The Winter's Night: An Elegy Poem by Robert Alves

When now each light-wing'd hour of joy is fled,
With vernal beauty, vernal love and song;
The muse grieves pensive in the desart shade,
Her voice all silent, and her harp unstrung.

For the lost beauty often does she sigh;
And that lost music which she holds so dear:
But all is darkness to her sorrowing eye,
And all is discord to her troubled ear.

The sun unveils his cloud-wrapt face no more;
Fierce drives the storm through many a dismal day;
Murmurs the angry deep; the rivers roar
With swelling rage, and hurl their sweepy way.

Meanwhile man takes him to the redd'ning fire,
Whose beams wide spreading smile at Winter's gloom:
Full late at night the social bands retire,
While joyous pastimes shake the echoing room.

There modest mirth awakes the general smile,
And brightens ev'n the sober sage's eye;
There humour grave, and wit that laughs the while,
With mild discretion, point their shafts to fly.

Without her sacred sanction, nought were joy,
Not pleasure's queen, though drest in rosy smiles;
Nor what of graver charms the sage employ,
Whose ling'ring hours the search of truth beguiles.

Now inly-wrapt I view, with wond'ring mind,
The ways eternal of th' ador'd supreme;
Whose goodness operates various, unconfin'd,
To all in sea, or earth, or starry frame.

His wondrous works, O man, 'tis thine to know;
His far more wondrous self to know is thine!
'Tis this that makes thy noblest bliss below;
'Tis this that stamps thy character divine.

And, lo! like eagle soaring to the sun,
On thought's aspiring wing I climb the skies:
Here fancy travels far, and travels on,
The scenes wide-opening as aloft she flies.

The sun's wide empire, every circling star
To which he lends his life-dispensing beam,
Amaz'd I view; from Hermes' glowing car,
To where cold Saturn wheels his lazy team.

Lo next I trace the comet's length'ning maze,
Through fields of ether whirling to the sun;
Now pass with towering flight the solar blaze,
Marking each orb enormous rolling on.

Still, still I mount, and, in the milky way,
Round other suns see peopled planets roll;
Myriads of creatures breathe their native day,
In various climes beneath another pole.

Haply some beings, of an earthlier mold
Than us, their Father's lower bounty share;
Or heavenlier, here their constant Edens hold,
And range with angel-wing from sphere to sphere.

Or here the spirits of the good and wise
May after death in blest abodes remain;
Great Newton here may measure the skies,
And Boyle see God in nature's works again.

How lessen'd now, O man, thy green abode!
Where now earth's tow'ring hills! her boundless main!
Where now her fields by bustling millions trod!
I strive to view them, but I strive in vain.

And now from pole to pole of earth I spy;
Here rosy summer smiles, there Winter frowns;
Here desarts vast fatigue the aking eye;
There verdant villas rise, and stately towns.

Here Afric shines with iv'ry, pearls and gold;
There Asia spreads a pomp of fruits and flowers:
See fair Indostan all her wealth unfold,
And China boast her tea, and porc'lain towers.

See in the lap of either Indian deep,
Where round each Isle refreshing breezes blow,
Kind Phoebus, bending from th' ethereal steep,
Gives the sweet cane, or spicy shrub, to grow.

How richly garnish'd is this charming ball
With wealth's bright stores, and beauty's balmy train!
Oh! all ungrateful, to whose lot they fall,
If nature's golden bounties shine in vain.

Mark too the working powers of plastic life,
In form each beauteous plant of Albion's shore;
What wondrous order reigns amidst the strife
Of thousand various shapes of leaf and flow'r!

Sweet are thy hills, and sweet thy bosom'd vales,
Thou queen of Isles, thou empress of the main!
What heavenly fragrance scents thy passing gales!
Oh! take me to thy parent-arms again!

Next hist'ry spreads her living fields anew:
See the vast scenes unfold of ancient time!
Through ev'ry downward age the worthies view,
Of many an empire rear'd, and deed sublime.

Full in mine eye the heroes stalk along,
With hosts embattl'd, all in dread array:
Caesars and Alexanders mark the throng,
And many modern chiefs as fam'd as they.

But far o'er all th' illustrious Peter shines,
Whose fame no length of ages shall efface:
As purging fire the coarsest ore refines,
So form'd his active soul the rugged race.

Lo thy bright annals, Albion, in their turn,
Some great examples shall afford from far:
Alfred behold with patriot-ardour burn,
For arts of peace renown'd, and bold in war.

Edwards and Henrys fill th' important page,
And female forms their graceful mien display:
Eliza, Anna! Oh! what wars ye wage,
And soar to fame, where conquest led the way.

How pleasant thus rolls on the wintry night!
(While winds blow keen, and howls the stormy blast),
How sweet to walk, by truth's increasing light,
Through time's fair scenes, revolving ages past!

Next let me search the good supreme, and man,
With sages old, in Athens' learned grove;
And, while intent the moral world they scan,
With sweet-tongued Xenophon and Plato rove.

Nor let me scorn the learn'd of Albion's coast,
Whose gifts to verse or moral prose aspire;
Whether a Pope or Addison she boast,
Or Milton's muse, or Shakespear's native fire.

Both skill'd alike to draw the dread sublime,
Cloud the dark heavens, or bid the thunder roll:
Or deck with beauty bright the verdant clime,
And shed a pleasing sunshine o'er the whole.

But Shakespear's genius ampler powers exprest,
Skill'd or our joys or sorrows beguile;
What time with tragic pains he tears the breast,
Or wakes, with humour sly, the comic smile.

In princely Hamlet all his serious rage,
And high-wrought Lear raves madder than the storms;
But when the laughing hero treads the stage,
What mirth ecstatic ev'ry breast informs!

Yet oft let Milton's strains my heart inspire;
His chaos wild; his bloom of paradise;
Or when sublime he sets my soul on fire,
While wars angelic shake th' empyreal skies.

Still do I seem to haunt the favourite bower,
Where mute attention hangs on Raphael's tongue;
Eve weaves her garland of each blushing flower,
Nor ties to reach the daring heights of song.

Hail wedded love! Hail source of true delight!
When meek discretion guides the modest fair;
With beauty bashful, sense that shuns the sight,
Her consort's secret joy, and darling care.

Hail to the simple days! The joys of yore!
Ah! whither fled with Eden's long-lost grove!
Ah! ill exchang'd for wealth, or pomp or power!
Or all that since our guilty bosoms move!

But cease, my muse: restrain thy wand'ring song;
Or sing the rage of winter's angry power;
Yet winter brings the pleasing joys along,
Both of the social and the studious hour.

Then farewell, for a while, to Phoebus' aid:
His brighter smiles let swarthy Indians boast;
For them let summer dress the verdant shade,
And balmy flow'rets bloom through all their coast.

May we thus still amuse the live long night
Of dreary winter; learned solace find;
And reap such joys from science' various light,
As warm the heart, and fill the boundless mind!