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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



WIN TEE. 



A MORNING'S WALK. 



'Tis morxixg ! Now the sun, with ruddy orb 

 Ascending, fires th' horizon ; while the clouds, 

 That crowd away before the driving wind, 

 More ardent as the disk emerges more, 

 Resemble most some city in a blaze, 

 Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting 



ray 

 Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, 

 And, tinging all with his own rosy hue, 

 From every herb and every spiry blade 

 Stretches a length of shadow o'er the field. 

 Mine, spindling into longitude immense, 

 In spite of gravity, and sage remark 

 That I myself am but a fleeting shade, 

 Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance 

 I view the muscular proportion'd limb 

 Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless 



pair, 

 As they design'd to mock me, at my side 

 Take step for step ; and, as I near approach 

 The cottage, walk along the plaster'd wall — 

 Preposterous sight ! the legs without the man. 

 The verdure of the plain lies buried deep 

 Beneath the dazzling deluge ; and the bents, 

 And coarser grass, upspearing o'er the rest, 

 Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine 

 Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, 

 And, fledged with icy feathers, nod superb. 

 The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence 

 Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep 

 In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait 

 Their wonted fodder ; not like hungering man, 

 Fretful if unsupplied : but silent, meek, 

 And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay. 

 He from the stack carves out the accustom'd load, 

 Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, 

 His broad keen knife into the solid mass : 

 Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, 

 With such undeviating and even force 

 He severs it away : no needless care, 

 Lest storms should overset the leaning pile 

 Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. 

 Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd 

 The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe, 

 And drive the wedge, in yonder forest drear, 

 From morn to eve his solitary task. 

 Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears, 

 And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher, and half cur, 

 His dog attends him. Close behind his heel 

 Now creeps he slow ; and now, with many a frisk 

 Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow 

 With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout : 

 Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for 



joy. 



Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl 

 Moves right toward the mark ; nor stops for 



aught, 

 But now and then with pressure of his thumb 

 To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube, 

 That fumes beneath his nose : the trailing cloud 

 Streams far behind him, scenting all the air. 

 Now from the roost, or from the neighboring 



pale, 

 Where diligent to catch the first faint gleam 

 Of smiling day, they gossip'd side by side, 

 Come trooping at the housewife's well-known call 



The feather'd tribes domestic. Half on wing, 



And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, 



Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. 



The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves, 



To seize the fair occasion ; well they eye 



The scatter'd grain, and thievishly resolved 



To escape the impending famine, often scared 



As oft return, a pert voracious kind. 



Clean riddance quickly made, one only care 



Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, 



Or shed impervious to the blast. Resign'd 



To sad necessity, the cock foregoes 



His wonted strut : and wading at their head 



With well-consider'd steps, seem to resent 



His alter'd gait and stateliness retrench'd. 



How find the myriads, that in summer cheer 



The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs, 



Due sustenance ; or where subsist they now ? 



Earth yields them naught ; the imprison'd worm 



is safe 

 Beneath the frozen clod ; all seeds of herbs 

 Lie cover'd close ; and berry-bearing thorns, 

 That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose), 

 Afford the smaller minstrels no supply. 

 The long protracted rigour of the year 

 Thins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and 



holes 

 Ten thousand seek an unmolested end, 

 As instinct prompts ; self-buried ere they die. 

 The very rooks and daws forsake the fields, 

 Where neither grub, nor root, nor earth-nut, now 

 Repays their labor more ; and perch'd aloft 

 By the wayside, or stalking in the path, 

 Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track, 

 Pick up their nauseous dole, though sweet to 



them, 

 Of voided pulse or half-digested grain. 

 The streams are lost amid the splendid bank, 

 O'erwhelming all distinction. On the flood, 

 Indurated and fix'd, the snowy weight 

 Lies undissolv'd ; while silently beneath, 

 And unperceived, the current steals away. 

 Not so where, scornful of a check, it leaps 

 The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel, 

 And wantons in the pebbly gulf below : 

 No frost can bind it there ; its utmost force 

 Can but arrest the light and smoky mist, 

 That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. 

 And see where it has hung the embroider'd banks 

 With forms so various, that no powers of art, 

 The pencil or the pen, may trace the scene ! 

 Here glittering turrets rise upbearing high 

 (Fantastic mis-arrangement !) on the roof 

 Large growth of what may seem the sparkling 



trees 

 And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops, 

 That trickle down the branches, fast congeal'd, 

 Shoot into pillars of pellucid length, 

 And prop the pile they but adorn'd before. 

 Here grotto within grotto safe defies 

 The sunbeam ; there, emboss'd and fretted wild, 

 The growing wonder takes a thousand shapes 

 Capricious, in which fancy seeks in vain 

 The likeness of some object seen before. 

 Thus Nature works as if to mock at Art, 

 And in defiance of her rival powers ; 

 By these fortuitous and random strokes 

 Performing such inimitable feats 

 As she with all her rules can never reach. 



Cowper. 



