Analysis of The Wanderer: A Vision: Canto I

Fain would my verse, Tyrconnel, boast thy name,
Brownlow, at once my subject and my fame!
Oh! could that spirit, which thy bosom warms,
Whose strength surprises, and whose goodness charms!
That various worth! could that inspire my lays,
Envy should smile, and censure learn to praise:
Yet, tho' unequal to a soul like thine,
A generous soul, approaching to divine,
When bless'd beneath such patronage I write,
Great my attempt, tho' hazardous my flight.

O'er ample Nature I extend my views;
Nature to rural scenes invites the muse:
She flies all public care, all venal strife,
To try the still, compar'd with active life;
To prove, by these, the sons of men may owe
The fruits of bliss to bursting clouds of woe;
That e'en calamity, by thought refin'd,
Inspirits and adorns the thinking mind.

Come, Contemplation, whose unbounded gaze,
Swift in a glance, the course of things surveys;
Who in thyself the various view canst find
Of sea, land, air, and heav'n, and human kind;
What tides of passion in the bosom roll;
What thoughts debase, and what exalt the soul,
Whose pencil paints, obsequious to thy will,
All thou survey'st with a creative skill!
Oh, leave awhile thy lov'd, sequester'd shade!
Awhile in wint'ry wilds vouchsafe thy aid!
Then waft me to some olive, bow'ry green,
Where, cloath'd in white, thou shew'st a mind serene;
Where kind content from noise and courts retires,
And smiling sits, while muses tune their lyres:
Where zephyrs gently breathe, while sleep profound
To their soft fanning nods, with poppies crown'd;
Sleep, on a treasure of bright dreams reclines,
By thee bestow'd, whence Fancy colour'd shines,
And flutters round his brow a hov'ring flight,
Varying her plumes in visionary light.

The solar fires now faint and wat'ry burn,
Just where with ice Aquarius frets his urn!
If thaw'd, forth issue, from its mouth severe,
Raw clouds, that sadden all th' inverted year.

When frost and fire with martial pow'rs engag'd,
Frost, northward, fled the war, unequal wag'd!
Beneath the Pole his legions urg'd their flight,
And gain'd a cave profound and wide as night.
O'er cheerless scenes by Desolation own'd,
High on an Alp of ice he sits enthron'd!
One clay-cold hand, his crystal beard sustains,
And scepter'd one, o'er wind and tempest reigns;
O'er stony magazines of hail, that storm
The blossom'd fruit, and flow'ry Spring deform.
His languid eyes, like frozen lakes appear,
Dim-gleaming all the light that wanders here.
His robe snow-wrought, and hoar'd with age; his breath
A nitrous damp, that strikes petrific death.

Far hence lies, ever freez'd, the northern main,
That checks, and renders navigation vain;
That, shut against the sun's dissolving ray,
Scatters the trembling tides of vanquish'd day,
And stretching eastward half the world secures,
Defies discov'ry, and like time endures!

Now frost sent boreal blasts to scourge the air,
To bind the streams, and leave the landscape bear;
Yet when, far west, his violence declines,
Tho' here the brook, or lake, his pow'r confines;
To rocky pools, to cat'racts are unknown
His chains!-to rivers, rapid like the Rhone!

The falling moon cast, cold, a quiv'ring light,
Just silver'd o'er the snow, and sunk!-pale night
Retir'd. The dawn in light-grey mists arose!
Shrill chants the cock! the hungry heifer lows!
Slow blush yon breaking clouds;-the sun's uproll'd!
Th' expansive grey turns azure, chas'd with gold;
White-glitt'ring ice, chang'd like the topaz, gleams,
Reflecting saffron lustre from his beams.

O Contemplation, teach me to explore,
From Britain far remote, some distant shore!
From Sleep a dream distinct and lively claim;
Clear let the vision strike the moral's aim!
It comes! I feel it o'er my soul serene!
Still morn begins, and frost retains the scene!

Hark!-the loud horn's enlivening note's begun!
From rock to vale sweet-wand'ring echoes run!
Still floats the sound shrill-winding from afar!
Wild beasts astonish'd dread the sylvan war!
Spears to the sun in files embattled play,
March on, charge briskly, and enjoy the fray!

Swans, ducks, and geese, and the wing'd winter-brood,
Chatter discordant on yon echoing flood!
At Babel thus, when heav'n the tongue confounds,
Sudden a thousand different jargon-sounds,
Like jangling bells, harsh mingling, grate the ear!
All stare! all talk! all mean; but none cohere!
Mark! wiley fowlers meditate their doom,
And smoaky Fate speeds thund'ring thro' the gloo