Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Red thro' a labouring cloud, that bore
Against the winds its lurid store,
Arose the lunar beam:
The foliage lash'd the forest-steep,
Then shrunk into a gloom more deep,
And with a sullen murmur foam'd the troubled stream.

O'er the dun skirtings of the dale,
The brooding spirit of the gale
In pitchy darkness hung;
When on a lofty-crested oak,
Sudden, the forked lightning broke,
And down the rocky dell its shiver'd branches flung.

Appall'd I saw the sulphur'd front
Of heaven! Above my sylvan haunt

I saw the tempest roll;
Till Fancy lent her magic aid,
Dispell'd the terrours of the shade,
And wing'd to distant climes my desultory soul.

“Fear not,” she cried, “the thunder's wreck,
“Since Albion's guardian genii check
“The demons of the storm:
“Far other is the fever'd air,
“That kindles with eternal war,
“Where nature starts aghast at many a fiendlike form.

“Lo! where, amidst Messene's towers,
“That angel of perdition lours,
“Pavilion'd in the gloom!
“Mark—mark the dead portentous pause—
“See, earth distends her flaming jaws;
“And myriads sink ingulph'd in one disastrous tomb.

“Fell as the grisly lion prowls,
“Yon desolating whirlwind howls

“O'er Afric's savage waste:
“Save where the billowy horrors sail,
“In sultry stillness sleeps the gale;
“And, if the black air breathe, it breathes a poison'd blast.

“And, as the fierce Arabian bands
“Guide o'er immeasurable sands
“The camel's fiery way;
“Behold the raging Samiel rise,
“Pass in pale pomp athwart the skies,
“Shake his pestiferous wing, and rush to seize his prey.

“His giant strides survey—his head
“Half viewless in a cloud of red;
“Ah! death was in that grasp!—
“To earth they fall: in thunders hoarse
“He riots o'er each shrivel'd corse,
“Catches the expiring groan, and stores the envenom'd gasp.

“Or turn thee, where the purest day
“Unsoften'd in its torrid ray

“Is all one glaring sky;
“Where no cool evening spreads its shade;
“No mellow tints of purple fade;
“But, as the sun retires, the blazing meteors fly.

“See in the livid heavens appear
“Yon speck, that swells its dusky sphere,
“And dims the boiling deep:
“Still broader it expands its orb;
“And bursting, as it would absorb
“All earth, destruction speeds the dread tornado's sweep.

“Ah! ruin wide as this extends
“Full oft, where panting India bends
“To drink the sacred stream,
“And roaring to the host of heaven,
“Views from their dens her panthers driv'n,
“Whilst all her citron groves are wrapt in one wide flame.

“And ruin, dire as this, hath spread
“Where Montezuma's offspring bled

“Beneath the ruffian blade;
“Where, blackening over Andes' height,
“The Condor wheels its monster flight,
“And bids the enormous plume its iceclad mountain shade.

“Yet here, tho' loud the tempest's roar,
“From Piercefield's castle, to the shore
“Where rough Tintadgel frowns,
“Thy Albion's temperate skies shall smile,
“And summer bless the genial isle,
“While her green clustering hills the unblasted fruitage crowns.

“Here, tho' the keener lightnings play,
“'Tis but to give the unfolding day
“A more salubrious breeze;
“And, whirling sulphur to the skies,
“Tho' Thules sink, and Thules rise,
“Her firm-bas'd rocks shall stand, begirt with friendly seas!”