Hark! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge,

That with its wearisome but needful length

Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon

Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;—

He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks,

News from all nations lumbering at his back.

True to his charge the close-packed load behind,

Yet careless what he brings, his one concern

Is to conduct it to the destined inn,

And, having dropped the expected bag—pass on.

He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,

Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief

Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;

To him indifferent whether grief or joy.

Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,

Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet

With tears that trickled down the writer’s cheeks,

Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,

Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.

But oh, the important budget! ushered in

With such heart-shaking music, who can say

What are its tidings? have our troops awaked?

Or do they still, as if with opium drugged,

Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?

Is India free? and does she wear her plumed

And jewelled turban with a smile of peace,

Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,

The popular harangue, the tart reply,

The logic and the wisdom and the wit

And the loud laugh—I long to know them all;

I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free,

And give them voice and utterance once again.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,

That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

Not such his evening, who with shining face

Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed

And bored with elbow-points through both his sides,

Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage;

Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb

And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath

Of patriots bursting with heroic rage,

Or placemen all tranquillity and smiles.

This folio of four pages, happy work!

Which not even critics criticise, that holds

Inquisitive attention while I read

Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,

Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break,

What is it but a map of busy life,

Its fluctuations and its vast concerns?

Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge

That tempts ambition. On the summit, see,

The seals of office glitter in his eyes;

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them. At his heels,

Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,

And with a dextrous jerk soon twists him down

And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.

Here rills of oily eloquence, in soft

Meanders, lubricate the course they take;

The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved

To engross a moment’s notice, and yet begs,

Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts,

However trivial all that he conceives.

Sweet bashfulness! it claims, at least, this praise,

The dearth of information and good sense

That it foretells us, always comes to pass.

Cataracts of declamation thunder here,

There forests of no meaning spread the page

In which all comprehension wanders lost;

While fields of pleasantry amuse us there,

With merry descants on a nation’s woes.

The rest appears a wilderness of strange

But gay confusion; roses for the cheeks

And lilies for the brows of faded age,

Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald,

Heaven, earth, and ocean plundered of their sweets.

Nectareous essences, Olympian dews,

Sermons and city feasts and favourite airs,

Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits,

And Katterfelto with his hair on end

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.

’Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreat

To peep at such a world; to see the stir

Of the great Babel and not feel the crowd;

To hear the roar she sends through all her gates

At a safe distance, where the dying sound

Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear.

Thus sitting and surveying thus at ease

The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced

To some secure and more than mortal height,

That liberates and exempts me from them all.

It turns submitted to my view, turns round

With all its generations; I behold

The tumult and am still. The sound of war

Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me;

Grieves, but alarms me not. I mourn the pride

And avarice that makes man a wolf to man;

Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats

By which he speaks the language of his heart,

And sigh, but never tremble at the sound.

He travels and expatiates, as the bee

From flower to flower so he from land to land;

The manners, customs, policy of all

Pay contribution to the store he gleans,

He sucks intelligence in every clime,

And spreads the honey of his deep research

At his return—a rich repast for me.

He travels and I too. I tread his deck,

Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes

Discover countries, with a kindred heart

Suffer his woes and share in his escapes;

While fancy, like the finger of a clock,

Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.

Oh Winter, ruler of the inverted year,

Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled,

Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks

Fringed with a beard made white with other snows

Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds,

A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne

A sliding car indebted to no wheels,

But urged by storms along its slippery way,

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st,

And dreaded as thou art. Thou hold’st the sun

A prisoner in the yet undawning East,

Shortening his journey between morn and noon,

And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,

Down to the rosy west; but kindly still

Compensating his loss with added hours

Of social converse and instructive ease,

And gathering at short notice in one group

The family dispersed, and fixing thought

Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.

I crown thee king of intimate delights,

Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,

And all the comforts that the lowly roof

Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours

Of long uninterrupted evening know.

No rattling wheels stop short before these gates;

No powdered pert proficients in the art

Of sounding an alarm, assault these doors

Till the street rings; no stationary steeds

Cough their own knell, while heedless of the sound

The silent circle fan themselves, and quake:

But here the needle plies its busy task,

The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower,

Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn,

Unfolds its bosom; buds and leaves and sprigs

And curly tendrils, gracefully disposed,

Follow the nimble finger of the fair;

A wreath that cannot fade, of flowers that blow

With most success when all besides decay.

The poet’s or historian’s page, by one

Made vocal for the amusement of the rest;

The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds

The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out;

And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct,

And in the charming strife triumphant still,

Beguile the night, and set a keener edge

On female industry; the threaded steel

Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds.

The volume closed, the customary rites

Of the last meal commence: a Roman meal,

Such as the mistress of the world once found

Delicious, when her patriots of high note,

Perhaps by moonlight, at their humble doors,

And under an old oak’s domestic shade,

Enjoyed—spare feast!—a radish and an egg.

Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull,

Nor such as with a frown forbids the play

Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth;

Nor do we madly, like an impious world,

Who deem religion frenzy, and the God

That made them an intruder on their joys,

Start at His awful name, or deem His praise

A jarring note; themes of a graver tone

Exciting oft our gratitude and love,

While we retrace with memory’s pointing wand

That calls the past to our exact review,

The dangers we have scaped, the broken snare,

The disappointed foe, deliverance found

Unlooked for, life preserved and peace restored,

Fruits of omnipotent eternal love:—

Oh evenings worthy of the gods! exclaimed

The Sabine bard. Oh evenings, I reply,

More to be prized and coveted than yours,

As more illumined and with nobler truths,

That I, and mine, and those we love, enjoy.

Is Winter hideous in a garb like this?

Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps,

The pent-up breath of an unsavoury throng

To thaw him into feeling, or the smart

And snappish dialogue that flippant wits

Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile?

The self-complacent actor, when he views

(Stealing a sidelong glance at a full house)

The slope of faces from the floor to the roof,

As if one master-spring controlled them all,

Relaxed into an universal grin,

Sees not a countenance there that speaks a joy

Half so refined or so sincere as ours.

Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks

That idleness has ever yet contrived

To fill the void of an unfurnished brain,

To palliate dulness and give time a shove.

Time, as he passes us, has a dove’s wing,

Unsoiled and swift and of a silken sound.

But the world’s time is time in masquerade.

Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged

With motley plumes, and, where the peacock shows

His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red

With spots quadrangular of diamond form,

Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,

And spades, the emblem of untimely graves.

What should be, and what was an hour-glass once,

Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard mast

Well does the work of his destructive scythe.

Thus decked he charms a world whom fashion blinds

To his true worth, most pleased when idle most,

Whose only happy are their wasted hours.

Even misses, at whose age their mothers wore

The back-string and the bib, assume the dress

Of womanhood, sit pupils in the school

Of card-devoted time, and night by night,

Placed at some vacant corner of the board,

Learn every trick, and soon play all the game.

But truce with censure. Roving as I rove,

Where shall I find an end, or how proceed?

As he that travels far, oft turns aside

To view some rugged rock, or mouldering tower,

Which seen delights him not; then coming home,

Describes and prints it, that the world may know

How far he went for what was nothing worth;

So I, with brush in hand and pallet spread

With colours mixed for a far different use,

Paint cards and dolls, and every idle thing

That fancy finds in her excursive flights.

Come, Evening, once again, season of peace,

Return, sweet Evening, and continue long!

Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,

With matron-step slow moving, while the night

Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employed

In letting fall the curtain of repose

On bird and beast, the other charged for man

With sweet oblivion of the cares of day;

Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid,

Like homely-featured night, of clustering gems,

A star or two just twinkling on thy brow

Suffices thee; save that the moon is thine

No less than hers, not worn indeed on high

With ostentatious pageantry, but set

With modest grandeur in thy purple zone,

Resplendent less, but of an ampler round.

Come, then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm,

Or make me so. Composure is thy gift;

And whether I devote thy gentle hours

To books, to music, or to poet’s toil,

To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit,

Or twining silken threads round ivory reels

When they command whom man was born to please,

I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still.

Just when our drawing-rooms begin to blaze

With lights, by clear reflection multiplied

From many a mirror, in which he of Gath,

Goliath, might have seen his giant bulk

Whole without stooping, towering crest and all,

My pleasures too begin. But me perhaps

The glowing hearth may satisfy a while

With faint illumination, that uplifts

The shadow to the ceiling, there by fits

Dancing uncouthly to the quivering flame.

Not undelightful is an hour to me

So spent in parlour twilight; such a gloom

Suits well the thoughtful or unthinking mind,

The mind contemplative, with some new theme

Pregnant, or indisposed alike to all.

Laugh ye, who boast your more mercurial powers

That never feel a stupor, know no pause,

Nor need one; I am conscious, and confess.

Fearless, a soul that does not always think.

Me oft has fancy ludicrous and wild

Soothed with a waking dream of houses, towers,

Trees, churches, and strange visages expressed

In the red cinders, while with poring eye

I gazed, myself creating what I saw.

Nor less amused have I quiescent watched

The sooty films that play upon the bars

Pendulous, and foreboding in the view

Of superstition, prophesying still,

Though still deceived, some stranger’s near approach.

’Tis thus the understanding takes repose

In indolent vacuity of thought,

And sleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face

Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask

Of deep deliberation, as the man

Were tasked to his full strength, absorbed and lost.

Thus oft reclined at ease, I lose an hour

At evening, till at length the freezing blast

That sweeps the bolted shutter, summons home

The recollected powers, and, snapping short

The glassy threads with which the fancy weaves

Her brittle toys, restores me to myself.

How calm is my recess! and how the frost

Raging abroad, and the rough wind, endear

The silence and the warmth enjoyed within!

I saw the woods and fields at close of day

A variegated show; the meadows green

Though faded, and the lands, where lately waved

The golden harvest, of a mellow brown,

Upturned so lately by the forceful share;

I saw far off the weedy fallows smile

With verdure not unprofitable, grazed

By flocks fast feeding, and selecting each

His favourite herb; while all the leafless groves

That skirt the horizon wore a sable hue,

Scarce noticed in the kindred dusk of eve.

To-morrow brings a change, a total change,

Which even now, though silently performed

And slowly, and by most unfelt, the face

Of universal nature undergoes.

Fast falls a fleecy shower; the downy flakes,

Descending and with never-ceasing lapse

Softly alighting upon all below,

Assimilate all objects. Earth receives

Gladly the thickening mantle, and the green

And tender blade, that feared the chilling blast,

Escapes unhurt beneath so warm a veil.

In such a world, so thorny, and where none

Finds happiness unblighted, or if found,

Without some thistly sorrow at its side,

It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin

Against the law of love, to measure lots

With less distinguished than ourselves, that thus

We may with patience bear our moderate ills,

And sympathise with others, suffering more.

Ill fares the traveller now, and he that stalks

In ponderous boots beside his reeking team;

The wain goes heavily, impeded sore

By congregating loads adhering close

To the clogged wheels, and, in its sluggish pace,

Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow.

The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide,

While every breath, by respiration strong

Forced downward, is consolidated soon

Upon their jutting chests. He, formed to bear

The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night,

With half-shut eyes, and puckered cheeks, and teeth

Presented bare against the storm, plods on;

One hand secures his hat, save when with both

He brandishes his pliant length of whip,

Resounding oft, and never heard in vain.

Oh happy, and, in my account, denied

That sensibility of pain with which

Refinement is endued, thrice happy thou!

Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed

The piercing cold, but feels it unimpaired;

The learned finger never need explore

Thy vigorous pulse, and the unhealthful East,

That breathes the spleen, and searches every bone

Of the infirm, is wholesome air to thee.

Thy days roll on exempt from household care,

Thy waggon is thy wife; and the poor beasts,

That drag the dull companion to and fro,

Thine helpless charge, dependent on thy care.

Ah, treat them kindly! rude as thou appearest,

Yet show that thou hast mercy, which the great,

With needless hurry whirled from place to place,

Humane as they would seem, not always show.

Poor, yet industrious, modest, quiet, neat,

Such claim compassion in a night like this,

And have a friend in every feeling heart.

Warmed while it lasts, by labour, all day long

They brave the season, and yet find at eve,

Ill clad and fed but sparely, time to cool.

The frugal housewife trembles when she lights

Her scanty stock of brushwood, blazing clear,

But dying soon, like all terrestrial joys;

The few small embers left she nurses well.

And while her infant race with outspread hands

And crowded knees sit cowering o’er the sparks,

Retires, content to quake, so they be warmed.

The man feels least, as more inured than she

To winter, and the current in his veins

More briskly moved by his severer toil;

Yet he, too, finds his own distress in theirs.

The taper soon extinguished, which I saw

Dangled along at the cold finger’s end

Just when the day declined, and the brown loaf

Lodged on the shelf, half-eaten, without sauce

Of sav’ry cheese, or butter costlier still,

Sleep seems their only refuge. For alas,

Where penury is felt the thought is chained,

And sweet colloquial pleasures are but few.

With all this thrift they thrive not. All the care

Ingenious parsimony takes, but just