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ILDERIM.

I

'Twas when th' unholiest warfare drench'd in blood
Columbia. Of her woes spectator, stood
Ilderim, laughing with vindictive ire.
Where terror hymns th' Eternal, sojourns he
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In gloomy singleness, and royally
Maketh his diadem the meteor's fire.

II

Climes wild as fancy call him all their own:
Dark, from his thunder-smitten granite throne
Of vast, extravagant greatness, he looks down
On worlds of woods, and borroweth of the night
Clouds, swirl'd with thunder, for a garment: bright
The lightnings play, beneath his shadow's frown.

III

“Now, now, devouring discord!” he exclaim'd,
O'er land and lake, as wide the battle flam'd,
“Now extirpate this homicidal race!
Destroyers of my children! groan and wail!
Fiends of the deep, as spectred ocean pale!
Now sweep each other from earth's blasted face!

IV

“Dire was the day when ye the sad winds chain'd,
And o'er the blue deep sought my isles profan'd!
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Too, too prophetic, I remov'd my seat,
And on my mountain-realm, in wrath and fear,
Thron'd my dark stature: will ye brave me here?
And smite my children at their parent's feet?

V

“Halt!—Goblins wan, your day of woe is come!
Quake, like these Andes, while I stamp your doom!—
My sons shall furnish ye with dreams that shriek,
Wake ye to death, which none but white men dread,
Rip the red scalp from every coward head,
And laugh to scorn your womanish wailings weak!

VI

“Ye shadows of the ocean's drown'd, be pale!
If mine eternal hatred ought avail,
Ye want not awful cause. Now shall ye feel
Pangs, not remorse; and curse the servile sea,
That bore your sires from shores without a tree,
To smite my forests with the spoiler's steel.”
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VII

Thus spake the tempest-rolling Ilderim,
In accents like the shout of seraphim
Hailing th' Almighty. Took he then his shield
Of beaten fire, that scorch'd the fever'd air,
And bade th' unbridled elements prepare,
Slaves of his will, to bear him to the field.

VIII

Whirlwind and lightning roll'd his car abroad:
High o'er the billows of the storm he rode,
And wanton'd in th' intolerable light;
And, while the heavens beneath his axle bow'd,
He smote, with iron stroke, the groaning cloud
Whose fiery blackness shrouded earth in night.

IX

Oh, not with wilder pomp and majesty
(While clouds are scatter'd o'er the moaning sea,
And shipwreck's phantom far his sighing sends
Around the barren isles) the showery bow
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Of autumn, o'er a land of valleys low,
And woods of gloom, and rocks, and torrents, bends!

X

Where'er he saw the white men's lightning flame,
He stoop'd from burden'd air: wrathful, he came,
In fire and darkness, o'er their fiend-like war;
Shock'd them together with the thunder's crash,
Laugh'd as they writh'd beneath his fiery lash,
Then, with his frown of horror, chas'd them far.
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