As if an earthquake pass'd The thousand shapeless things all driven By that tremendous blast Proclaim'd the desperate conflict o'er 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? More of human form or face Save a scatter'd scalp or bone: And down came blazing rafters, strown 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 mounted nearer to the sun, The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun; * 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 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 II. The gallant Chief within his cabin slept, Secure in those by whom the watch was kept: His name was added to the glorious roll Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole. |