The springs of Helicon can winter bind,
And chill the fervour of a poet's mind?
What though the lowering skies and driving storm
The scenes of nature wide around deform,
The birds no longer sing, nor roses blow,
And all the landscape lies conceal'd in snow;
Yet rigid Winter still is known to spare
The brighter beauties of the lovely fair:
Ye lovely fair, your sacred influence bring,
And with your smiles anticipate the Spring!
Yet what avail the smiles of lovely maids,
Or vernal suns that glad the flowery glades?
The wood's green foliage, or the varying scene
Of fields and lawns, and gliding streams between?
What, to the wretch whom harder fates ordain
Through the long year to plough the stormy main?
No murmuring streams, no sound of distant sheep,
Or song of birds invite his eyes to sleep.
By toil exhausted, when he sinks to rest,
Beneath his sun-burnt head no flowers are prest:
Down on the deck his fainting limbs are laid,
No spreading trees dispense their cooling shade,
No zephyrs round his aching temples play,
No fragrant breezes noxious heats allay.
The rude, rough wind which stern AEolus sends,
Drives on in blasts, and while it cools, offends.
He wakes, but hears no music from the grove;
No varied landscape courts his eye to rove.
O'er the wide main he looks to distant skies,
Where nought but waves on rolling waves arise;
The boundless view fatigues his aching sight,
Nor yields his eye one object of delight.
No 'female face divine,' with cheering smiles,
The lingering hours of dangerous toil beguiles.
Yet distant beauty oft his genius fires,
And oft with love of sacred song inspires.
Even I, the least of all the tuneful train,
On the rough ocean try this artless strain:
Rouse then, ye bards, who happier fortunes prove,
And tune the lyre to Nature or to Love!