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 shapeless pair,
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 without 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 t
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;

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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 ears
And tail cropp'd short, half 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 coat and barks for joy.
Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl
Moves right towards 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 to catch the first faint gleam
Of smiling day, they 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 retrench'd.

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'd worm is safe

Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs

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Lie cover'd close; and berry-bearing thorns,

That feed the thrush, (whatever some suppose,)

Afford the smaller minstrels no supply.

The long-protracted rigour of the year

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Thins all their num'rous flock. 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, nor earth nut, now
Repays their labour more; and perch'd aloft

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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.

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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 cheek, 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 mist,

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That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide.

And see where it has hung the embroider'd banks
With 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

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That trickled down the branches, fast congeal'd,
Shoot into pillars of pellucid length,

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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

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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,

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As she with all her rules can never reach.
Less worthy of applause, though more admired,
Because a novelty, the work of man,

Imperial mistress of the fur-clad Russ,
Thy most magnificent and mighty freak,
The wonder of the North. No forest fell

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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.

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In such a palace Aristæus found
Cyrene, when he bore the plaintive tale
Of his lost bees to her maternal ear: €

In such a palace poetry might place

The armoury of Winter; where his troops,

The gloomy clouds, find weapons, arrowy sleet

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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 hammer or of saw was there:

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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

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Gleam'd through the clear transparency, that seem'd Another moon new ris'n, or meteor fall'n

From Heav'n to Earth, of lambent flame serene.

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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 might well befit,
For grandeur or for use. Long wavy wreaths
Of flow'rs that fear'd no enemy but warmth,
Blush'd on the pannels. Mirror needed none
Where all was vitreous; but in order due
Convivial table and commodious seat

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(What seem'd at least commodious seat) were there;

Sofa and couch, and high-built throne august.
The same lubricity was found in all,

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And all was moist to the warm touch; a scene

Of evanescent glory, once a stream,

And soon to slide into a stream again.
Alas! 'twas but a mortifying stroke
Of undesign'd severity, that glanc'd,

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(Made by a monarch,) on her own estate,
On human grandeur and the courts of kings.
'Twas transient in its nature, as in show,
'Twas durable; as worthless, as it seem'd

Intrinsically precious; to the foot

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Treach'rous and false, it smil'd and it was cold.

Great princes have great play-things. Some have play'd

At hewing mountains into men, and some
At building human wonders mountain-high.

Some have amus'd the dull, sad years of life,
(Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad,)
With schemes of monumental fame; and sought
By pyramids and mausolean pomp,

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Short liv'd themselves, to immortalize their bones.
Some seek diversion in the tented field,
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport.
But war's a game, which were their subjects wise,
Kings would not play at. Nations would do well,
T'extort their truncheons from the puny hands
Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds
Are gratified with mischief; and who spoil,
Because men suffer it, their toy, the world.

When Babel was confounded, and the great
Confed'racy of projectors wild and vain
Was split into diversity of tongues,
Then, as a shepherd separates his flock,
These to the upland, to the valley those,
God drove asunder, and assign'd their lot
To all the nations. Ample was the boon
He gave them, in its distribution fair

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