By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urg’d on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad dispers’d,
Dig for the withered herb through heaps of snow.
James Thomson, 1700–1748.
WINTER SONG.
FROM THE GERMAN.
Summer joys are o’er;