THE TASK.

BOOK V.

THE WINTER MORNING WALK.

'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires th' horizon ; while the clouds
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From ev'ry herb, and ev'ry spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field.
Mine spindling into longitude immense,
In spite of gravity, and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance,
I view the muscular proportion'd limb
Transform'd to a lean shank. The shapless pair

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As they design'd to mock me, at my side,
Take step for step; and, as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaster'd wall,
Prepost'rous sight! the legs withont the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge,

and the bents,
And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And, fledg'd 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 hung'ring man,
Fretful if unsupplied but silent, meek,
And patient of the slow pac'd swain's delay.
He from the stack carves out the accustom'd load,
Deep plunging, and again deep-plunging oft,
His broad keen knife into the solid mass;
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away; no needless care,
Lest storm should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanc'd weight.
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd
The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe,
And drive the wedge, in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task.
Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ear
And tail cropp'd short, balf lurcher and half cur-
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk
Wide-scamp'ring, snatches up the drifted snow
With iv'ry teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;
Then shakes his powder'd cuat, and barks for joy,
Peedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl

Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught,
But now and then with pressure of his thumb
T' adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,
That fumes beneath his nose : the trailing cloud
Streams far behind him, scenting all the air.
Now from the roost, or from the neighb'ring pale
Where diligent lo catch the first faint gleam
of smiling day, thay gossip'd side by side,
Come trooping at the housewife's well known call
The feather'd tribes domestick. Half on wing,
And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood,
Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge.
The sparrows peep, and quit the shelt'ring eaves,
To seize the fair occasion; well they eye
The scatter'd grain, and thievishly resolv'd
T'escape th' impending famine, often scar'd
As oft return-a pert voracious kind.
Clean riddance quickly made, one only care
Remains to each, the search of sunny nook,
Or shed impervious to the blast. Resign'd
To sad necessity, the cock foregoes
His wonted strut; and, wading at their head
With well-consider'd steps, seems to resent
His alter'd gait, and stateliness retrenchd.
How find the myriads, that in summer cheer
The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs,
Due sustenance, or where subsist they now?
Earth yields them naught; th' imprison's worun is safe
Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs
Lie cover'd close ; and berry-bearing thorns,
Tbat feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose,)
Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.
The long protracted rigour of the year
Thins all their num'rous flocks. In chinks and holes
Ten thousand seek an unmolested end,

As instinct prompts; self.buried ere they die.
The very rooks and daws forsake the fields,
Where neither grub, nor root, por earth nut, now
Repays their labour more; and perch'd aloft
By the way-side, or stalking in the path,
Lean pensioners upon the trav’ller's track,
Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to them,
Of voided pulse or half-digested grain.
The streams are lost amid the splendid blank,
O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood,
Indurated and fix'd, the snowy weight
Lies undissolv'd; while silently beneath,
And unperceiv'd, the current steals away.
Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps
The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel,
And wantons in the pebbly gulf below:
No frost can bind it there : its utmost force
Can but arrest the light and smoky misi,
That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide.
And see where it has hung the embroider'd banks
\Vith forms so various, that no pow'rs of art,
The pencil, or the pen, may trace the scene !
Here glitt'ring turrets rise, upbearing high,
(Fantastick misarrangement!) on the roof
Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees
And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops
That trickled down the branches, fast congeal'd,
Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,
And prop the pile they but adorn'd before.
Here grotto within grotto safe defies
The sunbeam ; there, emboss'd and fretted wild,
The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes
Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain
The likeness of some object seen before.
Thus Nature works as if to mock at Art,
And in defiance of her rival pow'rs;

By these fortuitous and random strokes Performing such inimitable feats, As she with all her rules can never reach. Less worthy of applause, though more admir'd, Because a novelty, the work of man, Imperial mistress of the fur clad Russ, Thy most magnificent and Inighty freak, The wonder of the North. No forest fell When thou wouldst build; no quarry sent its stores, T enrich thy walls : but thou didst hew the floods, And make thy marble of the glassy wave. In such a palace Aristæus found Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale of his lost bees to her maturnal ear: In such a palace poetry might place The armoury of Winter; where his troops, The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet Skin-piercing volley, blossom-bruising hail, And snow, that often blinds the trav’ller's course, And wraps him in an unexpected tomb. Silently as a dream the fabrick rose ; No sound of haininer or of saw was there : Ice upon ice, the well-adjusted parts Were soon conjoin'd, nor other cement ask'd Than water interfus'd, to make them one. Lamps gracefully dispos’d, and of all hues, Illumin'd ev'ry side : a wat’ry light Gleam'd through the clear transparency, that seem'd Another moon new ris'n, or meteor fallin From Heav'n to Earth, of lambent flame serene So stood the brittle prodigy ; though smooth And slipp'ry the materials, yet frost-bound Firm as a rock. Nor wanted aught within That royal residence inight well befit, For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths of flow'rs that fear'd no enemy but warmth,