154 The Leopard and the Looking-Glass. How vainly, through infinite trouble and strife, The many their labours employ !

Since all that is truly delightful in life

Is what all, if they please, may enjoy!

THE LEOPARD AND THE LOOKING-GLASS.

FIERCE from his lair forth springs the speckled

pard,

Thirsting for blood, ana eager to destroy.
The huntsman flies, but to his flight alone
Confides not at convenient distance fix'd,
A polish'd mirror stops, in full career,
The furious brute: he there his image views;
Spots against spots with rage improving glow;
Another pard his briskly whiskers curls,
Grins as he grins, fierce menacing, and wide
Distends his op'ning jaws; himself against
Himself oppos'd, and with dread vengeance
arm'd.

The huntsman, now secure, with fatal aim
Directs the pointed spear, by which transfix'd
He dies, and with him dies the rival shade.

SOMERVILLE,

To Winter.

155

TO WINTER.

A WRINKLED, crabbed man, they picture thee,
Old Winter, with ragged beard as grey

As the long moss upon the apple tree;
Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way

Blue-lipp'd, an ice-drop at thy sharp blue nose,
Plodding along through sleet and drifting snows.
They should have drawn thee by the high-
heap'd hearth, ́.

Old Winter! seated in thy great arm'd chair,
Watching the children at their Christmas mirth,
Or circled by them as their lips declare
Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire,
Or savage robbers roaming in the night,
Pausing at times to move the languid fire,
Or taste the old October, brown and bright.
ANTHOLOGY.

WINTER! thou hoary venerable sire,
All richly in thy furry mantle clad,

What thoughts of mirth can feeble age inspire
To make thy careful, wrinkled brow so glad!

Now I see the reason plain,

Now I see thy jolly train;
Snowy-headed Winter leads,
Spring and Summer next succeeds,
Yellow Autumn brings the rear—
Thou art father of the year.
While from the frosty mellow'd earth
Abounding Plenty takes her birth,
The conscious sire exulting sees
The seasons spread their rich increase.

ROWE.

THE WHALE.

-WARM and buoyant, in his oily mail, Gambols on seas of ice th' unwieldy, whale; Wide waving fins round floating islands urge. His bulk gigantic through the troubled surge; With hideous yawn the flying shoals he seeks, Or clasps with fringe of horn his massy cheeks; Lifts o'er the tossing wave his nostrils bare, And spouts the wat'ry columns into air: The silvery arches catch the setting beams, And transient rainbows trembleo'er the streams.

DARWIN.

Morning.-Vigour of Mind.

MORNING.

157

WISH'D morning's come; and now upon the plains

And distant mountains, where they feed their flocks,

The happy shepherds leave their homely huts, And with their pipes proclaim the new-born day; The beasts, that under the warm hedges slept, And weather'd out the cold bleak night, are up, And looking towards the neighb'ring pastures raise

Their voice, and bid their fellow-brutes good

morrow:

The cheerful birds too on the tops of trees

Assemble all in choirs, and with their notes Salute and welcome up the rising sun.

OTWAY.

VIGOUR OF MIND.

THE wise and active conquer difficulties
By daring to attempt them: sloth and folly
Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and hazard,
And make th' impossibility they fear.

ROWE

"WHERE Canada spreads forth her deserts hoar, Chill'd by the polar frosts of Labrador, Where mighty lakes their azure wastes expand, And swell their wat❜ry empire o'er the land; What tribes or wing the air or tread the plain, What herbage springs, what nations hold their reign ?"

'Enormous forests stretch their shadows wide, And rich savannas skirt the mountain's side; There bounds the moose, and shaggy bisons graze;

Scar'd by the wolf, the hardy rein-deer brays;
The clamb'ring squirrel tumbles from on high,
Fix'd by the rattlesnake's rapacious eye.
Unnumber'd pigeons fill the darken'd air,
Glut the tir'd hawk, the loaded branches tear:
Fair swans majestic on the waters glide;
The mason beaver checks the flowing tide.
Gigantic rivers shake the thund'ring shore:
Dread Niagara's foaming cataracts roar.
In light canoe the painted Indian rows,
Or hunts the floundering elk through melting

snows;