To silence and amazement, with due praife
Acknowledges th' Almighty, and adores
His will unerring, wiselt, juftelt, best!
The country mourns around with alter'd look.
Fields, where but late the many-colour'd Spring
Sat gaily drest, amid th breath
Of roses, and the song of nightingales,
Soft-warbled, filent languish now and die.
Rivers engulph'd their ample channels leave
A sandy tract; and goodly mountains, hurl'd
In whirlwind from their seat, obstruct the plain
With rough incumbrance; or through depths of eartla
Fall ruinous, with all their woods immers'd.
Sulphurcous damps of dark and deadly power,
Steam'd from th' abyss, fly secret over-head,
Wounding the healthful air ; whence foul disease,
Murrain and rot, in tainted herds and Aocks:
In man sore sickness, and the lamp of life
Dim'd and diminishd; or more fatal ill
Of mind, unsettling reason overturn’d.
Here into madnefs work'd, and boiling o'er
Outrageous fancies, like the troubled lea
Foaming out mud and filth: here downward funk
To folly, and in idle musing wrapt;
Now chacing with fond aim the flying cloud ;
Now numbering up the drops of falling rain.
A while the fiery Spirit in its cell
Infidious slumbers, till some chance unknown,
Perhaps some rocky fragment from the roof.
Detach'd, and rollid with rough collution down
Its echoing vault, strikes out the fatal spark
That blows it into rage. Shakes earth again,
Wide through her entrails torn. To all sides flathlo
The flames bear downward on the central deep,
Immeasurable source, whence ocean fills
His numerous seas, and pours them round the globe.
The liquid orb, through all its dark expanse,
In dire commotion boils; and bursting way
Up through th' unfounded bottoms of the main,
Where never tempest ruffled, lifts the dceps,
At once, in billowy mountains to the sky,
With raving violence. And now their shores,
Rebellowing to the surge, they swallow fierce,
O'erswelling mound and cliff: now swift and strange,
With refluent wave retreating, leave the beach
A naked of sands waste—Mean time, tehold !
Yon neighbouring Mountain rising bleak and bare,
Its double top in steril alhes hid,
But green around its base with oil and wine,
Gives sign of storm and desolation near:
Store-house of fate! from whose infernal womb,
With fiery minerals and metallic ore
Pernicious fraught, ascends eternal smoke :
Now wavering lopse in air; now borne on high,
A dusky column heightening to the fun!
Imagination's eye looks down dismay'd
The steepy gulph, pale-flaining and profound,
With bourly tumult vext, but now incens'd
To sevenfold fury. First, discordant sounds,
As of a.clamouring multitude enrag'd,
The dash of floods, and hollow howl of winds
Through wintery woods or cavern'd'ruins heard,
Rise from the distant depthi where uproar reigns.
Anon, with black eruption, from its jaws,
A night of smoke, thick-driving, wave on wave,
In stormy flow, and cloud involving cloud,
Rolls surging forth, extinguishing the day;
With vollied sparkles mix'd, and whirling drifts
Of stones and cinders rattling up the air.
Instant, in one broad burst, a stream of fire,
Red-issuing, flood's the liemisphere around,
Nor pause, nor rest : again the mountain groans,
Amazing, from its inmolt caverns Mook :
Again, with loudening rage, intensely fierce,
Disgorges pyramids of quivering flame,
Spire after fpire enormous, and torn rocks,
Flung out in thundering ruins to the sky:
But see, in second pangs, the roaring hill:
From forth its depth a cloudy pillar shoots,
Gradual aud vast, in one ascending trunk
Of length immenfe, heav'd by the force of fire;
On its own base direct, aloft in air,
Beyond the soaring eagle's sunward Aiglit.
Still as it swells, through all the dark extent,
With wonder seen !' ten thousand lightnings play
In Aath'd vibrations; and from heighit to heiglåt
Incessant thunders roar. No longer now
Protruded by th' explosive breath below,
At once the Madowy summit breaks away
To all fides round, in billows broad and black,
As of a turbid ocean ftir'd by winds,
A vapory deluge hiding earth and heaven.
Thus all day long: and now the heamless fum
Sets as in blood. A dreadful pause entues ;
Deceitful calm, portending fiercer storm.
Sad night at once, with all her deep-dy'd shades,
Falls back and boundless o'er the scene. Suspende
And terror rule the hour. Behold, from far,
Imploring heaven with supplicating hands
And streaming eyes, in mute amazement fixid,
Yon peopled City stands ; each fadden'd face
Turn'd towards the hill of fears : and hark! once more
The rising tempest shakes its founding vaults,
Now faint in diftant murmurs, now more near
Reboundi horrible, with all the roar
Of winds and feas; or engines big with death,
That, planted by the murderous hand of War
To make the round of some proud capital,
At once disploded, in one bursting peal
Their mortal thunders mix. Along the sky,
From east to fouth, a ruddy hill of smoke
Extends its ridge, with dismal light inflam'd.
Mean while, the fluid Lake that works below,
Bitumen, fulphur, salt, and iron-fcum,
Heaves up its boiling tide. The labouring mount
Is torn with agonizing throes—at once,
Forth from its fide disparted, blazing pours
A mighty river, burning in prone waves,
That glimmer through the night, to yonder plain,
Divided there, a hundred torrent-streams,
Each
Each ploughing up its bed, roll dreadful on,
Resistless. Villages, and woods, and rocks,
Fall fat before their sweep. The region round,
Where myrtle-walks and groves of golden fruit
Rose fair, where harvest wav'd in all its pride,
And where the vineyard spread her purple ttore,
Maturing into nectar, now despoil'd
Of herb, leaf, fruit, and flower, from end to end
Lies buried under fire, a glowing lea!.
Thus roaming with adventurous wing the globe,
From scene to fcene excursive, I behold
In all her workings, beauteous, great, or new,
Fair Nature, and in all with wonder trace
The sovereign Maker, first, fupreme, and best,
Who actuates the whole : at whose command,
Obedient fire and flood tremendous rise,
His ministers of vengeance, to reprove,
And scourge the nations. Holy are his ways,
His works unnumber'd, and to all proclaim
Unfathom'd wisdom, goodneis unconfin'd.
NDLESS the wonders of creating power, EN
On earth, but chief on high through heaven display'd. There fines the full magnificence unveil'd
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