Patient of labour, with a little pleas'd; The fall of kings, The rage of nations, and the crush of states, To Nature's voice attends from month to month, THOMSON. THE keener tempests rife, and all the fields Put on their winter robes of pureft white. 'Tis brightness all; fave where the new snow melts Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid fun H Stands Stands cover'd o'er with fnow, and then demands Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights And pecks, and ftarts, and wonders where he is: Attract his flender feet. The foodlefs wilds The hare, Tho' timorous of heart, and hard befet THOMSON. SECT. LXXXIII. ON A MAN PERISHING IN THE SNOW. As thus the fnows arife; and foul, and fierce All winter drives along the darken'd air ; In his own loofe revolving fields, the fwain Difafter'd ftands; fees other hills afcend, Of unknown joyless brow, and other scenes, Of horrid profpect, fhag the trackless plain; Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid Beneath the farmlefs wild; but wanders on From hill to dale, ftill more and more astray, Impatient flouncing thro' the drifted heaps, Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth In many a vain attempt. How finks his foul! What black despair, what horror fills his heart! When for the dufky fpot, which fancy feign'd His tufted cottage rifing thro' the fnow, He meets the roughness of the middle waste, Far from the track and bleft abode of man; Whilft round him night refiftlefs clofes faft, And every tempeft howling o'er his head, Renders the favage wilderness more wild. Then throng the bufy fhapes into his mind, Of cover'd pits, unfathomably deep, A dire defcent beyond the power of frost, Of faithlefs bogs; of precipices huge, Smooth'd up with fnow; and, what is land, unknown What water, of the ftill unfrozen spring, In the loose marfh, or folitary lake, Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. H 2 Thro' the wrung bofom of the dying man, In vain for him th' officious wife prepares Into the mingling storm, demand their fire, THOMSON. SE C T. LXXXIV. ON THE CRUELTY OF SUFFOCATING BEES WITH SULPHUR. H see where, robb'd and murder'd, in that pit AH Lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatch'd, Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night, And fix'd o'er fulphur: while, not dreaming ill, The happy people in their waxen cells Sat tending public cares, and planning schemes Of temperance, for winter poor; rejoic'd To mark, full flowing round, their copious ftores. Sudden the dark oppreffive fteam afcends; And us'd to milder fcents, the tender race, By thousands, tumble from their honey'd domes, Convolv'd, and agonizing in the dust. And And was it then for this you roam'd the Spring, O man! tyrannic lord! how long, how long, Muft you destroy? Of their ambrofial food (As late, Palermo, was thy fate) is feiz'd By fome dread earthquake, and convulfive hurl'd THOMSON SECT. LXXXV. ON THE SUDDEN DEATH OF A FRIEND. "APPEAR thou fightless minifter of death, "Go feek the fpot where guiltlefs joys refide: |