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As if an earthquake pass'd

The thousand shapeless things all driven
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven,

By that tremendous blast

Proclaim'd the desperate conflict o'er
On that too long afflicted shore:
Up to the sky like rockets go
All that mingled there below:
Many a tall and goodly man,
Scorch'd and shrivell'd to a span,
When he fell to earth again
Like a cinder strew'd the plain:
Down the ashes shower like rain;

Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles,

With a thousand circling wrinkles;

Some fell on the shore, but, far away,

Scatter'd o'er the isthmus lay;

Christian or Moslem, which be they?
Let their mothers see and say!
When in cradled rest they lay,
And each nursing mother smiled
On the sweet sleep of her child,
Little deem'd she such a day
Would rend those tender limbs away.
Not the matrons that them bore
Could discern their offspring more;
That one moment left no trace

More of human form or face

Save a scatter'd scalp or bone:

And down came blazing rafters, strown
Around, and many a falling stone,

Deeply dinted in the clay,

All blacken'd there and reeking lay,

All the living things that beard

That deadly earth shock disappear'd:

The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,
And howling left the unburied dead;
The camels from their keepers broke:
The distant steer forsook the yoke-
The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain,
And bust his girth, and tore his rein;
The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh
Deep-mouth'd arose, and doubly harsh;
The wolves yell'd on the cavern'd hill
Where echo roll'd in thunder still:
The jackal's troop, in gather'd cry,*
Bay'd from afar complainingly,
With a mix'd and mournful sound,
Like crying babe, and beaten hound:
With sudden wing, and ruffled breast,
The eagle left his rocky nest,

And mounted nearer to the sun,

The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun;
Their smoke assail'd his startled beak,
And made him higher soar and shriek-
Thus was Corinth lost or won!

* I believe I have taken a poetical license to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece' I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies.

THE ISLAND,

OR

CHRISTIAN AND HIS COMRADES.

The foundation of the following Story will be found partly in the account of the Mutiny of the Bounty in the South Seas (in 1789) and partly in "Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands."

THE ISLAND.

CANTO I.

I.

THE morning watch was come; the vessel lay
Her course, and gently made her liquid way;
The cloven billow flashed from off her prow
In furrows formed by that majestic plough;
The waters with their world were all before;
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore.
The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane,
Dividing darkness from the dawning main;
The dolphins, not unconscious of the day,
Swam high, as eager of the coming ray;
The stars from broader beams began to creep,
And lift their shining eyelids from the deep;
The sail resumed its lately shadowed white,
And the wind fluttered with a freshening flight:
The purpling ocean owns the coming sun,
But ere he break-a deed is to be done.

II.

The gallant Chief within his cabin slept,

Secure in those by whom the watch was kept:
His dreams were of Old England's welcome shore,
Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er;

His name was added to the glorious roll

Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole.

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