Show us how empire grew, declin'd, and fell,

In scatter'd states: what makes the nations smile,
Improves their soil, and gives them double suns;
And why they pine beneath the brighest skies,
In Nature's richest lap. As thus we talk'd,
Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale,
That portion of divinity, that ray

Of purest heaven, which lights the public soul
Of patriots, and of heroes. But if doom'd,
In powerless humble fortune, to repress
These ardent risings of the kindling soul;
Then, e'en superior to ambition, we

Would learn the private virtues; how to glide

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Thro' shades and plains, along the smoothest stream
Of rural life: or, snatch'd away by hope,
Thro' the dim spaces of futurity,

With earnest eye anticipate those scenes
Of happiness and wonder, where the mind,
In endless growth and infinite ascent,

Rises from state to state, and world to world.

668

But when with these the serious thought is foil'd,
We, shifting for relief, would play the shapes-C
Of frolic fancy; and incessant form

Those rapid pictures, that assembled train

Of fleet ideas, never join'd before;

Whence lively Wit excites to gay surprise,

Or folly-painting Humour, grave himself,(15

620

Calls Laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve.
Meantime, the village rouses up the fire;
While, well attested, and as well believ'd,
Heard solemn, goes the goblin story round ;
Till superstitious horror creeps o'er all.
Or, frequent in the sounding hall, they wake
The rural gambol. Rustic mirth goes round;
The simple joke that takes the shepherd's heart,
Easily pleas'd; the long loud laugh, sincere ;

The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the side-long maid,
On purpose guardless, or pretending sleep.
The leap, the slap, the haul; and, shook to notes
Of native music, the respondent dance.

Thus jocund fleets with them the winter night.

The city swarms intense. The public haunt, Full of each theme, and warm with mix'd discourse, Hums indistinct. The sons of riot flow

Down the loose stream of false enchanted joy
To swift destruction. On the rankled soul
The gaming fury falls; and in one gulf,
Of total ruin, honour, virtue, peace,
Friends, families, and fortune, headlong sink.
Up springs the dance along the lighted dome,
Mix'd, and evolv'd, a thousand sprightly ways.
The glittering court effuses every pomp
The circle deepens: beam'd from gaudy robes,
Tapers, and sparkling gems, and radiant eyes,
A soft effulgence o'er the palace waves:
While, a gay insect, in his summer shine,
The fop, light-fluttering, spreads his mealy wings
Dread o'er the scene the ghost of Hamlet stalks;
Othello rages; poor Monimia mourns;

And Belvidera pours her soul in love.

Terror alarms the breast; the comely tear

Steals o'er the cheek: or else the Comic Muse

Holds to the world a picture of itself,

And raises sly the fair impartial laugh.

Sometimes she lifts her strain, and paints the scenes
Of beanteous life; whate'er can deck mankind,
Or charm the heart, in generous Bevil* show'd.'
O Thou, whose wisdom, solid, yet refin'd,
Whose patriot virtues, and consummate skill

A character in the Conscious Lovers, written by Sir R. Steele.

To touch the finer springs that move the world,
Join'd to whate'er the Graces can bestow, 660
And all Apollo's animating fire,

Give thee, with pleasing dignity, to shine
At once the guardian, ornament, and joy,
Of polish'd life; permit the rural Muse,
O Chesterfield! to grace with thee her song.
Ere to the shades again she humbly flies,
Indulge her fond ambition, in thy train,
(For every Muse has in thy train a place)
To mark thy various full-accomplish'd mind:
To mark that spirit, which, with British scorn,
Rejects th' allurements of corrupted power;-
That elegant politeness, which excels,
E'en in the judgment of presumptuous France,
The boasted manners of her shining court;
That wit, the vivid energy of sense,

The truth of Nature, which, with Attic point,
And kind well temper'd satire, smoothly keen,
Steals thro' the soul, and without pain corrects.
Or, rising thence with yet a brighter flame,
O let me hail thee on some glorious day.
When to the listening senate, ardent, crowd-
Britannia's sons to hear her pleaded cause.
Then dress'd by thee, more amiably fair,

Truth the soft robe of mild persuasion wears:

Thou to assenting reason giv'st again

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681

684

Her own enlighten'd thoughts; call'd from the heart Th' obedient passions on thy voice attend;

And e'en reluctant party feels awhile

Thy gracious power: as thro' the varied maze

Of eloquence, now smooth, now quick, now strong,
Profound, and clear, you roll the copious flood.-
To thy lov'd haunt return, my happy Muse;
For now, behold, the joyous winter days,
Frosty, succeed; and thro' the blue serene,

For sight too fine, th' ethereal nitre flies ;
Killing infectious damps, and the spent air
Storing afresh with elemental life.

Close crowds the shining atmosphere; and binds
Our strengthen'd bodies in its cold embrace,
Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood;
Refines our spirits, thro' the new-strung nerves,
In swifter sallies darting to the brain;
Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen.
All Nature feels the renovating force
of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye
In ruin seen. The frost-concocted glebe
Daws in abundant vegetable soul,
And gathers vigour for the coming year.
A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek
Of ruddy fire: and luculent along.
The purer rivers flow; their sullen deeps,
Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze,
And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.

710

15

What art thou, frost? and whence are thy keen stores
Deriv'd, thou secret all invading power!
Whom e'en th' illusive fluid cannot fly?
Is not thy potent energy, unseen,

Myriads of little salts, or hook'd, or shap'd
Like double wedges, and diffus'd immense
Thro' water, earth, and ether? hence at eve,
Steam'd eager from the red horizon round,
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffus'd,
An icy gale, oft shifting, o'er the pool
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering stream. The loosen'd ice,
Let down the flood, and half dissolv'd by day,
Rustles no more; but to the sedgy bank
Fast grows; or gathers round the pointed stone,
A crystal pavement, by the breath of heaven

12

Cemented firm; till, seiz'd from shore to shore,
The whole imprison'd river growls below.
Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
A double noise; while, at his evening watch,
The village dog deters the nightly thief;
The heifer lows; the distant waterfall
Swells in the breeze; and, with the hasty tread
Of traveller, the hollow sounding plain
Shakes from afar. The full ethereal round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,
Shines out intensely keen; and, all one cope
Of starry glitter, glows from pole to pole.
From pole to pole the rigid influence falls,
Through the still night, incessant, heavy, strong,
And seizes Nature fast. It freezes on;
Till morn, late rising o'er the drooping world
Lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then appears
The various labour of the silent night:
Prone from the dripping eave, and dumb cascade,
Whose idle torrents only seem to roar,
The pendent icicle; the frost-work fair,
Where transient hues and fancied figures rise;
Wide spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook,
A livid tract, cold gleaming on the morn;
The forest bent beneath the plumy wave;
And, by the frost refin'd, the whiter snow,
Incrusted hard, and sounding to the tread
Of early shepherd, as he pensive seeks
His pining flock; or from the mountain-top,
Pleas'd with the slippery surface, swift descends,
On blithsome frolics bent, the youthful swains,
While every work of man is laid at rest,
Fond o'er the river crowd, in various sport
And revelry dissolv'd; where, mixing glad,
Happiest of all the train! the raptur'd boy

Lashes the whirling top. Or, where the Rhine, 65