Thomson and Pollok: containing The seasons, by James Thomson, and The course of time, by Robert Pollok, A. M.

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140 WINTER.
Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool,
Bright as the skies, and as the season keen
All Nature feels the renovating force
Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye 705
In ruin seen. The frost-concocted glebe
Draws in abundant vegetable soul,
And gathers vigour for the coming year.
A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek
Of ruddy fire: and luculent along 710
The purer rivers flow; their sullen deeps,
Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze,
And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.
What art thou, frost. and whence are thy keen stores
Derived, thou secret all-invading power, 715
Whom e'en the' illusive fluid cannot fly?
Is not thy potent energy, unseen,
Myriads of little salts, or hook'd, or shaped
Like double wedges, and diffused immense
Through water, earth, and ether? hence at eve, 720
Steam'd eager from the red horizon round,,
With the fierce rage of Winter deep suffased,
An icy gale, oft shifting, o'er the pool
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering stream. The loosen'd ice, 725
Let down the flood, and half dissolved by day,
Rustles no more; but to the sedgy bank
Fast grows, or gathers round the pointed stone,
A crystal pavement, by the breath of heaven
Cemented firm; till, seized from shore to shore, 730
The whole imprison'd river growls below.
Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
A -louble noise; while, at his evening watch,
The village dog deters the nightly thief;
The heifer lows; the distant waterfall 735
Swells in the breeze; and, with the hasty tread
Of traveller, the hollow sounding plain
Shakes from afar. The full etherial round,
Infinite worlds disclosing to the view,

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