WINTKY OUTLOOKS. 



Yet in the same poem he conveys the idea of 

 Winter as presented to the intellectual mind : 



' All Nature feels tlie renovating force, 

 Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye 

 In ruin seen. The frost-contracted glebe 

 Draws in abundant vegetable soul, 

 And gathers vigour for the coming year. 

 A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek 

 Of ruddy fire ; and luculent along 

 The purer rivers flow : their sullen deep?, 

 Transparent, open to the shepherd's gaze 

 And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.' 



But even here it is the physical benefits con- 

 ferred by Winter, and not its scenic beauty > that 

 stress is laid upon : and our poets have mostly 

 waxed eloquent upon the ' dread ' and ' chill ' 

 aspect of the dead season. Cowper paints a 

 terrible picture, yet fringes it with silver in 

 the last two of the .following lines :- 



' Oil, Winter ! ruler of the inverted year, 

 Thy scatter'd hair with sleet-like ashes fill'd, 

 Thy breath congeal' d upon thy lips, thy cheeks 

 Fringed with a beard made white with other snows 

 Than those of age ; thy forehead wrapp'd in clouds, 

 A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne 

 A sliding car indebted to no wheels, 



