ON THE WINTER SOLSTICE
by: Mark Akenside (1721-1770)
- 1
- he radiant ruler of the year
- At length his wintry goal attains;
- Soon to reverse the long career,
- And northward bend his steady reins.
- Now, piercing half Potosi's height,
- Prone rush the fiery floods of light
- Ripening the mountain's silver stores:
- While, in some cavern's horrid shade,
- The panting Indian hides his head,
- And oft the approach of eve implores.
- 2
- But lo, on this deserted coast,
- How pale the sun! how thick the air!
- Mustering his storms, a sordid host,
- Lo, Winter desolates the year.
- The fields resign their latest bloom;
- No more the breezes waft perfume,
- No more the streams in music roll:
- But snows fall dark, or rains resound;
- And, while great Nature mourns around,
- Her griefs infect the human soul.
- 3
- Hence the loud city's busy throngs
- Urge the warm bowl and splendid fire:
- Harmonious dances, festive songs,
- Against the spiteful heaven conspire.
- Meantime, perhaps, with tender fears
- Some village dame the curfew hears,
- While round the hearth her children play:
- At morn their father went abroad;
- The moon is sunk, and deep the road;
- She sighs, and vonders at his stay.
- 4
- But thou, my lyre, awake, arise,
- And hail the sun's returning force:
- Even now he climbs the northern skies,
- And health and hope attend his course.
- Then louder howl the aerial waste,
- Be earth with keener cold embraced,
- Yet gentle hours advance their wing;
- And Fancy, mocking Winter's might,
- With flowers and dews and streaming light
- Already decks the new-born Spring.
- 5
- O fountain of the golden day,
- Could mortal vows promote thy speed,
- How soon before thy vernal ray
- Should each unkindly damp recede!
- How soon each hovering tempest fly,
- Whose stores for mischief arm the sky,
- Prompt on our heads to burst amain,
- To rend the forest from the steep,
- Or, thundering o'er the Baltic deep,
- To whelm the merchant's hopes of gain!
- 6
- But let not man's unequal views
- Presume o'er Nature and her laws:
- 'Tis his with grateful joy to use
- The indulgence of the Sovereign Cause;
- Secure that health and beauty springs
- Through this majestic frame of things,
- Beyond what he can reach to know;
- And that Heaven's all-subduing will,
- With good, the progeny of ill,
- Attempereth every state below.
- 7
- How pleasing wears the wintry night,
- Spent with the old illustrious dead!
- While, by the taper's trembling light,
- I seem those awful scenes to tread
- Where chiefs or legislators lie,
- Whose triumphs move before my eye,
- In arms and antique pomp array'd;
- While now I taste the Ionian song,
- Now bend to Plato's godlike tongue
- Resounding through the olive shade.
- 8
- But should some cheerful, equal friend
- Bid leave the studious page a while.
- Let mirth on wisdom then attend,
- And social ease on learned toil.
- Then while, at love's uncareful shrine,
- Each dictates to the god of wine
- Her name whom all his hopes obey,
- What flattering dreams each bosom warm,
- While absence, heightening every charm,
- Invokes the slow-returning May!
- 9
- May, thou delight of heaven and earth,
- When will thy genial star arise?
- The auspicious morn, which gives thee birth,
- Shall bring Eudora to my eyes.
- Within her sylvan haunt, behold,
- As in the happy garden old,
- She moves like that primeval fair:
- Thither, ye silver-sounding lyres,
- Ye tender smiles, ye chaste desires,
- Fond hope and mutual faith, repair.
- 10
- And if believing love can read
- His better omens in her eye,
- Then shall my fears, O charming maid,
- And every pain of absence die:
- Then shall my jocund harp, attuned
- To thy true ear, with sweeter sound
- Pursue the free Horatian song:
- Old Tyne shall listen to my tale,
- And Echo, down the bordering vale,
- The liquid melody prolong.
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