Into the horrors of the gloomy jail;

Unpitied, and unheard, where misery moans;

Where sickness pines; where thirst and hunger burn;
And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice;

While in the land of liberty, the land
Whose every street and public meeting glow
With open freedom, little tyrants rag'd,

Snatch'd the lean morsel from the starving mouth,
Tore from cold wintry limbs the tatter'd weed,
Even robb'd them of the last of comforts, sleep,
The free-born Briton to the dungeon chain'd,
Or, as the lust of cruelty prevail'd,

At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious stripes,
And crush'd out lives, by secret barbarous ways,
That for their country would have toil'd, or bled?
Oh! great design, if executed well,

With patient care, and wisdom-temper'd zeal'
Ye sons of mercy! yet resume the search.
Drag forth the legal monsters into light.
Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod;
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much still untouch'd remains: in this rank age,
Much is the patriot's weeding hand requir'd.
The toils of law (what dark insidious men
Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth,
And lengthen simple justice into trade),
How glorious were the day that saw these broke,
And every man within the reach of right!

By wintry famine rous'd, from all the tract
Of horrid mountains which the shining Alps,
And wavy Appenine, and Pyrenees,

Branch out stupendous into distant lands,
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave,
Burning for blood, bony, and gaunt, and grim,
Assembling wolves in raging troops descend,
And, pouring o'er the country, bear along,
Keen as the north wind sweeps the glossy snow.
All is their prize. They fasten on the steed,
Press him to earth, and pierce his mighty heart.
Nor can the bull his awful front defend,
Or shake the murdering savages away.
Rapacious, at the mother's throat they fly,
And tear the screaming infant from her breast.
The godlike face of man avails him nought.
Even beauty, force divine! at whose bright glance
The generous lion stands in soften'd gaze,
Here bleeds, a hapless undistinguish'd prey.
But if, appriz'd of the severe attack,

The country be shut up, lur'd by the scent,
On church-yards drear (inhuman to relate!)
The disappointed prowlers fall, and dig

The shrouded body from the grave, o'er which,
Mix'd with foul shades and frighted ghosts, they howl.
Among those hilly regions, where, embrac'd

In peaceful vales, the happy Grisons dwell,
Öft, rushing sudden from the loaded cliffs,
Mountains of snow their gathering terrors roll.
From steep to steep, loud-thundering, down they
come,

A wintry waste in dire commotion all;

And herds, and flocks, and travellers, and swains,
And sometimes whole brigades of marching troops,

year,

Or hamlets sleeping in the dead of night,
Are deep beneath the smothering ruin whelm'd.
Now, all amid the rigours of the
In the wild depth of Winter, while, without,
The ceaseless winds blow ice, be my retreat,
Between the groaning forest and the shore
Beat by the boundless multitude of waves,
A rural, shelter'd, solitary scene,

Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join,
To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead,
Sages of ancient time, as gods rever'd,

As gods beneficent, who bless'd mankind
With arts, with arms, and humaniz'd a world.
Rous'd at the inspiring thought, I throw aside
The long-liv'd volume, and, deep-musing, hail
The sacred shades that slowly-rising pass
Before my wondering eyes. First, Socrates,
Who, firmly good in a corrupted state,
Against the rage of tyrants single stood,
Invincible; calm reason's holy law,

That voice of God within the attentive mind,
Obeying, fearless, or in life or death;
Great moral teacher, wisest of mankind!
Solon, the next, who built his commonweal
On equity's wide base; by tender laws
A lively people curbing, yet undamp'd
Preserving still that quick peculiar fire,
Whence in the laurel'd field of finer arts,
And of bold freedom, they unequall'd shone,
The pride of smiling Greece and human kind.

ARGUMENT.

THE subject proposed. Address to the Earl of Wilming ton. First approach of Winter. According to the na tural course of the season, various storms described. Rain. Wind. Snow. The driving of the snows; a man perishing among them; whence reflections on the wants and miseries of human life. The wolves descending from the Alps and Appenines. A winter evening describ ed: as spent by philosophers; by the country people; in the city. Frost. A view of winter within the polar circle. A thaw. The whole concluding with moral re flections on a future state.

WINTER.

SEE, Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train,
Vapours, and clouds, and storms.

theme,

Be these my

These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!
Congenial horrors, hail! With frequent foot,
Pleas'd have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nurs'd by careless solitude I liv'd,

And sung of nature with unceasing joy,

Pleas'd have I wander'd through your rough domain;

Trod the pure virgin snows, myself as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrents burst;
Or seen the deep fermenting tempest, brew'd,
In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time,
Till, through the lucid chambers of the south
Look'd out the joyous Spring; look'd out, and smil'd.
To thee, the patron of her first essay,

The muse, O Wilmington! renews her song.
Since has she rounded the revolving year;

Skimm'd the gay Spring; on cagle pinions borne,
Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rise;
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gele;
And now among the Wintry clouds again,