Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WINTER, by CHARLES COTTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WINTER, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hark, hark, I hear the north wind roar
Last Line: With love and wine, can know no harm.
Subject(s): Winter


I

HARK, hark, I hear the north wind roar,
See how he riots on the shore;
And with expanded wings at stretch,
Ruffles the billows on the beach.

II

Hark, how the routed waves complain,
And call for succour to the main,
Flying the storm as if they meant
To creep into the Continent.

III

Surely all AEol's huffing brood
Are met to war against the flood,
Which seems surpris'd, and has not yet
Had time his levies to complete.

IV

The beaten bark, her rudder lost,
Is on the rolling billows tost;
Her keel now ploughs the ooze, and soon
Her top-mast tilts against the moon.

V

'Tis strange! the Pilot keeps his seat;
His bounding ship does so curvet,
Whilst the poor passengers are found,
In their own fears already drown'd.

VI

Now fins do serve for wings, and bear
Their scaly squadrons through the air;
Whilst the air's inhabitants do stain
Their gaudy plumage in the main.

VII

Now stars concealed in clouds do peep
Into the secrets of the deep;
And lobsters spewed up from the brine,
With Cancer's constellations shine.

VIII

Sure Neptune's watery kingdoms yet
Since first their coral groves were wet,
Were ne'er disturbed with such alarms,
Nor had such trial of their arms.

IX

See where a liquid mountain rides,
Made of innumerable tides,
And tumbles headlong to the strand,
As if the sea would come to land.

X

A sail, a sail, I plainly spy,
Betwixt the ocean and the sky,
An Argosy, a tall built ship,
With all her pregnant sail a-trip.

XI

Nearer, and nearer, she makes way,
With canvas wings into the bay;
And now upon the deck appears
A crowd of busy mariners.

XII

Methinks I hear the cordage crack,
With furrowing Neptune's foaming back,
Who wounded, and revengeful roars
His fury to the neighb'ring shores.

XIII

With massy trident high, he heaves
Her sliding keel above the waves,
Opening his liquid arms to take
The bold invader in his wrack.

XIV

See how she dives into his chest,
Whilst raising up his floating breast
To clasp her in, he makes her rise
Out of the reach of his surprise.

XV

Nearer she comes, and still doth sweep
The azure surface of the deep,
And now at last the waves have thrown
Their rider on our Albion.

XVI

Under the black cliff's spumy base,
The sea-sick hulk her freight displays,
And as she walloweth on the sand,
Vomits her burthen to the land.

XVII

With heads erect, and plying oar,
The ship-wrack'd mates make to the shore;
And dreadless of their danger, climb
The floating mountains of the brine.

XVIII

Hark, hark, the noise, their echoes make
The island's silver waves to shake;
Sure with these throes, the lab'ring main
's delivered of a hurricane.

XIX

And see the seas becalm'd behind,
Not crisp with any breeze of wind;
The tempest has forsook the waves,
And on the land begins his braves.

XX

Hark, hark, their voices higher rise,
They tear the welkin with their cries;
The very rocks their fury feel,
And like sick drunkards nod, and reel.

XXI

Louder, and louder, still they come,
Nile's cataracts to these are dumb;
The Cyclops to these blades are still,
Whose anvils shake the burning hill.

XXII

Were all the star-enlightened skies,
As full of ears as sparkling eyes;
This rattle in the crystal hall,
Would be enough to deaf them all.

XXIII

What monstrous race is hither tost,
Thus to alarm our British coast;
With outcries, such as never yet
War, or confusion could beget.

XXIV

Oh! now I know them! Let us home,
Our mortal enemy is come,
Winter and all his blust'ring train,
Have made a voyage o'er the main.

XXV

Banished the countries of the sun,
The fugitive is hither run,
To ravish from our fruitful fields
All that the teeming season yields.

XXVI

Like an invader, not a guest,
He comes to riot, not to feast;
And in wild fury overthrows,
Whatever does his march oppose.

XXVII

With bleak and with congealing winds,
The earth in shining chains he binds;
And still as he doth farther pass,
Quarries his way with liquid glass.

XXVIII

Hark, how the blusterers of the Bear,
Their gibbous cheeks in triumph tear,
And with continued shouts do ring
The entry of their palsy'd king.

XXIX

The squadron nearest to your eye,
Is his forlorn of infantry,
Bow-men of unrelenting minds,
Whose shafts are feathered with the winds.

XXX

Now you may see his vanguard rise
Above the beachy precipice,
Bold horse on bleakest mountains bred,
With hail instead of provend fed.

XXXI

Their lances are the pointed locks,
Torn from the brows of frozen rocks,
Their shields are crystals and their swords,
The steel the crusted rock affords.

XXXII

See the main body now appears,
And hark the AEolian trumpeters,
By their hoarse levets do declare,
That the bold General rides there.

XXXIII

And look where mantled up in white,
He sleds it like the Muscovite;
I know him by the port he bears,
And his life-guard of Mountaineers.

XXXIV

Their caps are fur'd with hoary frosts,
The bravery their cold kingdom boasts;
Their spungy plaids are milk white frieze,
Spun from the snowy mountains fleece.

XXXV

Their partizans are fine carved glass,
Fringed with the morning's spangled grass;
And pendant by their brawny thighs,
Hang scimitars of burnished ice.

XXXVI

See, see, the rear-ward now has won
The promontory's trembling crown,
Whilst at their numerous spurs, the ground
Groans out a hollow murmuring sound.

XXXVII

The forlorn now halts for the van;
The rear-guard draws up to the main;
And now they altogether crowd
Their troops into a threatening cloud.

XXXVIII

Fly, fly; the foe advances fast;
Into our fortress, let us haste
Where all the roarers of the North
Can neither storm, nor starve us forth.

XXXIX

There under ground a magazine
Of sovereign juice is cellar'd in,
Liquor that will the siege maintain,
Should Phoebus ne'er return again.

XL

'Tis that, that gives the poet rage,
And thaws the gelid blood of age;
Matures the young, restores the old,
And makes the fainting coward bold.

XLI

It lays the careful head to rest,
Calms palpitations in the breast,
Renders our Lives' misfortune sweet,
And Venus frolic in the sheet.

XLII

Then let the chill Sirocco blow,
And gird us round with hills of snow;
Or else go whistle to the shore,
And make the hollow mountains roar.

XLIII

Whilst we together jovial sit
Careless, and crown'd with mirth and wit;
Where though bleak winds confine us home,
Our fancies round the world shall roam.

XLIV

We'll think of all the friends we know,
And drink to all worth drinking to:
When having drunk all thine and mine,
We rather shall want healths than wine.

XLV

But where friends fail us, we'll supply
Our friendships with our charity;
Men that remote in sorrows live,
Shall by our lusty brimmers thrive.

XLVI

We'll drink the wanting into wealth,
And those that languish into health,
The afflicted into joy, th' opprest
Into security and rest.

XLVII

The worthy in disgrace shall find
Favour return again more kind,
And in restraint who stifled lie,
Shall taste the air of liberty.

XLVIII

The brave shall triumph in success,
The lovers shall have mistresses,
Poor unregarded virtue praise,
And the neglected poet bays.

XLIX

Thus shall our healths do others good,
Whilst we ourselves do all we wou'd;
For freed from envy and from care,
What would we be, but what we are?

L

'Tis the plump grape's immortal juice
That does this happiness produce,
And will preserve us free together,
Maugre mischance, or wind and weather.

LI

Then let Old Winter take his course,
And roar abroad till he be hoarse,
And his lungs crack with ruthless ire,
It shall but serve to blow our fire.

LII

Let him our little castle ply,
With all his loud artillery,
Whilst sack and claret man the fort
His fury shall become our sport.

LIII

Or, let him Scotland take, and there
Confine the plotting Presbyter;
His zeal may freeze, whilst we kept warm
With love and wine, can know no harm.





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