80

The naked beach; or fhivering on the cliff,
Smote with the wintery pole in bitter storm,
Hail, fnow, and fhower, dark-drifting round his head.
Such were his hours; till Time, the wretch's friend,
Life's great physician, skill'd alone to close,

90

Where forrow long has wak'd, the weeping eye,
And from the brain, with baleful vapours black, 85
Each fullen spectre chace, his balm at length,
Lenient of pain, through every fever'd pulse
With gentleft hand infus'd. A pensive calm
Arofe, but unaffur'd: as, after winds
Of ruffling wing, the sea subsiding flow
Still trembles from the storm. Now Reason first,
Her throne refuming, bid Devotion raise
To heaven his eye; and through the turbid mifts,
By sense dark-drawn between, adoring own,
Sole arbiter of fate, one Caufe fupreme,
All-juft, all-wife, who bids what still is best,
In cloud or fun-fhine; whofe feverest hand
Wounds but to heal, and chaftens to amend.
Thus, in his bofom, every weak excess,
The of grief, the felness of revenge,
rage
To healthful meafure temper'd and reduc'd
By Virtue's hand; and in her brightening beam
Each error clear'd away, as fen-born fogs
Before th' afcending fun; through faith he lives
Beyond Time's bounded continent, the walks
Of Sin and Death. Anticipating heaven
In pious hope, he feems already there,
Safe on her facred fhore; and fees beyond,

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100

105

In radiant view, the world of light and love,
Where Peace delights to dwell; where one fair morn
Still orient smiles, and one diffusive spring,
That fears no ftorm and shall no winter know,
Th' immortal year empurples. If a figh

Yet murmurs from his breast; 'tis for the pangs Those dearest names, a wife, a child, must feel, 115 Still fuffering in his fate: 'tis for a foe,

Who, deaf himself to mercy, may of heaven

That mercy, when most wanted, ask in vain.

The fun, now station'd with the lucid Twins,
O'er every fouthern clime had pour'd profuse
The rofy year; and in each pleasing hue,
That greens the leaf, or through the bloffom glows
With florid light, his fairest month array'd :
While Zephyre, while the filver-footed dews,
Her soft attendants, wide o'er field and grove
Fresh spirit breathe, and shed perfuming balm.
Nor here, in this chill region, on the brow
Of winter's waste dominion, is unfelt

The ray ethereal, or unhail'd the rife

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325

Of her mild reign. From warbling vale and hill, 130
With wild-thyme flowering, betony, and balm,
Blue lavender and carmel's spicy root,

Song, fragrance, health, ambrofiate every breeze.

But,

Line 132. The root of this plant, otherwise named "argatilis fylvaticus," is aromatic; and by the natives reckoned cordial to the ftomach. See Martin's Weftern Ifies of Scotland, p. 180.

But, high above, the feafon full exerts

Its vernant force in yonder peopled rocks,
To whofe wild folitude, from worlds unknown,"
The birds of paffage tranfmigrating come,
Unnumber'd colonies of foreign wing,
At Nature's fummons their aëreal state
Annual to found; and in bold voyage steer,
O'er this wide ocean, through yon pathless sky,
One certain flight to one appointed shore:
By heaven's directive spirit, here to raise
Their temporary realm; and form fecure,

135

140

Where food awaits them copious from the wave, 145
And shelter from the rock, their nuptial leagues:
Each tribe apart, and all on tasks of love,
To hatch the pregnant egg, to rear and guard
Their helpless infants, piously intent.

Led by the day abroad, with lonely step,
And ruminating sweet and bitter thought,
Aurelius, from the western bay, his eye
Now rais'd to this amusive scene in air,

150

With wonder mark'd; now cast with level ray
Wide o'er the moving wilderness of waves,

155

From pole to pole through boundless space diffus'd, Magnificently dreadful! where, at large, Leviathan, with each inferior name

Of fea-born kinds, ten thousand thousand tribes,
Finds endless range for pasture and for sport.

160

Amaz'd he gazes, and adoring owns

The hand Almighty, who its channel'd bed
Immeasurable funk, and pour'd abroad,

Fenc'd

Fenc'd with eternal mounds, the fluid sphere;
With every wind to waft large commerce on,
Join pole to pole, confociate fever'd worlds,
And link in bonds of intercourfe and love
Earth's universal family. Now rose
Sweet evening's folemn hour.

The fun declin'd

165

170

Hung golden o'er this nether firmament;
Whose broad cerulean mirror, calmly bright,
Gave back his beamy vifage to the sky
With fplendor undiminish'd; and each cloud,
White, azure, purple, glowing round his throne
In fair aëreal landfcape. Here, alone
On earth's remoteft verge, Aurelius breath'd
The healthful gale, and felt the finiling scene
With awe-mix'd pleafure, mufing as he hung
in filence o'er the billows hush'd beneath.
When lo! a found, amid the wave-worn rocks,
Deaf-murmuring rofe, and plaintive roll'd along
From cliff to cavern: as the breath of winds,
At twilight-hour, remote and hollow heard
Through wintery pines, high-waving o'er the steep
Of fky-crown'd Apenine. The Sea-pye ceas'd
At once to warble. Screaming, from his neft
The Fulmar foar'd, and shot a westward flight
From fhore to fea. On came, before her hour,
Invading night, and hung the troubled sky
With fearful blacknefs round *. Sad ocean's face
A curling undulation fhivery fwept

175

180

185

190

From wave to wave and now impetuous rofe,

R

Thick

See Martin's voyage to St. Kilda, p. 58.

His

195

200

Thick cloud and storm and ruin on his wing,
The raging South, and headlong o'er the deep
Fell horrible, with broad-defcending blast.
Aloft, and fafe beneath a fheltering cliff,
Whofe mofs-grown fummit on the distant flood
Projected frowns, Aurelius stood appall'd :
His funn'd ear fmote with all the thundering main !
eye with mountains furging to the stars !
Commotion infinite. Where yon laft wave
Blends with the sky its foam, a ship in view
Shoots fudden forth, fteep-falling from the clouds:
Yet distant seen and dim; till, onward borne
Before the blaft, each growing fail expands,
Each mast aspires, and all th' advancing frame
Bounds on his eye diftinct. With sharpen'd ken
Its course he watches, and in awful thought
That power invokes, whofe voice the wild winds hear,
Whofe nod the furge revcres, to look from heaven, 210
And fave, who elfe must perish, wretched men,
In this dark hour, amid the dread abyfs,

With fears amaz'd, by horrors compafs'd round.
But O, ill-omen'd, death-devoted heads!
For death beftrides the billow, nor your own,
Nor others' offer'd vows can flay the flight
Of inftant fate. And, lo! his fecret feat,
Where never fun-beam glimmer'd, deep amidst
A cavern's jaws voraginous and vaft,
The ftormy Genius of the deep forfakes:
And o'er the wayes, that roar beneath his frown,
Afcending baleful, bids the tempeft fpread,

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