And heavy loaded groves; and folid floods,
That stretch, athwart the solitary vast, `
Their icy horror to the frozen main;
And chearless towns far diftant, never bless'd,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich * Gathay,
With news of humankind. Yet there life glows;
Yet cherish'd there, beneath the fhining waste,
The furry nations harbour: tipt with jet,
Fair ermines, fpotlefs as the fnows they prefs;
Sables, of gloffy black; and dark embrown'd,
Or beauteous freak'd with many a mingled hue,
Thousands befides, the coftly pride of courts.
There, warm together prefs'd, the trooping deer
Sleep on the new-fallen fnows; and, scarce his head
Rais'd o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
Lyes flumbering fullen in the white abyss..
The ruthless bunter wants nor dogs nor toils,
Nor with the dread of founding bows he drives
The fearful flying race; with ponderous clubs,
As weak against the mountain-heaps they push
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray,
He lays them quivering on th' enfanguin'd fnows, 825
And with loud fhouts rejoicing bears them home.
There thro' the piny foreft half-abforpt,
Rough tenant of these fhades, the shapeless bear,
With dangling ice all horrid, ftalks forlorn;
Slow-pac'd, and fourer as the storms encrease,
He makes his bed beneath th' inclement drift,
And, with ftern patience, fcorning weak complaint,
Hardens his heart against affailing want.
Wide o'er the fpacious regions of the north,
That fee Bootes urge his tardy wain,
A boisterous race, by frofty * Caurus pierc'd,
Who little pleasure know and fear no pain,
Prolific fwarm. They once relum'd the flame
Of loft mankind in polifh'd flavery funk,
Drove martial + horde on horde, with dreadful sweep
Refiftless rushing o'er th' enfeebled fouth,
And gave the vanquifh'd world another form.
Not fuch the fons of Lapland wifely they
Despise th' insensate barbarous trade of war;
They ask no more than fimple Nature gives,
They love their mountains, and enjoy their storms.
No falfe defires, no pride-created wants,
Disturb the peaceful current of their time;
And thro' the reftlefs ever tortur'd maze
Of pleasure, or ambition, bid it rage.
Their rain-deer form their riches. These their tents, Their robes, their beds, and all their homely wealth Supply, their wholesome fare, and chearful cups. Obfequious at their call, the docile tribe
Yield to the fled their necks, and whirl them swift 855
O'er bill and dale, heap'd into one expanse
Of marbled fnow, as far as eye can sweep
With a blue cruft of ice unbounded glaz❜d.
By dancing meteors then, that ceaseless shake
A waving blaze refracted o'er the heavens,
And vivid moons, and stars that keener play
With doubled luftre from the gloffy waste,
Even in the depth of Polar Night, they find
A wondrous day: enough to light the chase,
Or guide their daring fteps to Finland fairs.
Wish'd Spring returns; and from the hazy fouth,
+ The wandering Scythian Glans.
While dim Aurora slowly moves before,
The welcome fun, just verging up at first,
By small degrees extends the fwelling curve!
Till feen at last for gay rejoicing months,
Still round and round, his spiral course he winds,
And as he nearly dips his flaming orb,
Wheels up again, and re-ascends the sky.
In that glad season, from the lakes and floods,
Where pure * Niemi's fairy mountains rise,
And fring'd with roles, † Tenglio rolls his ftream,
They draw the copious fry. With these, at eve,
They, chearful-loaded, to their tents repair;
Where, all day long in ufeful cares employ'd,
Their kind unblemish'd wives the fire prepare.
Thrice happy ráce! by poverty fecur'd
From legal plunder and rapacious power:
In whom fell Interest never yet has sown
The feeds of vice: whofe fpotless fwains ne'er knew
Injurious deed, nor, blafted by the breath
Of faithlefs love, their blooming daughters woe.
Still preffing on, beyond Tornea's lake,
And Hecla, flaming through a waste of fnow,
And farthest Greenland, to the pole itself,
Where, failing gradual, life at length goes out, 890
*M. de Maupertuis, in his book on the Figure of the Earth, after having defcribed the beautiful Lake and Mountain of Niemi in Lapland, fays;—" From this height we had opportunity Several times to fee those vapours rife from the lake which the people of the country call Haltios, and which they deem to be the guardian Spirits of the mountains. We had been frighted with ftories of bears that haunted this place, but faw none. It feemed rather a place of refert for Fairies and Genii, than bears.” + The fame Author obferves" I was surprised to fee upon the banks of this river (the Tenglio) rofes of as lively a red as any that are in our gardens."
The Muse expands her folitary flight;..
And, hovering o'er the wild stupendous scene,
Beholds new feas beneath * another sky.
Thron'd in his palace of coerulean ice,
Here WINTER holds his unrejoicing court;
And thro' his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is for ever heard:
Here the grim tyrant meditates his wrath ;
Here arms his winds with all-fubduing frost ;
Moulds his fierce hail, and treasures up his fnows, 900
With which he now oppresses half the globe.
Thence winding eastward to the Tartar's coast,
She fweeps the howling margin of the main;
Where undiffolving, from the first of time,
Snows fwell on fnows amazing to the sky;
And icy mountains high on mountains pil'd,
Seem to the shivering failor from afar,
Shapeless and white, an atmosphere of clouds.
Projected huge, and horrid, o'er the surge,
Alps frown on Alps; or rufhing hideous down, 910 As if old Chaos was again return'd,
Wide-rend the deep, and shake the solid pole.
Ocean itself no longer can refift
The binding fury; but, in all its rage
Of tempest taken by the boundless frost,
Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, chearless, and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious fouthward.
Who, here intangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold froft,
The long long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible. Such was the * BRITON's fate, 925
As with firft prow, (what have not BRITONS dar'd!),
He for the paffage fought, attempted fince
So much in vain, and feeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions, in Arzina caughty
And to the stony deep his idle ship
Immediate feal'd, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his feveral talk,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glu'd
The failor, and the pilot to the helm.
Hard by these shores, where fcarce his freezing ftreamn
Rolls the wild Oby, live the last of Men;
And half-enliven'd by the distant fun,
That rears and ripens Man, as well as plants,
Here Human Nature wears its rudeft form,
Deep from the piercing season funk in caves,
Here by dull fires, and with unjoyous cheer,
They waste the tedious gloom. Immers'd in furs,
Doze the grofs race. Nor fprightly jeft, nor fong,
Nor tenderness they know ; nor aught of life,
Beyond the kindred bears that stalk without.
Till morn at length, her roses drooping all,-
Sheds a long twilight brightening o'er their fields, 1
And calls the quiver'd favage to the chace.
What cannot active government perform, New-moulding Man! Wide-stretching from thefe fhores,
A people favage from remotest time,
A huge neglected empire ONE VAST MIND,
By HEAVEN infpir'd, from Gothic darkness call'd.
Immortal PETER! first of monarchs! He
Sir Hugh Willoughby, fent by Queen Elifabeth to dif cover the north-east passage.
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