Astonish'd shoot into the Frigid Zone;
Where, for relentless months, continual night,
Holds o'er the glittering waste her starry reign.
There, thro' the prison of unbounded wilds,
Barr'd by the hand of Nature from escape, 800
Wide-roams the Russian exile. Nought around
Strikes his sad eye, but desarts lost in snow;
And heavy-loaded groves; and solid floods,
That stretch, athwart the solitary vast,
Their icy horrors to the frozen main; 805
And cheerless towns far-distant, never bless'd,
Save when its annual course the caravan
Bends to the golden coast of rich [1]Cathay
With news of human-kind. Yet there life glows;
Yet cherish'd there, beneath the shining waste, 810
The furry nations harbour: tipt with jet,
Fair ermines, spotless as the snows they press;
Sables, of glossy black; and dark-embrown'd,
Or beauteous freakt with many a mingled hue,
Thousands besides, the costly pride of courts. 815
There, warm together press'd, the trooping deer
Sleep on the new-fallen snows; and, scarce his head
Rais'd o'er the heapy wreath, the branching elk
Lies slumbering sullen in the white abyss.
The ruthless hunter wants nor dogs nor toils, 820
Nor with the dread of sounding bows he drives
The fearful-flying race; with ponderous clubs,
As weak against the mountain-heaps they push
Their beating breast in vain, and piteous bray,
He lays them quivering on th' ensanguin'd snows, 825
And with loud shouts rejoicing bears them home.
There thro' the piny forest half-absorpt,
- ↑ The old name for China.
