On gracious errands bent: to save the fall
Of Virtue struggling on the brink of Vice;
In waking whispers, and repeated dreams,
To hint pure thought, and warn the favor'd soul
For future trials fated to prepare ;

To prompt the poet, who devoted gives

His Muse to better themes; to soothe the pangs
Of dying worth, and from the patriot's breast
(Backward to mingle in detested war,
But foremost when engag'd) to turn the death;
And numberless such offices of love
Daily, and nightly, zealous to perform.

Shook sudden from the bosom of the sky,
A thousand shapes or glide athwart the dusk,
Or stalk majestic on. Deep-rous'd, I feel
A sacred terror, a severe delight,

In one impetuous torrent, down the steep
It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round
At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad:
Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls,
And from the loud-resounding rocks below
Dash'd in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.
Nor can the tortur'd wave here find repose:
But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks,
Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now
Aslant the hollow channel rapid darts;
And, falling fast from gradual slope to slope,
With wild infracted course, and lessen'd roar,
It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last,
Along the mazes of the quiet vale.

Invited from the cliff, to whose dark brow

Poor kindred man! thy fellow-creatures, we
From the same Parent-Power our beings drew,
The same our Lord, and laws, and great pursuit.
Once some of us, like thee, through stormy life,
Toil'd, tempest-beaten, ere we could attain
This holy calm, this harmony of mind,
Where purity and peace immingle charms.
Then fear not us; but with responsive song,
Amid these dim recesses, undisturb'd
By noisy folly and discordant vice,

Of Nature sing with us, and Nature's God.
Here frequent, at the visionary hour,
When musing midnight reigns or silent noon,
Angelic harps are in full concert heard;
And voices chanting from the wood-crown'd hill,
The deepening dale, or inmost sylvan glade:
A privilege bestow'd by us, alone,
On Contemplation, or the hallow'd ear
Of poet, swelling to seraphic strain."

And art thou, Stanley,* of that sacred band?
Alas, for us too soon! Though rais'd above
The reach of human pain, above the flight
Of human joy; yet, with a mingled ray
Of sadly-pleas'd remembrance, must thou feel
A mother's love, a mother's tender woe:
Who seeks thee still, in many a former scene;
Seeks thy fair form, thy lovely beaming eyes,
Thy pleasing converse, by gay lively sense
Inspir'd: where moral wisdom mildly shone,
Without the toil of art; and virtue glow'd,
In all her smiles, without forbidding pride.
But, O thou best of parents! wipe thy tears;
Or rather to Parental Nature pay
The tears of grateful joy, who for a while
Lent thee this younger self, this opening bloom
Of thy enlighten'd mind and gentle worth.
Believe the Muse: the wintry blast of Death
Kills not the buds of virtue; no, they spread,
Beneath the heavenly beam of brighter suns,
Through endless ages, into higher powers.
the mount, in aëry vision rapt,
I stray, regardless whither; till the sound
Of a near fall of water every sense

Thus up

Wakes from the charm of thought: swift-shrinking

back,

I check my steps, and view the broken scene. Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood

Rolls fair, and placid; where, collected all

With upward pinions, through the flood of day;
And, giving full his bosom to the blaze,
Gains on the Sun; while all the tuneful race,
Smit by afflictive noon, disorder'd droop,
Deep in the thicket; or, from bower to bower
Responsive, force an interrupted strain.
The stock-dove only through the forest cooes,
Mournfully hoarse; oft ceasing from his plaint,
Short interval of weary woe! again
The sad idea of his murder'd mate,
Struck from his side by savage fowler's guile,
Across his fancy comes; and then resounds
A louder song of sorrow through the grove.
Beside the dewy border let me sit,

All in the freshness of the humid air;
There in that hollow'd rock, grotesque and wild,
An ample chair moss-lin'd, and over-head
By flowering umbrage shaded; where the bee
Strays diligent, and with th' extracted balm
Of fragrant woodbine loads his little thigh.

Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade,
While Nature lies around deep-lull'd in Noon,
Now come bold Fancy, spread a daring flight,
And view the wonders of the torrid zone:
Climes unrelenting! with whose rage compar'd,
Yon blaze is feeble, and yon skies are cool.

See, how at once the bright effulgent Sun, Rising direct, swift chases from the sky The short-liv'd twilight; and with ardent blaze Looks gaily fierce through all the dazzling air: He mounts his throne; but kind before him sends, Issuing from out the portals of the morn, The general breeze,† to mitigate his fire, And breathe refreshment on a fainting world. Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crown'd And barbarous wealth, that see each circling year, Returning suns and double seasons‡ pass: Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines, That on the high equator ridgy rise, Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays: Majestic woods, of every vigorous green, Stage above stage, high waving o'er the hills; Or to the far horizon wide diffus'd,

A boundless deep immensity of shade.

† Which blows constantly between the tropics from the east, or the collateral points, the north east and southeast; caused by the pressure of the rarefied air on that before it, according to the diurnal motion of the Sun from

east to west.

vertical, which produces this effect.

Here lofty trees, to ancient song unknown,
The noble sons of potent heat and floods
Prone rushing from the clouds, rear high to Heaven
Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw
Meridian gloom. Here, in eternal prime,
Unnumber'd fruits of keen delicious taste
And vital spirit, drink amid the cliffs

And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales,
Redoubled day, yet in their rugged coats
A friendly juice to cool its rage contain.

[maze,

Bear me, Pomona! to thy citron-groves;
To where the lemon and the piercing lime,
With the deep orange, glowing through the green,
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclin'd
Beneath the spreading tamarind that shakes,
Fann'd by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.
Deep in the night the massy locust sheds,
Quench my hot limbs; or lead me through the
Embowering endless, of the Indian fig;
Or, thrown at gayer ease, on some fair brow,
Let me behold, by breezy murmurs cool'd,
Broad o'er my head the verdant cedar wave,
And high palmettoes lift their graceful shade.
Or, stretch'd amid these orchards of the Sun,
Give me to drain the cocoa's milky bowl,
And from the palm to draw its freshening wine!
More bounteous far than all the frantic juice
Which Bacchus pours. Nor, on its slender twigs
Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scorn'd;
Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race
Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells
Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp.
Witness, thou best Anâna, thou the pride
Of vegetable life, beyond whate'er
The poets imag'd in the golden age:
Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat,
Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove!
From these the prospect varies. Plains immense
Lie stretch'd below, interminable meads,
And vast savannas, where the wandering eye,
Unfix'd, is in a verdant ocean lost.
Another Flora there, of bolder hues,

And richer sweets, beyond our garden's pride,
Plays o'er the fields, and showers with sudden hand
Exuberant Spring; for oft these valleys shift
Their green-embroider'd robe to fiery brown,
And swift to green again, as scorching suns,
Or streaming dews and torrent rains, prevail.
Along these lonely regions, where, retir'd
From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells
In awful solitude, and nought is seen
But the wild herds that own no master's stall,
Prodigious rivers roll their fattening seas;
On whose luxuriant herbage, half-conceal'd,
Like a fall'n cedar, far diffus'd his train,
Cas'd in green scales, the crocodile extends.
The flood disparts: behold! in plaited mail,
Behemoth rears his head. Glanc'd from his side,
The darted steel in idle shivers flies:

He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills;
Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds,
In widening circle round, forget their food,
And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze.
Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast
Their ample shade o'er Niger's yellow stream,
And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave;
Or mid the central depth of blackening woods,
High rais'd in solemn theatre around,

The hippopotamus, or river-horse.

Leans the huge elephant: wisest of brutes!
O truly wise! with gentle might endow'd,
Though powerful, not destructive! Here he sees
Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth,
And empires rise and fall; regardless he
Of what the never-resting race of men
Project: thrice happy! could he 'scape their guile,
Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps;
Or with his towery grandeur swell their state,
The pride of kings! or else his strength pervert,
And bid him rage amid the mortal fray,
Astonish'd at the madness of mankind.

Wide o'er the winding umbrage of the floods,
Like vivid blossoms glowing from afar,
Thick swarm the brighter birds. For Nature's hand,
That with a sportive vanity has deck'd
The plumy nations, there her gayest hues
Profusely pours. But, if she bids them shine,
Array'd in all the beauteous beams of day,
Yet, frugal still, she humbles them in song.t
Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent
Proud Montezuma's realm, whose legions cast
A boundless radiance waving on the Sun,
While Philomel is ours; while in our shades,
Through the soft silence of the listening night,
The sober-suited songstress trills her lay.

But come, my Muse, the desert-barrier burst, A wild expanse of lifeless sand and sky: And, swifter than the toiling caravan, Shoot o'er the vale of Sennar; ardent climb The Nubian mountains, and the secret bounds Of jealous Abyssinia boldly pierce. Thou art no ruffian, who beneath the mask Of social commerce com'st to rob their wealth; No holy Fury thou, blaspheming Heaven, With consecrated steel to stab their peace, And through the land, yet red from civil wounds, To spread the purple tyranny of Rome. Thou, Like the harmless bee, may'st freely range From mead to mead, bright with exalted flowers, From jasmine grove to grove, may'st wander gay, Through palmy shades and aromatic woods, That grace the plains, invest the peopled hills, And up the more than Alpine mountains wave. There on the breezy summit, spreading fair, For many a league; or on stupendous rocks, That from the sun-redoubling valley lift, Cool to the middle air, their lawny tops; Where palaces, and fanes, and villas rise; And gardens smile around, and cultur'd fields; And fountains gush; and careless herds and flocks Securely stray; a world within itself, Disdaining all assault: there let me draw Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales, Profusely breathing from the spicy groves, And vales of fragrance; there at distance hear The roaring floods, and cataracts, that sweep From disembowell'd Earth the virgin gold; And o'er the varied landscape, restless, rove, Fervent with life of every fairer kind: A land of wonders! which the Sun still eyes With ray direct, as of the lovely realm Enamour'd, and delighting there to dwell. How chang'd the scene! In blazing height of The Sun, oppress'd, is plung'd in thickest gloom. Still Horror reigns, a dreary twilight round,

[noon,

In all the regions of the torrid zone, the birds, though more beautiful in their plumage, are observed to be less melodious than ours.

The keen hyena, fellest of the fell.
These, rushing from th' inhospitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles
That verdant rise amid the Libyan wild,
Innumerous glare around their shaggy king,
Majestic, stalking o'er the printed sand;
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 stern Morocco's tyrant-fang escap'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 sits,
And views the main that ever toils below;
Still fondly forming in the farthest verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim discover'd, dropping from the clouds;
At evening, to the setting Sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless; while the wonted roar is up,
And hiss continual through the tedious night.
Yet here, ev'n here, into these black abodes
Of monsters unappall'd, from stooping Rome,
And guilty Cæsar, liberty retir'd,

Her Cato following through Numidian wilds:
Disdainful of Campania's gentle plains,
And all the green delights Ausonia pours;
When for them she must bend the servile knee,
And fawning take the splendid robber's boon.

Nor stop the terrors of these regions here:
Commission'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 sand,
A suffocating wind the pilgrim smites
With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil,
Son of the desert! even the camel feels,
Shot through his wither'd heart, the fiery blast.
Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad,
Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands,
Commov'd around, in gathering eddies play:
Nearer and nearer still, they darkening come;
Till, with the general all-involving storm
Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise;
And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown,
Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep,
Beneath descending hills, the caravan
Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets

Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speckt
Compress'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells:
Of no regard, save to the skilful eye,
Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm,
A fluttering gale the demon sends before,

To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once,
Precipitant, descends a mingled mass

Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fix'd, the sailor stands.
Art is too slow: by rapid Fate oppress'd,
His broad-wing'd vessel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.
With such mad seas the daring Gamat fought,
For many a day, and many a dreadful night,
Incessant, laboring round the stormy Cape;
By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst

Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerg'd
The rising world of trade: the genius, then,
Of navigation, that, in hopeless sloth,
Had slumber'd on the vast Atlantic deep,
For idle ages, starting, heard at last
The Lusitanian prince ; who, Heaven-inspir'd,
To love of useful glory rous'd mankind,
And in unbounded commerce mix'd the world.
Increasing still the terrors of these storms,
His jaws horrific arm'd with threefold fate,
Here dwells the direful shark. Lur'd by the scent
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,
Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along;
And, from the partners of that cruel trade,
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons,
Demands his share of prey; demands themselves.
The stormy Fates descend: one death involves
Tyrants and slaves; when straight, their mangled
limbs

Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.

When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains
Flooded immense, looks out the joyless Sun,
And draws the copious steam: from swampy fens
Where putrefaction into life ferments,
And breathes destructive myriads: or from woods,
Impenetrable shades, recesses foul,

In vapors rank and blue corruption wrapt,
Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot
Has ever dar'd to pierce; then, wasteful, forth
Walks the dire power of pestilent Disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,
Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless woe,
And feeble desolation, casting down
The towering hopes and all the pride of man :
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd
The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, saw
The miserable scene; you, pitying, saw

And Mecca saddens at the long delay.

But chief at sea, whose every flexile wave

Obeys the blast, th' aërial tumult swells.

In the dread Ocean, undulating wide,

Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,
The circling Typhon,* whirl'd from point to point,
Exhausting all the rage of all the sky,

And dire Ecnephia* reign. Amid the heavens, .

Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form, The lip pale quivering, and the beamless eye

Called by sailors the ox-eye, being in appearance at first no bigger.

Vasco de Gama, the first who sailed round Africa, by the Cape of Good Hope, to the East Indies.

§ Don Henry, third son to John the First, king of Portugal. His strong genius to the discovery of new coun

ments in navigation.

No more with ardor bright: you heard the groans
Of agonizing ships from shore to shore ;
Heard, nightly plung'd amid the sullen waves,
The frequent corse; while, on each other fix'd,
In sad presage, the blank assistants seem'd,
Silent, to ask, whom Fate would next demand.
What need I mention those inclement skies,
Where, frequent o'er the sickening city, Plague,
The fiercest child of Nemesis divine,
Descends? From Ethiopia's poison'd woods,
From stifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields
With locust-armies putrefying heap'd,
This great destroyer sprung. Her awful rage
The brutes escape: man is her destin'd prey,
Intemperate man! and, o'er his guilty domes,
She draws a close incumbent cloud of death;
Uninterrupted by the living winds,

Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze; and stain'd
With many a mixture by the Sun, suffus'd,
Of angry aspect. Princely wisdom, then,
Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand
Of feeble justice, ineffectual, drop

The sword and balance: mute the voice of joy,
And hush'd the clamor of the busy world.
Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad;
Into the worst of deserts sudden turn'd
The cheerful haunt of men, unless escap'd [reigns,
From the doom'd house, where matchless horror
Shut up by barbarous fear, the smitten wretch,
With frenzy wild, breaks loose; and, loud to Heaven
Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns,
Inhuman, and unwise. The sullen door,
Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge
Fearing to turn, abhors society:
Dependants, friends, relations, Love himself,
Savag'd by woe, forget the tender tie,

The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.
But vain their selfish care: the circling sky,
The wide enlivening air, is full of fate;
And struck by turns, in solitary pangs
They fall, unblest, untended, and unmourn'd.
Thus o'er the prostrate city black Despair
Extends her raven wing; while, to complete
The scene of desolation, stretch'd around,
The grim guards stand, denying all retreat,
And give the flying wretch a better death.

Much yet remains unsung: the rage intense
Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields,
Where drought and famine starve the blasted year:
Fir'd by the torch of noon to ten-fold rage,
Th' infuriate hill that shoots the pillar'd flame;
And, rous'd within the subterranean world,
Th' expanding earthquake, that resistless shakes
Aspiring cities from their solid base,
And buries mountains in the flaming gulf.
But 'tis enough; return, my vagrant Muse:
A nearer scene of horror calls thee home.

Behold, slow-settling o'er the lurid grove,
Unusual darkness broods; and growing gains
The full possession of the sky, surcharg'd
With wrathful vapor, from the secret beds,
Where sleep the mineral generations, drawn.
Thence nitre, sulphur, and the fiery spume
Of fat bitumen, steaming on the day,
With various-tinctur'd trains of latent flame,
Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud,

These are the causes supposed to be the first origin of the plague, in Dr. Mead's elegant book on that subject.

A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate,
Ferment; till by the touch ethereal rous'd,
The dash of clouds, or irritating war

Of fighting winds, while all is calm below,
They furious spring. A boding silence reigns,
Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound
That from the mountain, previous to the storm,
Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
And shakes the forest-leaf without a breath.
Prone, to the lowest vale, th' aërial tribes
Descend: the tempest-loving raven scarce
Dares wing the dubious dusk. In rueful gaze
The cattle stand, and on the scowling Heavens
Cast a deploring eye, by man forsook,
Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
Or seeks the shelter of the downward cave.

"Tis listening fear and dumb amazement all:
When to the startled eye the sudden glance
Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud;
And following slower, in explosion vast,
The thunder raises his tremendous voice.
At first, heard solemn o'er the verge of Heaven,
The tempest growls; but as it nearer comes,
And rolls its awful burden on the wind,
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
The noise astounds: till over-head a sheet
Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts,
And opens wider; shuts and opens still
Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze.
Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar,
Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal
Crush'd horrible, convulsing Heaven and Earth.
Down comes a deluge of sonorous hail,

Or prone descending rain. Wide rent, the clouds
Pour a whole flood; and yet, its flame unquench'd,
Th' unconquerable lightning struggles through,
Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls,
And fires the mountains with redoubled rage.
Black from the stroke, above, the smouldering pine
Stands a sad shatter'd trunk; and, stretch'd below,
A lifeless group, the blasted cattle lie:
Here the soft flocks, with that same harmless look
They wore alive, and ruminating still
In Fancy's eye; and there the frowning bull,
An ox half-rais'd. Struck on the castled cliff,
The venerable tower and spiry fane

Resign their aged pride. The gloomy woods
Start at the flash, and from their deep recess,
Wide-flaming out, their trembling inmates shake.
Amid Carnarvon's mountains rages loud
The repercussive roar: with mighty crush,
Into the flashing deep, from the rude rocks
Of Penmenmaur heap'd hideous to the sky,
Tumble the smitten cliffs; and Snowden's peak,
Dissolving, instant yields his wintry load.
Far-seen, the heights of heathy Cheviot blaze,
And Thulé bellows through her utmost isles.
Guilt hears appall'd, with deeply-troubled thought
And yet not always on the guilty head
Descends the fated flash. Young Celadon
And his Amelia were a matchless pair;
With equal virtue form'd, and equal grace,
The same, distinguish'd by their sex alone :
Hers the mild lustre of the blooming morn,
And his the radiance of the risen day.

They lov'd: but such their guileless passion was As in the dawn of time inform'd the heart of innocence and undissembling truth. "Twas friendship, heighten'd by the mutual wish, Th' enchanting hope, and sympathetic glow,