Page:The Seasons - Thomson (1791).djvu/227

 Astonish'd shoot into the Frigid Zone; Where, for relentless months, continual night, Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.

, thro' the prison of unbounded wilds, Barr'd by the hand of Nature from escape, Wide-roams the Russian exile. Nought around Strikes his sad eye, but desarts lost in snow; And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods, That stretch, athwart the solitary vast, Their icy horrors to the frozen main; And cheerless towns far-distant, never bless'd, Save when its annual course the caravan Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay With news of human-kind. Yet there life glows; Yet cherish'd there, beneath the shining waste, The furry nations harbour: tipt with jet, Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press; Sables, of glossy black; and dark-embrown'd, Or beauteous freakt with many a mingled hue, Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts. There, warm together press'd, the trooping deer Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and, scarce his head Rais'd 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 th' ensanguin'd snows, And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home. There thro' the piny forest half-absorpt, Rough