THE surly demons of the tempest yell,
The frozen ground rings sullen on the ear;
Night breathes her cold sighs o'er the shiv'ring dell,
And sheeted Horror leagues with wan-cheek'd Fear.
No more Spring's smiling babes', the roses, rear
Their blushing heads, but bid a long farewell;
No more the balmy eye-lids of the Morn
Awake green-crested Summer from her cell;
With crystal spangles doth she now adorn
Her bosom pale, and chill, and weeps her withering
thorn.
Terrific darkness clothes the baleful heath,
While Dread's black legions lift her awful veil;
Gigantic Terror calls the fiends of Death,
And bids the elves their dismal scenes reveal
To the tranc'd trav'ller's eye, whose heart-strings feel
The horrid shock, and blasted, tear asunder;
The forked lightnings round his forehead dance, Grim howls the flame-rob'd Pow'r that sways the
He sinks, he dies!-the torturing cries advance, Ne'er shall his children catch their father's sprightly glance.
Ah me! what now avails the shudd'ring wretch
Who hugs her orphan infant to her breast,
Beneath some ruin'd castle's yawning breach!
Hark! the winds whistle o'er the hapless guest ;
The shatter'd walls rock, tottering!-sprites unblest,
O! spare the meek-ey'd mourner!-Angels catch
The falling rocks! arrest the sudden death!
Celestial Comfort's soft elixir fetch :
Lo, now! even now, she pours her last sad breath, The frighted darling clings, and gasps, and falls beneath!
Fell Winter, tyrant of the blooming year,
Nature's harsh stepsire! Mirth's Cimmerian foe,
Fly with thy ruffian-blasts to cavern drear,
Nor mar the lovely woodland's vernal flow;
Thou, and thy ravens, shrick the dirge of woe
In Lapland's haggard waste; the rude rocks tear
And hurl huge fragments to the stagnant wave
From some blank bill where witching beldames stare:
But oh! Europa's flow'ry natives spare!
Zephyr alone his radiant wing shall wave,
And melting thaws serene unbind their icy grave.
DIM burns the taper with a twinkling flame,
The sooty coal forsakes the narrow grate,
Frail glasses broke a broken purse proclaim,
And vacant jugs the landlord's bill relate.
Here let me, then, thy ruin'd state bewail,
Fair alehouse, fairest of the busy green;
With tears bemoan thy abdicated ale,
With sighs survey thy cellar's solemn scene.
Here oft, immers'd in politics profound,
The social curate smoak'd his ev'ning pipe ; Here too the clerk his mantling goblet crown'd, And press'd the blushful glass in beauty ripe.
Oft did yon bell (a bell no more!) with joy
Bound to the smith's reverberating hand;
Oft did the woodman yon crack'd screw employ,
And bottled nectars bounce at his command.
Ah! here, the purring, solitary cat,
Musing, the hearth with em'rald eye reviews ; In grand Parnassian pomp the poet sat,
And quaff'd substantial bumpers to his Muse.
Here has he stood, meanwhile his slumb'ring crew,
Stretch'd o'er the floor, in awful silence lay;
(Sad proof how well thy former host could brew!)
And wept them hurried from the light of day.
Full many an epitaph, with cunning lore,
Frolic he mutter'd o'er cach victim's head; To calm his sorrows, claim'd one tankard more, And made the young sun light him to his bed..
No more the quaint-ey'd catch, the teeming jest,
The loud-continued laugh, the ready wit,
Shall swell with fond applause the simple breast,
The shrinking clown with poignant sting shall hit.
Farewell tobacco, mellowing ale farewell!
To higher themes the ardent bosom clings;
Yet let this verse thy alehouse-honours tell,
And bid thy landlord shine, enroll'd with kings.
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