While Winter’s frosty rigor checks approach
E’en in the fiftieth latitude. Say why
(If ye, the travel’d sons of commerce, know),
Wherefore lie bound their rivers, lakes, and dales
Half the sun’s annual course in chains of ice,
While the Rhine’s fertile shore, and Gallic realms,
By the same zone encircled, long enjoy
Warm beams of Phœbus, and, supine, behold
Their plains and hillocks blush with clustering vines?
Must it be ever thus? or may the hand