Thro' changing Months a well-attemper'd Mind
Welcomes their gentle or terrific pace.—
When o'er retreating Autumn's golden grace
Tempestuous Winter spreads in every wind
Naked asperity, our musings find
Grandeur increasing, as the Glooms efface
Variety and glow.—Each solemn trace
Exalts the thoughts, from sensual joys refin'd.
Then blended in our rapt ideas rise
The vanish'd charms, that summer-suns reveal,
With all of desolation, that now lies
Dreary before us;—teach the Soul to feel
Awe in the Present, pleasure in the Past,
And to see vernal Morns in Hope's perspective cast.
SONNET XXXVIII.
WINTER.
If he whose bosom with no transport swells
In vernal airs and hours commits the crime
Of sullenness to Nature, 'gainst the Time,
And its great Ruler, he alike rebels
Who seriousness and pious dread repels,
And aweless gazes on the faded Clime,
Dim in the gloom, and pale in the hoar rime
That o'er the bleak and dreary prospect steals.—
Spring claims our tender, grateful, gay delight;
Winter our sympathy and sacred fear;
And sure the Hearts that pay not Pity's rite
O'er wide calamity; that careless hear
Creation's wail, neglect, amid her blight,
The solemn lesson of the ruin'd Year.
SONNET XXXIX.
WINTER EVENING.
When mourn the dark Winds o'er the lonely plain,
And from pale noon sinks, ere the fifth cold hour,
The transient light, Imagination's power,
With Knowledge, and with Science in her train,
Not unpropitious Hyems' icy reign
Perceives; since in the deep and silent lour
High themes the rapt concent'ring Thoughts explore,
Freed from external Pleasure's glittering chain.
Then most the understanding's culture pays
Luxuriant harvest, nor shall Folly bring
Her aids obtrusive.—Then, with ardent gaze,
The Ingenious to their rich resources spring,
While sullen Winter's dull imprisoning days
Hang on the vacant mind with flagging wing.