His fceptre laid afide, with glorious hand
Unweary'd plying the mechanic tool,
Gather'd the feeds of trade, of useful arts,

Of civil wisdom, and of martial skill.

97°

Charg'd with the stores of Europe home he goes!

Then cities rise amid th' illumin'd waste;
O'er joyless deferts 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 feas that never foam'd
With daring keel before, and armies stretch
Each way their dazzling files, repreffing here
The frantic Alexander of the North,
And awing there stern Othman's shrinking fons,
Sloth flies the land, and Ignorance and Vice,

975

980

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; 985.
For what his wisdom plann'd, and power enforc'd,
More potent still, his great example shew'd.

990

Muttering, the winds at eve, with blunted point, Blow hollow-blustering from the South. Subdu'd, The frøft refolves into a trickling thaw. Spotted the mountains shine, loofe fleet descends, 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 fnow-fed torrents shoot at once, And, where they rush, the wide-refounding-plain Is left one flimy waste. Those sullen feas, That wash'd th' ungenial Pole, will rest no more Beneath the shackles of the mighty North, But, rousing all their waves, refiftless heave. ICCO

995

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 1005
Beneath the shelter of an icy ifle,

While night o'erwhelms the sea, and horror looks
More horrible. Can human force endure
The affembled mischiefs that befiege them round?
Heart-gnawing hunger, fainting weariness,
The roar of winds and waves, the crush of ice,
Now ceafing, now renew'd with louder rage,
And in dire echoes bellowing round the main,

1010

More to embroil the deep, leviathan

And his unwieldy train, in dreadful sport,
Tempeft the loofened brine, while thro' the gloom,

1015

Far from the bleak inhofpitable shore,

Loading the winds, is heard the hungry howl

Of famish'd monsters, there awaiting wrecks.

Yet Providence, that ever-waking Eye,

1020

Looks down with pity on the feeble toil
Of mortals loft to hope, and lights them fafe
Thro' all this dreary labyrinth of Fate.

'Tis done! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer'd year. 1025 How dead the vegetable kingdom lies! How dumb the tuneful! Horror wide extends His defolate domain. Behold, fond Man!

1031

1035

See here thy pictur'd life; pass some few years, Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength, Thy fober Autumn fading into age, And pale concluding Winter comes at last, And shuts the scene. Ah! whither now are fled Those dreams of greatness ? those unsolid hopes Of happiness? those longings after fame ? Those restless cares? those bufy bustling days? Those gay-fpent, festive nights? those veering thoughts, Loft between good and ill, that shar'd thy life? All now are vanish'd! Virtue fole survives, Immortal never-failing friend of Man, His guideto happiness on high. And fee! 'Tis come, the glorious Morn! the second birth Of heaven and earth! awakening Nature hears The new-creating Word, and starts to life, In every heightened form, from pain and death 1045 For ever free. The great eternal scheme, Involving all, and in a perfect whole Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads, To Reafon's eye refin'd clears up apace. Ve vainly Wife! ye blind Presumptuous! now, 1050 Confounded in the duft, adore that Power

1040

And Wisdom oft' arraign'd; fee now the caufe
Why unassuming Worth in fecret liv'd,
And dy'd neglected; why the good man's share

P

In life was gall and bitterness of foul;

1055

Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd

Volume I.

U