BUT what is this? our infant Winter sinks, Divested of his grandeur, should our eye Astonished shoot into the frigid zone; Where, for relentless months, continual Night Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign There, through the prison of unbounded wilds, Barred by the hand of Nature from escape, Wide roams the Russian exile. Naught around Strikes his sad eye, but deserts lost in snow; And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods, That stretch athwart the solitary waste, Their icy horrors to the frozen main, And cheerless towns far distant, never blessed, Save when its annual course the caravan Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay, With news of humankind. Yet there life glows; Yet cherished there beneath the shining waste, The furry nations harbor: tipped with jet, Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press; Sables of glossy black; and dark-embrowned, Or beauteous freaked with many a mingled hue, Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts. There, warm together pressed, the trooping deer Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and scarce his head Raised o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss. The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils, Nor with the dread of sounding 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 the ensanguined snows, And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home. There through the piny forest half absorbed, Rough tenant of these shades, the shapeless bear, With dangling ice all horrid, stalks forlorn; Slow-paced, and sourer as the storms increase, He makes his bed beneath the inclement drift, And, with stern patience, scorning weak complaint, Hardens his heart against assailing want. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PASSION'S HOUNDS by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES ON VISITING THE TOMB OF BURNS by JOHN KEATS AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL SONNETS OF MANHOOD: SONNET 24. BALCOMBE FOREST by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) EPITAPH; INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT ERECTED BY GENTLEMAN FOR HIS LADY by JAMES BEATTIE TO A REDBREAST, THAT FLEW INTO A HOUSE ... by ELIZABETH BENTLEY SCHOOLTEACHER by ANGELO PHILIP BERTOCCI BALLADE OF THE BRAVE by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. THE COAST OF LIGURIA by EDWARD CARPENTER |