heir own delights. [124]

When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows;
That hut which on the hills so oft employs 480
His thoughts, the central point of all his joys. [125]
And as a swallow, at the hour of rest,
Peeps often ere she darts into her nest,
So to the homestead, where the grandsire tends
A little prattling child, he oft descends, 485
To glance a look upon the well-matched pair; [126]
Till storm and driving ice blockade him there.
There, [127] safely guarded by the woods behind,
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind,
Hears Winter calling all his terrors round, 490
And, blest within himself, he shrinks not from the sound. [128]

Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide,
Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride;
The bound of all his vanity, to deck,
With one bright bell, a favourite heifer's neck; 495
Well pleased [129] upon some simple annual feast,
Remembered half the year and hoped the rest,
If dairy-produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers dignify [130] the board.
--Alas! in every clime a flying ray 500
Is all we have to cheer our wintry way;
[131]
And here the unwilling mind [132] may more than trace
The general sorrows of the human race:
The churlish gales of penury, that blow
Cold as the north-wind o'er a waste of snow, [133] 505
To them [134] the gentle groups of bliss deny
That on the noon-day bank of leisure lie.
Yet more;--compelled by Powers which only deign
That _solitary_ man disturb their reign,
Powers that support an unremitting [135] strife 510
With all the tender charities of life,
Full oft the father, when his sons have grown
To manhood, seems their title to disown; [136]
And from his nest [137] amid the storms of heaven
Drives, eagle-like, those sons as he was driven; 515
With stern composure [138] watches to the plain--
And never, eagle-like, beholds again!

When long familiar joys are all resigned,
Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind? [139]
Lo! where through flat Batavia's willowy groves, 520
Or by the lazy Seine, the exile roves;
O'er the curled waters Alpine measures swell,
And search the affections to their inmost cell;
Sweet poison spreads along t