These are not the joys of a hero, nor are they the joys of an Alcaeus "singing amidst the clash of arms, or when he had moored on the wet shore his storm-tost barque." But they are pure joys, and they present themselves in competition with those of Ranelagh and the Basset Table, which are not heroic or even masculine, any more than they are pure.
The well-known passages at the opening of _The Winter Evening_, are the self-portraiture of a soul in bliss--such bliss as that soul could know--and the poet would have found it very difficult to depict to himself by the utmost effort of his religious imagination any paradise which he would really have enjoyed more.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn Throws up a steamy column, and the cups That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
* * * * This folio of four pages, happy work! Which not even critics criticise, that holds Inquisitive attention while I read Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break, What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations and its vast concerns?
* * * * 'Tis pleasant through the loop-holes of retreat To peep at such a world.

To see the stir Of the great Babel and not feel the crowd.
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates At a safe distance, where the dying sound Falls a soft murmur on the injured ear.
Thus sitting and surveying thus at ease The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced To some secure and more than mortal height, That liberates and exempts me from them all.
It turns submitted to my view, turns round With all its generations; I behold The tumult and am still.

The sound of war Has lost its terrors ere it reaches me, Grieves but alarms me not.

I mourn the pride And avarice that make man a wolf to man, Hear the faint echo of those brazen throats By which he speaks the language of his heart, And sigh, but never tremble at the sound.
He travels and expatiates, as the bee From flower to flower, so he from land to land, The manners, customs, policy of all Pay contribution to the store he gleans; He sucks intelligence in every clime, And spreads the honey of his deep research At his return, a rich repast for me, He travels, and I too.

I tread his deck, Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes Discover countries, with a kindred heart Suffer his woes and share in his escapes, While fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
Oh 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 wrapt in clouds, A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car indebted to no wheels, And urged by storms along its slippery way; I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st, And dreaded as thou art.