Thus pouring on they proudly feek, the deep,
Whose vanquish'd tide, recoiling from the shock,
Yields to the liquid weight of half the globe;
And Ocean trembles for his green domain.
But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth? 860 This gay profufion of luxurious bliss ?
This pomp of Nature? what their balmy meads,
Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain?
By vagrant birds difpers'd, and wafting winds,
What their unplanted fruits? what the cool draughts,
Th' ambrofial food, rich gums, and spicy health,
Their forefts yield? their toiling infects what,
Their filky pride, and vegetable robes ?
Ah! what avail their fatal treasures, hid
Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth,
Golconda's gems, and fad Potofi's mines ;
Where dwelt the gentlest children of the fun?
What all that Afric's golden rivers roll,
Her odorous woods, and fhining ivory ftores?
Ill-fated race! the foftening arts of Peace,
Whate'er the humanizing Mufes teach;
The godlike wisdom of the temper'd breast;
Progreffive truth, the patient force of thought;
Investigation calm, whofe filent powers
Command the world; the Light that leads to Heaven;
Kind equal rule, the government of laws,
And all-protecting Freedom, which alone
Sustains the name and dignity of Man:
These are not theirs. The parent-fun himself
Seems o'er this world of flaves to tyrannize;
And, with oppreffive ray, the roseat bloom
Of beauty blafting, gives the gloomy hue,
And feature grofs: or worse, to ruthless deeds,
Mad jealoufy, blind rage, and fell revenge,
Their fervid spirit fires. Love dwells not there,
The foft regards, the tenderness of life,
The heart-fhed tear, th' ineffable delight
Of sweet humanity: these court the beam
Of milder climes; in felfish fierce defire,
And the wild fury of voluptuous sense,
There loft. The very brute creation there
This rage partakes, and burns with horrid fire.
Lo! the green ferpent, from his dark abode,
Which ev'n Imagination fears to tread,
At noon forth-iffuing, gathers up his train
In orbs immenfe, then, darting out anew,
Seeks the refreshing fount; by which diffus'd,
He throws his folds: and while, with threatening tongue,
And deathful jaws erect, the monster curls
His flaming creft, all other thirst appall❜d,
Or fhivering flies, or check'd at distance stands,
Nor dares approach. But ftill more direful he,
The small clofe-lurking minister of fate,
Whose high-concocted venom through the veins
A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift
The vital current. Form'd to humble man,
This child of vengeful Nature! There, fublim'd
To fearless luft of blood, the favage race
Roam, licens'd by the fhading hour of guilt,
And foul mifdeed, when the pure day has shut
His facred eye. The tiger darting fierce
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom'd:
The lively-fhining leopard, fpeckled o'er
With many a spot, the beauty of the waste :
And, scorning all the taming arts of Man,
The keen hyena, felleft of the fell.
Thefe, rushing from th' inhofpitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted ifles,
That verdant rife amid the Libyan wild,
Innumerous glare around their fhaggy king,
Majeftic, ftalking o'er the printed fand;
And, with imperious and repeated roars,
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks
Crowd near the guardian swain; the nobler herds,
Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease,
They ruminating lie, with horror hear
The coming rage. Th' awaken'd village starts;
And to her fluttering breast the mother strains
Her thoughtless infant. From the Pirate's den,
Or ftern Morocco's tyrant fang efcap'd,
The wretch half-wishes for his bonds again :
While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds,
From Atlas eastward to the frighted Nile.
Unhappy he who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he fits,
And views the main that ever toils below;
Still fondly forming in the fartheft verge,
Where the round æther mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim difcover'd, dropping from the clouds;
At evening, to the setting fun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless; while the wonted roar is up,
And hifs continual through the tedious night.
Yet here, ev'n here, into these black abodes
Of monsters, unappall'd, from ftooping Rome,
And guilty Cæfar, Liberty retir'd,
Her Cato following through Numidian wilds :
Difdainful of Campania's gentle plains,
And all the green delights Aufonia pours;
When for them the must bend the fervile knee,
And fawning take the fplendid robber's boon.
Nor ftop the terrors of these regions here.
Commiffion'd demons oft, angels of wrath,
Let loose the raging elements. Breath'd hot,
From all the boundless furnace of the sky,
And the wide glittering waste of burning fand,
A fuffocating wind the pilgrim fmites
With inftant death. Patient of thirst and toil,
Son of the defart! ev'n the camel feels,
Shot through his wither'd heart, the fiery blast.
Or from the black-red æther, bursting broad,
Sallies the fudden whirlwind. Strait the fands,
Commov'd around, in gathering eddies play:
Nearer and nearer still they darkening come;
Till, with the general all-involving ftorm
Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arife;
And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown,
Or funk at night in fad disastrous fleep,
Beneath defcending hills, the caravan
Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets
Th' impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca faddens at the long delay.
But chief at fea, whofe every flexile wave
Obeys th' blaft, th' aërial tumult fwells.
In the dread ocean, undulating wide,
Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,
The circling Typhon, whirl'd from point to point,
Exhaufting all the rage of all the sky,
And dire Ecnephia reign. Amid the heavens,
Falfely ferene, deep in a cloudy † speck
Comprefs'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells:
Of no regard, fave to the skilful eye,
Fiery and foul, the fmall prognoftick hangs
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Mufters its force. A faint deceitful calm,
A fluttering gale the demon fends before,
To tempt the spreading fail. Then down at once,
Precipitant, defcends a mingled mass
Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fix'd the failor ftands.
Art is too flow: by rapid fate opprefs'd,
His broad-wing'd veffel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bofom of the black abyfs.
* Typhon and Ecnephia, names of particular ftorms or hurricanes, known only between the tropics.
† Called by the failors the Ox-eye, being in appearance at first no bigger.
|