The botanic garden, a poem In two parts. Part I. Containing The economy of Vegetation, Part II. The Loves of the plants. With philosophical notes. The fourth edition. [by Erasmus Darwin] |
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The botanic garden, a poem | ||
TO THE AUTHOR OF THE POEM ON THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS.
With native wealth, explore new worlds of mind;
Whence the brightores of drossless wisdom brought,
Stampt by the Muse's hand, enrich mankind;
Involved in night, her mazy depths betray;
Till at their source thy piercing search descry
The streams, that bathe with Life our mortal clay;
Through trackless skies on metaphysic wings,
Thou darest to scan the approachless Cause of Good,
And weigh with steadfast hand the Sum of Things;
Oft with lone step by glittering Derwent stray,
Mark his green foliage, count his musky flowers,
That blush or tremble to the rising ray;
Listening the secrets of the vernal grove,
Breathes sweetest strains to thy symphonious shell,
And “gives new echoes to the throne of Love.”
TO Dr. DARWIN.
Thro' every mazy region of “the mine—”
While, as entrancing forms around him rise,
With magic light the mineral kingdoms shine;
O Darwin, thy ambrosial rivers flow,
And suns more pure the fragrant earth illume,
As all the vivid plants with passion glow.
I trace thy spirit thro' the kindling whole;
As with new radiance to the genial beams
Of Science, isles emerge, or oceans roll,
And Nature, in primordial beauty, seems
To breathe, inspir'd by Thee, the philosophic soul!
TO Dr. DARWIN.
Not oft so well agree)
Sweet harmonist of Flora's court!
Conspire to honour Thee.
Who oft themselves have known
The pangs of a poetic birth
By labours of their own.
Though various yet complete,
Rich in embellishment, as strong
And learn'd as it is sweet.
Though could our hearts repine
At any Poet's happier lays,
They would, they must, at thine.
Of Friendship's closest tie,
Can gaze on even Darwin's wit
With an unjaundic'd eye;
And howsoever known,
Who would not twine a wreath for Thee,
Unworthy of his own.
TO Dr. DARWIN.
Thro' all her flow'ry maze,
The volume she before her spread
Of Darwin's radiant lays.
At beauties yet unknown:
“The figure that you there perceive
(Said Nature) is your own.”
“I never seem'd till now:
“And here, too, with a soften'd air,
“Sweet Nature! here art Thou.”
“We both embellish'd shine;
“And grateful will unite to guard
“An artist so divine.”—
In Flora's friendly bower;
While Darwin's glory seem'd to wake
New life in every flower.
Time verifies it daily;
Trust it, dear Darwin, on the word
Of Cowper and of Hayley!
Address to the River Derwent, on whose Banks the Author of the Botanic Garden resides.
With sweet vicissitudes of ease and force
Now with enchanting smoothness glides along,
Now pours impetuous its resounding course;
And all the Muses round her banners crowd,
Pleas'd to assemble in thy sparry cells,
And chant her lessons to thy echoes proud;
The shining-robes those heaven-born sisters wove,
While Fays and Graces beck'ning smooth their way,
And hand in hand with Flora follows Love.
Delighted stream! tho' rich in native charms,
Tho' inborn worth and honour still reside,
Where thy chill banks the glow of Chatsworth warms.
The spinster Goddess to thy rule assigns;
Tho', where her temples crowd thy peopled shore,
Wealth gilds thy urn, and Fame thy chaplet twines.
Lead their sad Quires around Milcena's bier,
What soothing sweetness breathes along the gale,
Comes o'er the consort's heart, and balms a brother's tear!
THE BOTANIC GARDEN.
I. PART I. CONTAINING THE ECONOMY OF VEGETATION
CANTO I.
ARGUMENT OF THE FIRST CANTO.
The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1. She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs of Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love created the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God. 97. II. Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twilight. Fire-balls. Aurora Borealis. Planets. Comets. Fixed Stars. Sun's Orb, 115. III. 1. Fires at the Earth's Centre. Animal Incubation, 137. 2. Volcanic Mountains. Venus visits the Cyclops, 149. IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air. Phosphoric lights in the Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined Shells. Memnon's Harp, 173. Ignis fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm. Fire-fly. Luminous Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with Lightning, 189. V. 1. Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gunpowder, 237. VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules, Abyla and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon. Electric Kiss. Halo round the heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy-rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunder-bolt from Jupiter, 383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood. The great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. Naiad released.
The legion-fiends of Glory, or of Gold!
Stay! whose false lips seductive simpers part,
While Cunning nestles in the harlot-heart!—
For you no Dryads dress the roseate bower,
For you no Nymphs their sparkling vases pour;
Unmark'd by you, light Graces swim the green,
And hovering Cupids aim their shafts, unseen.
Of Taste and Virtue lights with purer day;
With sweet responsive sympathy of tones;
So the fair flower expands it's lucid form
To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm;—
For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath,
My fountains murmur, and my zephyrs breathe;
Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded fly
Smooths his fine down, to charm thy curious eye;
On twinkling fins my pearly nations play,
Or win with sinuous train their trackless way;
My plumy pairs in gay embroidery dress'd
Form with ingenious bill the pensile nest,
To Love's sweet notes attune the listening dell,
And Echo sounds her soft symphonious shell.
Disasterous Love companion of her way,
Whose arching cliffs depending alders shade;
There, as meek Evening wakes her temperate breeze,
And moon-beams glimmer through the trembling trees,
The rills, that gurgle round, shall sooth her ear,
The weeping rocks shall number tear for tear;
There as sad Philomel, alike forlorn,
Sings to the Night from her accustomed thorn;
While at sweet intervals each falling note
Sighs in the gale, and whispers round the grot;
The sister-woe shall calm her aching breast,
And softer slumbers steal her cares to rest.—
Nor chill the bosom of these happy vales!
Hence in dark heaps, ye gathering Clouds, revolve!
Disperse, ye Lightnings! and, ye Mists, dissolve!
Botanic Goddess! bend thy radiant eyes;
O'er these soft scenes assume thy gentle reign,
Pomona, Ceres, Flora in thy train;
O'er the still dawn thy placid smile effuse,
And with thy silver sandals print the dews;
In noon's bright blaze thy vermil vest unfold,
And wave thy emerald banner starr'd with gold.”
And bade these lawns to Peace and Truth belong;
Down the steep slopes He led with modest skill
The willing pathway, and the truant rill,
Stretch'd o'er the marshy vale yon willowy mound,
Where shines the lake amid the tufted ground,
Raised the young woodland, smooth'd the wavy green,
And gave to Beauty all the quiet scene.—
Bright as the morn, descends her blushing car;
And gem'd with flowers the silken harness shines;
The golden bits with flowery studs are deck'd,
And knots of flowers the crimson reins connect.—
And now on earth the silver axle rings,
And the shell sinks upon its slender springs;
Light from her airy seat the Goddess bounds,
And steps celestial press the pansied grounds.
And tunes to softer notes her laughing lyre;
Bids her gay hours on purple pinions move,
And arms her Zephyrs with the shafts of Love,
Pleased Gnomes, ascending from their earthy beds,
Play round her graceful footsteps, as she treads;
On winnowing wings, and waft her golden hair;
Blue Nymphs emerging leave their sparkling streams,
And Fiery Forms alight from orient beams;
Musk'd in the rose's lap fresh dews they shed,
Or breathe celestial lustres round her head.
Which bathe or bask in elemental fires;
From each bright gem of Day's refulgent car,
From the pale sphere of every twinkling star,
From each nice pore of ocean, earth, and air,
With eye of flame the sparkling hosts repair,
Mix their gay hues, in changeful circles play,
Like motes, that tenant the meridian ray.—
So the clear Lens collects with magic power
The countless glories of the midnight hour;
Stars after stars with quivering lustre fall,
And twinkling glide along the whiten'd wall.—
Pleased, as they pass, she counts the glittering bands,
And stills their murmur with her waving hands;
Each listening tribe with fond expectance burns,
And now to these, and now to those, she turns.
I.
“Nymphs of primeval Fire! your vestal trainHung with gold-tresses o'er the vast inane,
And charm'd young Nature's opening eyes with light;
When Love Divine, with brooding wings unfurl'd,
Call'd from the rude abyss the living world.
Astonish'd Chaos heard the potent word;
Through all his realms the kindling Ether runs,
And the mass starts into a million suns;
And second planets issue from the first;
In bright ellipses their reluctant course;
Orbs wheel in orbs, round centres centres roll,
And form, self-balanced, one revolving Whole.
—Onward they move amid their bright abode,
Space without bound, the bosom of their God!
II.
“Ethereal Powers! you chase the shooting stars,Or yoke the vollied lightnings to your cars,
Cling round the aërial bow with prisms bright,
And pleas'd untwist the sevenfold threads of light;
And fire the arrowy throne of rising Morn.
—Or, plum'd with flame, in gay battalions spring
To brighter regions borne on broader wing;
Where lighter gases, circumfused on high,
Form the vast concave of exterior sky;
And bend the twilight round the dusky vault;
The rapid Fire-ball through the midnight air;
Dart from the North on pale electric streams,
Fringing Night's sable robe with transient beams.
—Or rein the Planets in their swift careers,
Gilding with borrow'd light their twinkling spheres;
Alarm with comet-blaze the sapphire plain,
The wan stars glimmering through its silver train;
Gem the bright zodiac, stud the glowing pole,
Or give the Sun's phlogistic orb to roll.
III.
Earth's vaulted roofs of adamantine rock;
And watch the billowy Lavas, as they boil;
Where, in basaltic caves imprison'd deep,
Reluctant fires in dread suspension sleep;
Or sphere on sphere in widening waves expand,
And glad with genial warmth the incumbent land.
So when the mother-bird selects their food
With curious bill, and feeds her callow brood;
Warmth from her tender heart eternal springs,
And pleased she clasps them with diverging wings.
Blow flaming airs, or pour vitrescent waves;
Or hurl innocuous embers to the night.
While with loud shouts to Etna Hecla calls,
And Andes answers from his beacon'd walls;
And Beauty beams amid terrific fire.
Huge Cyclops dwelt in Etna's rocky womb,
On thundering anvils rung their loud alarms,
And leagued with Vulcan forged immortal arms;
Descending Venus sought the dark abode,
And sooth'd the labours of the grisly God.—
While frowning Loves the threatening falchion wield,
And tittering Graces peep behind the shield,
With jointed mail their fairy limbs o'erwhelm,
Or nod with pausing step the plumed helm;
With radiant eye She view'd the boiling ore,
Heard undismay'd the breathing bellows roar,
Admir'd their sinewy arms, and shoulders bare,
And ponderous hammers lifted high in air,
With smiles celestial bless'd their dazzled sight,
And Beauty blazed amid infernal night.
IV.
Tressed with soft beams, your glittering bandsarray;
Confine with folds of air the lingering fires;
And deck with lambent flames the shrine of Night.
So, warm'd and kindled by meridian skies,
And view'd in darkness with dilated eyes,
Bologna's chalks with faint ignition blaze,
Beccari's shells emit prismatic rays.
Spontaneous concords quired the matin strain;
The living lyre, and vibrates all its strings;
Accordant ailes the tender tones prolong,
And holy echoes swell the adoring song.
Which dance and glimmer o'er the marshy mead;
Shine round Calendula at twilight hours,
And tip with silver all her saffron flowers;
Warm on her mossy couch the radiant Worm,
Guard from cold dews her love-illumin'd form,
Star of the earth, and diamond of the night.
You bid in air the tropic Beetle burn,
And fill with golden flame his winged urn;
Or gild the surge with insect-sparks, that swarm
Round the bright oar, the kindling prow alarm;
Or arm in waves, electric in his ire,
The dread Gymnotus with ethereal fire.—
And mimic lightnings scare the watery realms.
Vindictive leaves the argent fields above,
Borne on broad wings the guilty world he awes,
And grasps the lightning in his shining claws.
V.
1.
“Nymphs! your soft smiles uncultur'd man subdued,And charm'd the Savage from his native wood;
You, while amazed his hurrying Hordes retire
From the fell havoc of devouring Fire,
By quick attrition the domestic blaze,
Fan with soft breath, with kindling leaves provide
And lift the dread Destroyer on his side.
So, with bright wreath of serpent-tresses crown'd,
Severe in beauty, young Medusa frown'd;
Hiss'd the dread snakes, and flam'd in burnish'd gold;
Flash'd on her brandish'd arm the immortal shield,
And Terror lighten'd o'er the dazzled field.
2.
“Nymphs! you disjoin, unite, condense, expand,And give new wonders to the Chemist's hand;
On tepid clouds of rising steam aspire,
Or fix in sulphur all its solid fire;
Or fill the fine vacuities of gold;
With sudden flash vitrescent sparks reveal,
By fierce collision from the flint and steel;
In the pale Phospor's self-consuming flame.
So the chaste heart of some enchanted Maid
Shines with insiduous light, by Love betray'd;
Round her pale bosom plays the young Desire,
And slow she wastes by self-consuming fire.
3.
“You taught mysterious Bacon to exploreMetallic veins, and part the dross from ore;
With sylvan coal in whirling mills combine
The chrystal'd nitre, and the sulphurous mine;
Through wiry nets the black diffusion strain,
And close an airy ocean in a grain.—
Slumbers in grim repose the sooty mass;
Runs the quick fire along the kindling train;
On the pain'd ear-drum bursts the sudden crash,
Starts the red flame, and Death pursues the flash.—
Fear's feeble hand directs the fiery darts,
And Strength and Courage yield to chemic arts;
Guilt with pale brow the mimic thunder owns,
And Tyrants tremble on their blood-stain'd thrones.
VI.
And call'd delighted Savery to your aid;
In gathering clouds, and wing'd the wave with fire;
Bade with cold streams the quick expansion stop,
And sunk the immense of vapour to a drop.—
Press'd by the ponderous air the Piston falls
Resistless, sliding through it's iron walls;
Quick moves the balanced beam, of giant birth,
Wields his large limbs, and nodding shakes the earth.
Lifts with strong arm her dark reluctant waves;
Each cavern'd rock, and hidden den explores,
Drags her dark coals, and digs her shining ores.—
Next, in close cells of ribbed oak confined,
Gale after gale, He crowds the struggling wind;
The imprison'd storms through brazen nostrils roar,
Fan the white flame, and fuse the sparkling ore.
Here high in air the rising stream He pours
To clay-built cisterns, or to lead-lined towers;
Fresh through a thousand pipes the wave distils,
And thirsty cities drink the exuberant rills.
There the vast mill-stone with inebriate whirl
On trembling floors his forceful fingers twirl,
Whose flinty teeth the golden harvests grind,
Feast without blood! and nourish human-kind.
Bosom'd in rock, her azure ores arrest;
With iron lips his rapid rollers seize
The lengthening bars, in thin expansion squeeze;
The tawny plates, the new medallions round;
Hard dyes of steel the cupreous circles cramp,
And with quick fall his massy hammers stamp.
The Harp, the Lily and the Lion join,
And George and Britain guard the sterling coin.
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the fields of air.
Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move;
Or warrior-bands alarm the gaping crowd,
And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud.
Wav'd his vast mace in Virtue's cause sublime,
Awed, served, protected, and amazed mankind.—
First two dread Snakes at Juno's vengeful nod
Climb'd round the cradle of the sleeping God;
Waked by the shrilling hiss, and rustling sound,
And shrieks of fair attendants trembling round,
Their gasping throats with clenching hands he holds;
And Death untwists their convoluted folds.
Next in red torrents from her sevenfold heads
Fell Hydra's blood on Lerna's lake he sheds;
And drags the roaring River to his course;
Binds with loud bellowing and with hideous yell
The monster Bull, and threefold Dog of Hell.
He drives the Lion to his dusky cave;
Seiz'd by the throat the growling fiend disarms,
And tears his gaping jaws with sinewy arms;
Lifts proud Anteus from his mother-plains,
And with strong grasp the struggling Giant strains;
Back falls his fainting head, and clammy hair,
Writhe his weak limbs, and flits his life in air;—
By steps reverted o'er the blood-dropp'd fen
He tracks huge Cacus to his murderous den;
Where, breathing flames through brazen lips, he fled,
And shakes the rock-roof'd cavern o'er his head.
Piles rock on rock, on mountain mountain rears;
Heaves up huge Abyla on Afric's sand,
Crowns with high Calpe Europe's saliant strand,
And pours from urns immense the sea between.—
—Loud o'er her whirling flood Charybdis roars,
Affrighted Scylla bellows round her shores,
Vesuvio groans through all his echoing caves,
And Etna thunders o'er the insurgent waves.
VII.
1.
From the warm cushion, and the whirling glass;
And circumfuse the gravitating fire.
Cold from each point cerulean lustres gleam,
Or shoot in air the scintillating stream.
So, borne on brazen talons, watch'd of old
The sleepless dragon o'er his fruits of gold;
Bright beam'd his scales, his eye-balls blazed with ire,
And his wide nostrils breath'd inchanted fire.
Approach attracted, and recede repell'd;
And dancing fauns the admiring Sage surprize.
Or, if on wax some fearless Beauty stand,
And touch the sparkling rod with graceful hand;
Through her fine limbs the mimic lightnings dart,
And flames innocuous eddy round her heart;
O'er her fair brow the kindling lustres glare,
Blue rays diverging from her bristling hair;
While some fond youth the kiss ethereal sips,
And soft fires issue from their meeting lips.
So round the virgin Saint in silver streams
The holy Halo shoots it's arrowy beams.
Pierce the thin glass, and fuse the blazing wire;
Or dart the red flash through the circling band
Of youths and timorous damsels, hand in hand.
—Starts the quick Ether through the fibre trains
Of dancing arteries, and of tingling veins,
Goads each fine nerve, with new sensation thrill'd,
Bends the reluctant limbs with power unwill'd;
And Life clings trembling on her tottering throne.—
So from dark clouds the playful lightning springs,
Rives the firm oak, or prints the Fairy-rings.
2.
“Nymphs! on that day Ye shed from lucid eyes,Celestial tears, and breathed ethereal sighs!
The wiry rod in Nieva's fatal shade;—
Clouds o'er the Sage with fringed skirts succeed,
Flash follows flash, the warning corks recede;
Near and more near He eye'd with fond amaze
The silver streams, and watch'd the saphire blaze;
Then burst the steel, the dart electric sped,
And the bold Sage lay number'd with the dead!
Nymphs! on that day Ye shed from lucid eyes
Celestial tears, and breathed ethereal sighs!
3.
“You led your Franklin to your glazed retreats,Your air-built castles, and your silken seats;
And seize the tiptoe lightnings, ere they fly;
O'er the young Sage your mystic mantle spread,
And wreath'd the crown electric round his head—
Snatch'd the raised lightning from the arm of Jove;
Quick o'er his knee the triple bolt He bent,
The cluster'd darts and forky arrows rent,
Snapp'd with illumin'd hands each flaming shaft,
His tingling fingers shook, and stamp'd and laugh'd;
Bright o'er the floor the scatter'd fragments blaz'd,
And Gods retreating trembled as they gaz'd;
The immortal Sire, indulgent to his child,
Bow'd his ambrosial locks, and Heaven relenting smiled.
VIII.
And with phosphoric Acid dyes the blood,
Your Virgin trains the transient Heat dispart,
And lead the soft combustion round the heart;
From the crown'd forehead to the prostrate weed,
From Earth's proud realms to all that swim or sweep
The yielding ether or tumultuous deep.
Brood the live seed, unfold the bursting spawn;
Nurse with soft lap, and warm with fragrant breath
The embryon panting in the arms of Death;
Youth's vivid eye with living light adorn,
And fire the rising blush of Beauty's golden morn.
Burst, and disclosed the cradle of the world;
Immortal Love, his bow celestial strung;—
O'er the wide waste his gaudy wings unfold,
Beam his soft smiles, and wave his curls of gold;—
With silver darts He pierced the kindling frame,
And lit with torch divine the ever-living flame.”
IX.
The effulgent legions marshal'd by her side,
Forms sphered in fire with trembling light array'd,
Ens without weight, and substance without shade;
And, while tumultuous joy her bosom warms,
Waves her white hand, and calls her hosts to arms.
Call from their long repose the Vernal Hours.
Wake with soft touch, with rosy hands unbind
The struggling pinions of the western Wind;
And wring the rain-drops from his tangled hair.
Blaze round each frosted rill, or stagnant wave,
And charm the Naiad from her silent cave;
And clasps with hoary arms her empty urns.
Call your bright myriads, trooping from afar,
With beamy helms, and glittering shafts of war;
In phalanx firm the Fiend of Frost assail,
Break his white towers, and pierce his crystal mail;
And chain him howling to the Northern Bear.
From the pale regions of the icy North;
Waves his broad tail, and opes his ribbed mouth,
And seeks on winnowing fin the breezy South;
From towns deserted rush the breathless hosts,
Swarm round the hills, and darken all the coasts;
Boats follow boats along the shouting tides,
And spears and javelins pierce his blubbery sides;
Now the bold Sailor, raised on pointed toe,
Whirls the wing'd harpoon on the slimy foe;
Quick sinks the monster in his oozy bed,
The blood-stain'd surges circling o'er his head,
Steers to the frozen pole his wonted track,
And bears the iron tempest on his back.
X.
O'er Earth's fair bosom, and complacent deep;
In buds imprison'd, or in bulbs intomb'd,
Pervade, pellucid Forms! their cold retreat,
Ray from bright urns your viewless floods of heat:
Or shed from heaven the scintillating shower;
Thaw the thick blood, which lingers in its veins;
The expanding foliage in its scaly rind;
And as in air the laughing leaflets play,
And turn their shining bosoms to the ray,
Nymphs! with sweet smile each opening flower invite,
And on its damask eyelids pour the light.
Where no bold step has pierc'd the tangled glade,
High-towering palms, that part the Southern flood
With shadowy isles and continents of wood,
Oaks, whose broad antlers crest Britannia's plain,
Or bear her thunders o'er the conquer'd main,
Shout, as you pass, inhale the genial skies,
And bask and brighten in your beamy eyes;
Bow their white heads, admire the changing clime,
Shake from their candied trunks the tinkling rime;
And wed the timorous floret to her thorn;
Deep strike their roots, their lengthening tops revive,
And all my world of foliage wave, alive.
The royal acid with cobaltic mines;
Marks with quick pen, in lines unseen portrayed,
The blushing mead, green dell, and dusky glade;
Shades with pellucid clouds the tintless field,
And all the future Group exists conceal'd;
Till waked by fire the dawning tablet glows,
Green springs the herb, the purple floret blows,
Hills, vales, and woods, in bright succession rise,
And all the living landscape charms his eyes.
XI.
And with his kindling tresses scorch the air;
With points of flame the shafts of Summer arm,
And burn the beauties he designs to warm;—
—So erst when Jove his oath extorted mourn'd,
And clad in glory to the Fair return'd;
While Loves at forky bolts their torches light,
And resting lightnings gild the car of Night;
His blazing form the dazzled Maid admir'd,
Met with fond lips, and in his arms expir'd;—
Nymphs! on light pinion lead your banner'd hosts
High o'er the cliffs of Orkney's gulfy coasts;
Leave on your left the red volcanic light,
Which Hecla lifts amid the dusky night;
Where whirling Maelstrome roars and foams below;
Watch with unmoving eye, where Cepheus bends
His triple crown, his sceptred hand extends;
Where studs Cassiope with stars unknown
Her golden chair, and gems her saphire zone;
Where with vast convolution Draco holds
The ecliptic axis in his scaly folds,
O'er half the skies his neck enormous rears,
And with immense meanders parts the Bears;
Onward, the kindred Bears with footstep rude
Dance round the Pole, pursuing and pursued.
Grey Twilight sits, and rules the slumbering Pole;
Bends the pale moon-beams round the sparkling coast,
And strews with livid hands eternal frost.
With sudden march alarm the torpid Hours;
On ice-built isles expand a thousand sails,
Hinge the strong helms, and catch the frozen gales.
Where fainting Zephyrs pant upon the tide;
And answering echoes shake the kindred shores;
Pass, where with palmy plumes Canary smiles,
And in her silver girdle binds her isles;
Onward, where Niger's dusky Naiad laves
A thousand kingdoms with prolific waves,
Or leads o'er golden sands her threefold train
In steamy channels to the fervid main;
While swarthy nations crowd the sultry coast,
Drink the fresh breeze, and hail the floating Frost,
Nymphs! veil'd in mist, the melting treasures steer,
And cool with arctic snows the tropic year.
Clouds sail in squadrons o'er the darken'd heaven;
Wide wastes of sand the gelid gales pervade,
And ocean cools beneath the moving shade.
XII.
Suck the warm dew-drops, lap the falling showers;
Kneel with parch'd lip, and bending from it's brink
From dripping palm the scanty river drink;
Nymphs! o'er the soil ten thousand points erect,
And high in air the electric flame collect.
The blazing day, and sail in wilds of cloud;
Each silvery Flower the streams aerial quaff,
Bow her sweet head, and infant Harvest laugh.
In bright expanse the briny flood below;
Roll'd his red eyes amid the scorching air,
Smote his firm breast, and breathed his ardent prayer;
High in the midst a massy altar stood,
And slaughter'd offerings press'd the piles of wood;
And famish'd armies crowd the dusty ground;
While proud Idolatry was leagued with dearth,
And wither'd Famine swept the desart earth.—
“Oh! mighty Lord! thy woe-worn servant hear,
“Who calls thy name in agony of prayer;
“Thy fanes dishonour'd, and thy prophets slain,
“Lo! I alone survive of all thy train!—
“Oh send from heaven thy sacred fire,—and pour
“O'er the parch'd land the salutary shower,—
“So shall thy Priest thy erring flock recal,—
“And speak in thunder, Thou art Lord of all.”
He cried, and kneeling on the mountain-sands,
Stretch'd high in air his supplicating hands.
Fire the wet wood, the sacred bull consume;
Wing'd from the sea the gathering mists arise,
And floating waters darken all the skies;
The King with shifted reins his chariot bends,
And wide o'er earth the airy flood descends;
And shouting nations own the living God.”
Start from the soil, and win their airy way;
The vaulted skies with streams of transient rays
Shine as they pass, and earth and ocean blaze.
So from fierce wars when lawless Monarchs cease,
Or Liberty returns with laurel'd Peace;
Bright fly the sparks, the colour'd lustres burn,
Flash follows flash, and flame-wing'd circles turn;
Blue serpents sweep along the dusky air,
Imp'd by long trains of scintillating hair;
Red rockets rise, loud cracks are heard on high,
And showers of stars rush headlong from the sky,
Burst, as in silver lines they hiss along,
And the quick flash unfolds the gazing throng.
CANTO II.
ARGUMENT OF THE SECOND CANTO.
Address to the Gnomes. I. The Earth thrown from a volcano of the Sun; it's atmosphere and ocean; it's journey through the zodiac; vicissitude of day-light, and of seasons, 11. II. Primeval islands. Paradise, or the golden Age. Venus rising from the sea, 33. III. The first great earthquakes; continents raised from the sea; the Moon thrown from a volcano, has no atmosphere, and is frozen; the earth's diurnal motion retarded; it's axis more inclined; whirls with the moon round a new centre, 67. IV. Formation of lime-stone by aqueous solution; calcareous spar; white marble; antient statue of Hercules resting from his labours. Antinous. Apollo of Belvidere. Venus de Medici. Lady Elizabeth Foster, and Lady Melbourn by Mrs. Damer, 93. V. 1. Of morasses. Whence the production of Salt by elutriation. Salt-mines at Cracow, 115. 2. Production of nitre. Mars and Venus caught by Vulcan, 143. 3. Production of iron Mr. Michel's improvement of artificial magnets. Uses of Steel in agriculture, navigation, war, 183. 4. Production of acids, whence Flint, Sea sand, Selenite, Asbestus, Fluor, Onyx, Agate, Mocho, Opal, Saphire, Ruby, Diamond. Jupiter and Europa, 215. VI. 1. New subterraneous fires from fermentation. Production of Clays; manufacture of Porcelain in China; in Italy; in England. Mr. Wedgewood's works at Etruria in Staffordshire. Cameo of a Slave in Chains;
Turns to the Gnomes, that circle round her feet;
Orb within orb approach the marshal'd trains,
And pigmy legions darken all the plains:
Thrice shout with silver tones the applauding bands,
Bow, ere She speaks, and clap their fairy hands.
So the tall grass, when noon-tide zephyr blows,
Bends it's green blades in undulating rows;
Wide o'er the fields the billowy tumult spreads,
And rustling harvests bow their golden heads.
I.
Clung in fond squadrons round the new-born Earth;
When high in ether, with explosion dire,
From the deep craters of his realms of fire,
The whirling Sun this ponderous planet hurl'd,
And gave the astonish'd void another world.
When from it's vaporous air, condensed by cold,
Descending torrents into oceans roll'd;
Bent the reluctant wanderer to it's course.
The Spring's fair forehead, and with golden horns;
Where yet the Lion climbs the ethereal plain,
And shakes the Summer from his radiant mane;
Where Libra lifts her airy arm, and weighs,
Poised in her silver balance, nights and days;
With paler lustres where Aquarius burns,
And showers the still snow from his hoary urns;
Your ardent troops pursued the flying sphere,
Circling the starry girdle of the year;
While sweet vicissitudes of day and clime
Mark'd the new annals of enascent Time.
II.
While Ocean wrap'd it in his azure robe;
Raised her Primeval Islands from his bed,
And deck'd her shores with corals, pearls, and shells.
No lightnings darted, and no tempests lower'd;
Soft fell the vesper-drops, condensed below,
Or bent in air the rain-refracted bow,
Sweet breathed the zephyrs, just perceiv'd and lost;
And brineless billows only kiss'd the coast;
And Peace, the Cherub, dwelt in mortal bowers!
And rock'd by Nereids in their coral caves,
Charm'd the blue sisterhood with playful wiles,
Lisp'd her sweet tones, and tried her tender smiles.
Then, on her beryl throne by Tritons borne,
Bright rose the Goddess like the Star of morn;
When with soft fires the milky dawn He leads,
And wakes to life and love the laughing meads;—
With rosy fingers, as uncurl'd they hung
Round her fair brow, her golden locks she wrung;
O'er the smooth surge on siver sandals stood,
And look'd enchantment on the dazzled flood.
The bright drops rolling from her lifted arms,
In slow meanders wander o'er her charms,
Pearl her white shoulders, gem her ivory back,
Round her fine waist and swelling bosom swim,
And star with glittering brine each crystal limb.
—The immortal form enamour'd Nature hail'd,
And Beauty blazed to heaven and earth, unvail'd.
III.
Saw with new fires the first Volcano rage,
At Earth's firm centre, and distend her shell,
Saw at each opening cleft the furnace glow,
And seas rush headlong on the gulfs below.—
Gnomes! how you shriek'd! when through the troubled air
Roar'd the fierce din of elemental war;
When rose the continents, and sunk the main,
And Earth's huge sphere exploding burst in twain.—
Gnomes! how you gazed! when from her wounded side
Where now the South-Sea heaves its waste of tide,
Circling the solar orb, a sister-star,
Dimpled with vales, with shining hills emboss'd,
And roll'd round Earth her airless realms of frost.
When Earth recoiling stagger'd from her course;
And her shock'd axis nodded from the sun,
With dreadful march the accumulated main
Swept her vast wrecks of mountain, vale, and plain;
And hail their Queen, fair Regent of the night;
Chain'd to one centre whirl'd the kindred spheres,
And mark'd with lunar cycles solar years.
IV.
From the loose summits of each shatter'd hill,
And fill with liquid chalk the mass below.
Whence sparry forms in dusky caverns gleam
With borrow'd light, and twice refract the beam;
While in white beds congealing rocks beneath
Court the nice chissel, and desire to breathe.—
His languid limbs, and rests a thousand years;
Still, as he leans, shall young Antinous please
With careless grace, and unaffected ease;
And launch the unerring arrow from the string;
In Beauty's bashful form, the veil unfurl'd,
Ideal Venus win the gazing world.
Hence on Roubiliac's tomb shall Fame sublime
Wave her triumphant wings, and conquer Time;
Long with soft touch shall Damer's chissel charm,
With grace delight us, and with beauty warm;
Foster's fine form shall hearts unborn engage,
And Melbourn's smile enchant another age.
V.
Through time-fall'n woods, and root-in wove morass
Dispart, from earths and sulphurs, the saline.
1.
His emerald shallows, and his sapphire deeps.
In hollow pyramids the crystals swim;
Or, fused by earth-born fires, in cubic blocks
Shoot their white forms, and harden into rocks.
With crystal walls a gorgeous city shines;
Scoop'd in the briny rock long streets extend
Their hoary course, and glittering domes ascend;
Down the bright steeps, emerging into day,
Impetuous fountains burst their headlong way,
O'er milk-white vales in ivory channels spread,
And wondering seek their subterraneous bed.
Form'd in pellucid salt with chissel nice,
The pale lamp glimmering through the sculptured ice,
With wild reverted eyes fair Lotta stands,
And spreads to Heaven, in vain, her glassy hands;
Cold dews condense upon her pearly breast,
And the big tear rolls lucid down her vest.
Far gleaming o'er the town transparent fanes
Rear their white towers, and wave their golden vanes;
Long lines of lustres pour their trembling rays,
And the bright vault returns the mingled blaze.
2.
And with prismatic crystals gems the earth,
Or frosts with branching plumes the mouldering walls.
As woos Azotic Gas the virgin Air,
And veils in crimson clouds the yielding Fair,
Indignant Fire the treacherous courtship flies,
Waves his light wing, and mingles with the skies.
Left, on her silver wheels, the God of Fire;
Her faithless charms to fiercer Mars resign'd,
Met with fond lips, with wanton arms intwin'd.
—Indignant Vulcan eyed the parting Fair,
And watch'd with jealous step the guilty pair;
Quick as he strode, the tinkling meshes rung;
Fine as the spider's flimsy thread He wove
The immortal toil to lime illicit love;
Steel were the knots, and steel the twisted thong,
Ring link'd in ring, indissolubly strong;
On viewless hooks along the fretted roof
He hung, unseen, the inextricable woof.—
—Quick start the springs, the webs pellucid spread,
And lock the embracing Lovers on their bed;
Fierce with loud taunts vindictive Vulcan springs,
Tries all the bolts, and tightens all the strings,
Shakes with incessant shouts the bright abodes,
Claps his rude hands, and calls the festive Gods.—
—With spreading palms the alarmed Goddess tries
To veil her beauties from celestial eyes,
Writhes her fair limbs, the slender ringlets strains,
And bids her Loves untie the obdurate chains;
Soft swells her panting bosom, as she turns,
And her flush'd cheek with brighter blushes burns.
Majestic grief the Queen of Heaven avows,
And chaste Minerva hides her helmed brows;
Steal of intangled Mars a transient glance;
Surrounding Gods the circling nectar quaff,
Gaze on the Fair, and envy as they laugh.
3.
And ferny foliage nestles in the nodes;
And waked by fire the glittering torrents flow;
—Quick whirls the wheel, the ponderous hammer falls,
Loud anvils ring amid the trembling walls,
Strokes follow strokes, the sparkling ingot shines,
Flows the red slag, the lengthening bar refines;
Cold waves, immersed, the glowing mass congeal,
And turn to adamant the hissing Steel.
The polish'd rods with powers magnetic arm;
In one long line extend the temper'd bars;
And o'er the adhesive train the magnet slides;
The obedient Steel with living instinct moves,
And veers for ever to the pole it loves.
King of the prow, the plowshare, and the sword!
True to the pole, by thee the pilot guides
His steady helm amid the struggling tides,
Braves with broad sail the immeasureable sea,
Cleaves the dark air, and asks no star but Thee.—
By thee the plowshare rends the matted plain,
Inhumes in level rows the living grain;
Intrusive forests quit the cultured ground,
And Ceres laughs with golden fillets crown'd.—
O'er restless realms when scowling Discord flings
Her snakes, and loud the din of battle rings;
Expiring Strength, and vanquish'd Courage feel
Thy arm resistless, adamantine Steel!
4.
Or wing'd with fire o'er Earth's fair bosom blow;
Or sink on Ocean's bed in countless Sands.
Hence silvery Selenite her crystal moulds,
And soft Asbestus smooths his silky folds;
His cubic forms phosphoric Fluor prints,
Or rays in spheres his amethystine tints.
And playful Agates weave their colour'd threads;
Gay pictured Mochoes glow with landscape-dyes,
And changeful Opals roll their lucid eyes;
Blue lambent light around the Sapphire plays,
Bright Rubies blush, and living Diamonds blaze.
Mask'd in new shapes forsook his realms above.—
First her sweet eyes his Eagle form beguiles,
And Hebe feeds him with ambrosial smiles;
Next the chang'd God a Cygnet's down assumes,
And playful Leda smooths his glossy plumes;
Then glides a silver serpent, treacherous guest!
And fair Olympia folds him in her breast;
Now lows a milk-white Bull on Afric's strand,
And crops with dancing head the daisy'd land.—
With rosy wreaths Europa's hand adorns
His fringed forehead, and his pearly horns;
And pleased he moves along the flowery grounds;
Bears with slow step his beauteous prize aloof,
Dips in the lucid flood his ivory hoof;
Then wets his velvet knees, and wading laves
His silky sides amid the dimpling waves.
While her fond train with beckoning hands deplore,
Strain their blue eyes, and shriek along the shore;
Beneath her robe she draws her snowy feet,
And half-reclining on her ermine seat,
Round his raised neck her radiant arms she throws,
And rests her fair cheek on his curled brows;
Her yellow tresses wave on wanton gales,
And bent in air her azure mantle sails.
—Onward He moves, applauding Cupids guide,
And skim on shooting wing the shining tide;
Emerging Tritons leave their coral caves,
Sound their loud conchs, and smooth the circling waves.
Surround the timorous Beauty, as she swims,
And gaze enamour'd on her silver limbs.
Now Europe's shadowy shores with loud acclaim,
Hail the fair fugitive, and shout her name;
And conscious Nature owns the present God.
Changed from the Bull, the rapturous God assumes
Immortal youth, with glow celestial blooms,
With lenient words her virgin fears disarms,
And clasps the yielding Beauty in his arms;
Whence Kings and Heroes own illustrious birth,
Guards of mankind, and demigods on earth.
VI.
The guards and guides of Nature's chemic toil,
You saw, deep-sepulchred in dusky realms,
Which Earth's rock-ribbed ponderous vault o'erwhelms,
With self-born fires the mass fermenting glow,
And flame-wing'd sulphurs quit the earths below.
1.
Soft as the Cygnet's down, their snow-white bed;
With yielding flakes successive forms reveal,
And change obedient to the whirling wheel.
First China's sons, with early art elate,
Form'd the gay tea-pot, and the pictured plate;
Saw with illumin'd brow and dazzled eyes
In the red stove vitrescent colours rise;
Speck'd her tall beakers with enamel'd stars,
Her monster-josses, and gigantic jars;
Smear'd her huge dragons with metallic hues,
With golden purples, and cobaltic blues;
Bade on wide hills her porcelain castles glare,
And glazed Pagodas tremble in the air.
Glides the quick wheel, the plastic clay expands,
Mark the nice bounds of vases, ewers, and urns;
Round each fair form in lines immortal trace
Uncopied Beauty, and ideal Grace.
The granite-rock, the nodul'd flint calcine;
Your pure Ka-o-lins and Pe-tun-tses mixt;
O'er each red saggar's burning cave preside,
The keen-eyed Fire-Nymphs blazing by your side;
And pleased on Wedgwood ray your partial smile,
A new Etruria decks Britannia's isle.—
Charm'd by your touch, the flint liquescent pours,
Through finer sieves, and falls in whiter showers;
Charm'd by your touch, the kneaded clay refines,
The biscuit hardens, the enamel shines;
Each nicer mould a softer feature drinks,
The bold Cameo speaks, the soft Intaglio thinks.
Or stay Despair's disanimating sigh,
Whether, O Friend of art! the gem you mould
Rich with new taste, with antient virtue bold;
Form the poor fetter'd Slave on bended knee
From Britain's sons imploring to be free;
And cheer the dreary wastes at Sydney-cove;
Or bid Mortality rejoice and mourn
O'er the fine forms on Portland's mystic urn.—
On mouldering stones, beneath deciduous shades,
Sits Humankind in hieroglyphic state,
Serious, and pondering on their changeful state;
While with inverted torch, and swimming eyes,
Sinks the fair shade of Mortal Life, and dies.
There the pale Ghost through Death's wide portal bends
His timid feet, the dusky steep descends:
With smiles assuasive Love Divine invites,
Guides on broad wing, with torch uplifted lights;
The lingering form, his tottering step supports;
Leads on to Pluto's realms the dreary way,
And gives him trembling to Elysian day.
Beneath, in sacred robes the Priestess dress'd,
The coif close-hooded, and the fluttering vest,
With pointing finger guides the initiate youth,
Unweaves the many-colour'd veil of Truth,
Drives the profane from Mystery's bolted door,
And silence guards the Eleusinian lore.—
Fine forms from Greece, and fabled Gods revive;
Or bid from modern life the Portrait breathe,
And bind round Honour's brow the laurel wreath;
Buoyant shall sail, with Fame's historic page,
Each fair medallion o'er the wrecks of age;
Nor Time shall mar; nor Steel, nor Fire, nor Rust
Touch the hard polish of the immortal bust.
2.
And stars of gold the sparkling Pyrite blends;
Hence dull-eyed Naphtha pours his pitchy streams,
And Jet uncolour'd drinks the solar beams,
Bright Amber shines on his electric throne,
And adds ethereal lustres to his own.
—Led by the phosphor-light, with daring tread
Immortal Franklin sought the fiery bed;
His embryon Thunders in circumfluent clouds,
Besieged with iron points their airy cell,
And pierced the monsters slumbering in the shell.
When Tyrant-Power had built his eagle nest;
While from his eyry shriek'd the famish'd brood,
Clenched their sharp claws, and champ'd their beaks for blood,
Immortal Franklin watch'd the callow crew,
And stabb'd the struggling Vampires, ere they flew.
—The patriot-flame with quick contagion ran,
Hill lighted hill, and man electrised man;
Her heroes slain awhile Columbia mourn'd,
And crown'd with laurels Liberty return'd.
Helm'd his bold course to fair Hibernia's vales;—
Firm as he steps along the shouting lands,
Lo! Truth and Virtue range their radiant bands;
Sad Superstition wails her empire torn,
Art plies his oar, and Commerce pours her horn.
Inglorious slept, unconscious of his chains;
Round his large limbs were wound a thousand strings
By the weak hands of Confessors and Kings;
O'er his closed eyes a triple veil was bound,
And steely rivets lock'd him to the ground;
While stern Bastile with iron-cage inthralls
His folded limbs, and hems in marble walls.
—Touch'd by the patriot-flame, he rent amazed
The flimsy bonds, and round and round him gazed;
Starts up from earth, above the admiring throng
Lifts his Colossal form, and towers along;
High o'er his foes his hundred arms He rears,
Plowshares his swords, and pruning hooks his spears;
Like Heaven's own thunder round the echoing poles;
Gives to the winds his banner broad unfurl'd,
And gathers in its shade the living world!
VII.
Through bubbling Lavas their resistless course,
O'er the broad walls of rifted Granite climb,
And pierce the rent roof of incumbent Lime,
And bear Phlogiston on their tepid wing.
And tawny Copper shoots her azure veins;
Zinc lines his fretted vault with sable ore,
And dull Galena tessellates the floor;
On vermil beds in Idria's mighty caves
The living Silver rolls its ponderous waves;
With gay refractions bright Platina shines,
And studs with squander'd stars his dusky mines;
Long threads of netted gold, and silvery darts,
Inlay the Lazuli, and pierce the Quartz;—
And hapless Mexico was paved with gold.
Spain's deathless shame! the crimes of modern days!
When Avarice, shrouded in Religion's robe,
Sail'd to the West, and slaughter'd half the globe;
While Superstition, stalking by his side,
Mock'd the loud groan, and lap'd the bloody tide;
For sacred truths announced her frenzied dreams,
And turn'd to night the sun's meridian beams.—
Hear, oh, Britannia! potent Queen of isles,
On whom fair Art, and meek Religion smiles,
Now Afric's coasts thy craftier sons invade,
And Theft and Murder take the garb of Trade!
—The Slave, in chains, on supplicating knee,
Spreads his wide arms, and lifts his eyes to Thee;
With hunger pale, with wounds and toil oppress'd,
“Are we not Brethren?” sorrow choaks the rest;
—Air! bear to heaven upon thy azure flood
Their innocent cries!—Earth! cover not their blood!
VIII.
The blood-nursed Tyrant on his purple throne,
Gnomes! your bold forms unnumber'd arms outstretch,
And urge the vengeance o'er the guilty wretch.—
Thus when Cambyses led his barbarous hosts
From Persia's rocks to Egypt's trembling coasts,
Defiled each hallowed fane, and sacred wood,
And, drunk with fury, swell'd the Nile with blood;
Waved his proud banner o'er the Theban states,
And pour'd destruction through her hundred gates;
In dread divisions march'd the marshal'd bands,
And swarming armies blackened all the lands,
By Memphis these to Ethiop's sultry plains,
And those to Hammon's sand-incircled fanes.—
Low curses muttering from the vaulted ground;
Long ailes of Cypress waved their deepen'd glooms,
And quivering spectres grinn'd amid the tombs;
Prophetic whispers breathed from Sphinx's tongue,
And Memnon's lyre with hollow murmurs rung;
Burst from each pyramid expiring groans,
And darker shadows stretch'd their lengthen'd cones,
Day after day their deathful rout They steer,
Lust in the van, and Rapine in the rear.
The bladed grass, sweet grains, and mealy roots;
Retain'd the locusts in their earthy beds;
Bade on your sands no night-born dews distil,
Stay'd with vindictive hands the scanty rill.—
Loud o'er the camp the Fiend of Famine shrieks,
Calls all her brood, and champs her hundred beaks;
O'er ten square leagues her pennons broad expand,
And twilight swims upon the shuddering sand;
Perch'd on her crest the Griffin Discord clings,
And Giant Murder rides between her wings;
Blood from each clotted hair, and horny quill,
And showers of tears in blended streams distil;
High poised in air her spiry neck she bends,
Rolls her keen eye, her dragon-claws extends,
Darts from above, and tears at each fell swoop
With iron fangs the decimated troop.
And the live desert pants, and heaves beneath;
Tinged by the crimson sun, vast columns rise
Of eddying sands, and war amid the skies,
And whirling turrets stalk along the ground.
To Demon-Gods their knees unhallow'd bend.
Wheel in wide circle, form in hollow square,
And now they front, and now they fly the war,
Pierce the deaf tempest with lamenting cries,
Press their parch'd lips, and close their blood-shot eyes.
—Gnomes! o'er the waste you led your myriad powers,
Onward resistless rolls the infuriate surge,
Clouds follow clouds, and mountains mountains urge;
Wave over wave the driving desert swims,
Bursts o'er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs;
Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush,
Hosts march o'er hosts, and nations nations crush,—
Wheeling in air the winged islands fall,
And one great earthy Ocean covers all!—
Then ceased the storm,—Night bow'd his Ethiop brow
To earth, and listen'd to the groans below,—
Grim Horror shook,—awhile the living hill
Heaved with convulsive throes,—and all was still!
IX.
Shrink with soft sympathy for human care;
Who glide unseen, on printless slippers borne,
Beneath the waving grass, and nodding corn;
Where shadowy Cowslips stretch their golden arms,—
So, mark'd on orreries in lucid signs,
Starr'd with bright points the mimic zodiac shines;
Borne on fine wires amid the pictured skies
With ivory orbs the planets set and rise;
Round the dwarf earth the pearly moon is roll'd,
And the sun twinkling whirls his rays of gold.—
Call your bright myriads, march your mailed hosts,
With spears and helmets glittering round the coasts;
Thick as the hairs, which rear the Lion's mane,
Or fringe the Boar, that bays the hunter-train;
Watch, where proud Surges break their treacherous mounds,
And sweep resistless o'er the cultur'd grounds;
Such as ere while, impell'd o'er Belgia's plain,
Roll'd her rich ruins to the insatiate Main;
With piles and piers the ruffian Waves engage,
And bid indignant Ocean stay his rage.
And chills with length of shade the gelid lawns,
Climb the rude steeps, the granite-cliffs surround,
Pierce with steel points, with wooden wedges wound;
Or melt with acid airs the marble crags;
Crown the green summits with adventurous flocks,
And charm with novel flowers the wondering Rocks.
—So when proud Rome the Afric Warrior braved,
And high on Alps his crimson banner waved;
While Rocks on Rocks their beetling brows oppose
With piny forests, and unfathom'd snows;
Onward he march'd, to Latium's velvet ground
With fires and acids burst the obdurate bound,
Wide o'er the weeping Vales destruction hurl'd,
And shook the rising empire of the world.
X.
Seek my chill tribes, which sleep beneath the soil;
On grey-moss banks, green meads, or furrow'd lands
Spread the dark mould, white lime, and crumbling sands;
Each bursting bud with healthier juices feed,
Emerging scion, or awaken'd seed.
So, in descending streams, the silver Chyle
Streaks with white clouds the golden floods of Bile;
Through each nice valve the mingling currents glide,
Join their fine rills, and swell the sanguine tide;
Each countless cell, and viewless fibre seek,
Nerve the strong arm, and tinge the blushing cheek.
Green swells the germ, impatient for its birth;
Guard from rapacious worms its tender shoots,
And drive the mining beetle from its roots;
With ceaseless efforts rend the obdurate clay,
And give my vegetable babes to day!
Like Howard pierced the prison's noisome shade;
Where chain'd to earth, with eyes to heaven upturn'd,
The kneeling Saint in holy anguish mourn'd;—
Ray'd from his lucid vest, and halo'd brow
O'er the dark roof celestial lustres glow,
“Peter, arise!” with cheering voice He calls,
And sounds seraphic echo round the walls;
Locks, bolts, and chains his potent touch obey,
And pleased he leads the exulting Sage to day.
XI.
With virgin earth, of woods and bones and shells;
Mould with retractile glue their spongy beds,
And stretch and strengthen all their fibre-threads.—
And sinks to earth, its cradle and its tomb,
Gnomes! with nice eye the slow solution watch,
With fostering hand the parting atoms catch,
Join in new forms, combine with life and sense,
And guide and guard the transmigrating Ens.
The fair Adonis left the realms of light,
To change eternal, mingled with the earth;—
With darker horror shook the conscious wood,
Groan'd the sad gales, and rivers blush'd with blood;
On cypress-boughs the Loves their quivers hung,
Their arrows scatter'd, and their bows unstrung;
And Beauty's Goddess, bending o'er his bier,
Breathed the soft sigh, and pour'd the tender tear.—
Admiring Proserpine through dusky glades
Led the fair phantom to Elysian shades,
Clad with new form, with finer sense combined,
And lit with purer flame the ethereal mind.
The bright Assurgent rises into light,
Leaves the drear chambers of the insatiate tomb,
And shines and charms with renovated bloom.—
While wondering Loves the bursting grave surround,
And edge with meeting wings the yawning ground,
Stretch their fair necks, and leaning o'er the brink
View the pale regions of the dead, and shrink;
Long with broad eyes ecstatic Beauty stands,
Heaves her white bosom, spreads her waxen hands;
Then with loud shriek the panting Youth alarms,
“My Life! my Love!” and springs into his arms.”
O'er the wide plains delighted rush along;
In dusky squadrons, and in shining groups,
Hosts follow hosts, and troops succeed to troops;
Scarce bears the bending grass the moving freight,
And nodding florets bow beneath their weight.
So when light clouds on airy pinions sail,
Flit the soft shadows o'er the waving vale;
And all the chequer'd landscape seems alive.
CANTO III.
ARGUMENT OF THE THIRD CANTO.
Address to the Nymphs. I. Steam rises from the ocean, floats in clouds, descends in rain and dew, or is condensed on hills, produces springs, and rivers, and returns to the sea. So the blood circulates through the body and returns to the heart, 11. II. 1. Tides, 57. 2. Echinus, nautilus, pinna, cancer. Grotto of a mermaid, 65. 3. Oil stills the waves. Coral rocks. Shipworm, or Teredo. Maelstrome, a whirlpool on the coast of Norway, 85. III. Rivers from beneath the snows on the Alps. The Tiber, 103. IV. Overflowing of the Nile from African Monsoons, 129. V. 1. Giesar, a boiling fountain in Iceland, destroyed by inundation, and consequent earthquake, 145. 2. Warm medicinal springs. Buxton. Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, 157. VI. Combination of vital air and inflammable gas produces water. Which is another source of springs and rivers. Allegorical loves of Jupiter and Juno productive of vernal showers, 201. VII. Aquatic Taste. Distant murmur of the sea by night. Sea-horse. Nereid singing, 261. VIII. The Nymphs of the river Derwent lament the death of Mrs. French, 297. IX. Inland navigation. Monument for Mr. Brindley, 341. X. Pumps explained. Child sucking. Mothers exhorted to nurse their children. Cherub sleeping, 365.
The tuneful tones along her shadowy dells,
Her wrinkling founts with soft vibration shakes,
Curls her deep wells, and rimples all her lakes,
Thrills each wide stream, Britannia's isle that laves,
Her headlong cataracts, and circumfluent waves.
—Thick as the dews, which deck the morning flowers,
Or rain-drops twinkling in the sun-bright showers,
Fair Nymphs, emerging in pellucid bands,
Rise, as she turns, and whiten all the lands.
I.
Wafting the moist air from his oozy bed,
Aquatic Nymphs!—you lead with viewless march
The winged Vapours up the aerial arch,
On each broad cloud a thousand sails expand,
And steer the shadowy treasure o'er the land,
Plunge in soft rains, or sink in silver dews.—
The blue mist hovering round the gelid hill;
Strain through white sands, through pebbly veins direct;
And in each bubbling fountain rise to day.
The associate rills along their sinuous course;
Float in bright squadrons by the willowy brink,
Or circling slow in limpid eddies sink;
Call from her crystal cave the Naiad-Nymph,
Who hides her fine form in the passing lymph,
And, as below she braids her hyaline hair,
Eyes her soft smiles reflected in the air;
Or sport in groups with River-Boys, that lave
Their silken limbs amid the dashing wave;
Pluck the pale primrose bending from its edge,
Or tittering dance amid the whispering sedge.—
Or feed the golden harvests on their side;
The wide-ribb'd arch with hurrying torrents fill,
Shove the slow barge, or whirl the foaming mill.
Or lead with beckoning hand the sparkling train
Of refluent water to its parent main,
And pleased revisit in their sea-moss vales
Blue Nereid-forms array'd in shining scales,
And Tritons bellowing through their twisted shells.
O'er Beauty's radiant shrine in vermil rills,
Feeds each fine nerve, each slender hair pervades,
The skins bright snow with living purple shades,
Each dimpling cheek with warmer blushes dyes,
Laughs on the lips, and lightens in the eyes.
—Erewhile absorb'd, the vagrant globules swim
From each fair feature, and proportion'd limb,
Join'd in one trunk with deeper tint return
To the warm concave of the vital urn.
II.
1.
“Aquatic Maids! you sway the mighty realmsOf scale and shell, which Ocean overwhelms;
As Night's pale Queen her rising orb reveals,
And climbs the zenith with refulgent wheels,
Carr'd on the foam your glimmering legion rides,
Your little tridents heave the dashing tides,
Restrain their fury, or direct their force.
2.
“Nymphs! you adorn, in glossy volutes roll'd,The gaudy conch with azure, green, and gold.
Give the keel'd Nautilus his oar and sail;
The anchor'd Pinna, and his Cancer-friend;
With worm-like beard his toothless lips array,
And teach the unwieldy Sturgeon to betray.—
Ambush'd in weeds, or sepulchred in sands,
In dread repose He waits the scaly bands,
Waves in red spires the living lures, and draws
The unwary plunderers to his circling jaws,
Eyes with grim joy the twinkling shoals beset,
And clasps the quick inextricable net.
You chase the warrior Shark, and cumberous Whale,
And guard the Mermaid in her briny vale;
Feed the live petals of her insect-flowers,
Her shell-wrack gardens, and her sea-fan bowers;
And drop a pearl in every gaping shell.
3.
“Your myriad trains o'er stagnant oceans tow,Harness'd with gossamer, the loitering prow;
Or with fine films, suspended o'er the deep,
Of oil effusive lull the waves to sleep.
Where living rocks of worm-built coral breathe;
Meet fell Teredo, as he mines the keel
With beaked head, and break his lips of steel;
Turn the broad helm, the fluttering canvas urge
From Maelstrome's fierce innavigable surge.
—'Mid the lorn isles of Norway's stormy main,
As sweeps o'er many a league his eddying train,
Vast watery walls in rapid circles spin,
And deep-ingulph'd the Demon dwells within;
Down his deep den the whirling vessel draws;
Churns with his bloody mouth the dread repast,
The booming waters murmuring o'er the mast.
III.
“Where with chill frown enormous Alps alarmsA thousand realms, horizon'd in his arms;
While cloudless suns meridian glories shed
From skies of silver round his hoary head,
Tall rocks of ice refract the coloured rays,
And Frost sits throned amid the lambent blaze;
Nymphs! your thin forms pervade his glittering piles,
His roofs of chrystal, and his glassy ailes;
Where in cold caves imprisoned Naiads sleep,
Or chain'd on mossy couches wake and weep;
Where round dark crags indignant Waters bend
Through rifted ice, in ivory veins descend,
Seek through unfathom'd snows their devious track,
Heave the vast spars, the ribbed granites crack,
And swell the imperial Danube or the Rhine.—
—Or feed the murmuring Tiber, as he laves
His realms inglorious with diminish'd waves,
Sees dancing slaves insult his martial plains;
Parts with chill stream the dim religious bower,
Time-mouldered bastion, and dismantled tower;
By alter'd fanes and nameless villas glides,
And classic domes, that tremble on his sides;
Sighs o'er each broken urn, and yawning tomb,
And mourns the fall of Liberty and Rome.
IV.
“Sailing in air, when dark Monsoon inshroudsHis tropic mountains in a night of clouds;
And showers o'er Afric all his thousand urns;
High o'er his head the beams of Sirius glow,
And, Dog of Nile, Anubis barks below.
Nymphs! you from cliff to cliff attendant guide
In headlong cataracts the impetuous tide;
The bright expanse to Egypt's shower-less lands.
—Her long canals the sacred waters fill,
And edge with silver every peopled hill;
And Memnon bending o'er his broken lyre;
O'er furrow'd glebes and green savannas sweep,
And towns and temples laugh amid the deep.
V.
1.
“High in the frozen North where Heccla glows,And melts in torrents his coeval snows;
O'er isles and oceans sheds a sanguine light,
Or shoots red stars amid the ebon night;
When, at his base intomb'd, with bellowing sound
Fell Giesar roar'd, and struggling shook the ground;
A boiling deluge o'er the blasted heath;
And, wide in air, in misty volumes hurl'd
Contagious atoms o'er the alarmed world;
Nymphs! your bold myriads broke the infernal spell,
And crush'd the Sorceress in her flinty cell.
2.
Cauldron'd in rock, innocuous Lava burns;
On the bright lake your gelid hands distil
In pearly showers the parsimonious rill;
And, as aloft the curling vapours rise
Through the cleft roof, ambitious for the skies,
In vaulted hills condense the tepid steams,
And pour to Health the medicated streams.
—So in green vales amid her mountains bleak
Buxtonia smiles, the Goddess-Nymph of Peak;
And calls Hygeia to her sainted wells.
Graces and Loves from Chatsworth's flowery meads,
Charm'd round the Nymph, they climb the rifted rocks;
And steep in mountain-mist their golden locks;
On venturous step her sparry caves explore,
And light with radiant eyes her realms of ore;
—Oft by her bubbling founts, and shadowy domes,
In gay undress the fairy legion roams,
Their dripping palms in playful malice fill,
Or taste with ruby lip the sparkling rill;
Unclasp'd their sandals, and their zones untied,
Dip with gay fear the shuddering foot undress'd,
And quick retract it to the fringed vest;
Or cleave with brandish'd arms the lucid stream,
And sob, their blue eyes twinkling in the steam.
Bright lustres dart, as dash the waves below;
And Echo's sweet responsive voice prolongs
The dulcet tumult of their silver tongues.—
O'er their flush'd cheeks uncurling tresses flow,
And dew-drops glitter on their necks of snow;
Round each fair Nymph her dropping mantle clings,
And Loves emerging shake their showery wings.
Fair arts of Greece triumphant in his train;
Lo! as he steps, the column'd pile ascends,
The blue roof closes, or the crescent bends;
Smooth slope the lawns, the grey rock peeps between;
Relenting Nature gives her hand to Taste,
And Health and Beauty crown the laughing waste.
VI.
The cold-elastic vapours, as they rise;
With playful force arrest them as they pass,
And to pure Air betroth the flaming Gas.
Their rapturous arms, with silver bosoms cling;
In fleecy clouds their fluttering wings extend,
Or from the skies in lucid showers descend;
Whence rills and rivers owe their secret birth,
And Ocean's hundred arms infold the earth.
Saturnia woo'd the Thunderer to her arms;
O'er her fair limbs a veil of light she spread,
And bound a starry diadem on her head;
Long braids of pearl her golden tresses grac'd,
And the charm'd Cestus sparkled round her waist.
Breathes the soft Sigh, and glows the enamour'd Thought;
Vows on light wings succeed, and quiver'd Wiles,
Assuasive Accents, and seductive Smiles.
—Slow rolls the Cyprian car in purple pride,
And, steer'd by Love, ascends admiring Ide;
Climbs the green slopes, the nodding woods pervades,
Burns round the rocks, or gleams amid the shades.—
Glad Zephyr leads the van, and waves above
The barbed darts, and blazing torch of Love;
Reverts his smiling face, and pausing flings
Soft showers of roses from aurelian wings.
Delighted Fawns, in wreaths of flowers array'd,
With tiptoe Wood-Boys beat the chequer'd glade;
Lift o'er their silver urns their leafy hair;
Each to her oak the bashful Dryads shrink,
And azure eyes are seen at every chink.
—Love culls a flaming shaft of broadest wing,
And rests the fork upon the quivering string;
Points his arch eye aloft, with fingers strong
Draws to his curled ear the silken thong;
Loud twangs the steel, the golden arrow flies,
Trails a long line of lustre through the skies;
“'Tis done!” he shouts, “the mighty Monarch feels!”
And with loud laughter shakes the silver wheels;
Bends o'er the car, and whirling, as it moves,
His loosen'd bowstring, drives the rising doves.
—Pierced on his throne the starting Thunderer turns,
Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture burns;
Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze
The bright Intruder with enamour'd gaze.
“And leaves my Goddess, like a blooming bride,
“The fanes of Argos for the rocks of Ide?
“Her gorgeous palaces, and amaranth bowers,
“For cliff-top'd mountains, and aerial towers?”
The blushing beauty to his lone retreat,
Curtain'd with night the couch imperial shrouds,
And rests the crimson cushions upon clouds.—
Earth feels the grateful influence from above,
Sighs the soft Air, and Ocean murmurs love;
Ethereal Warmth expands his brooding wing,
And in still showers descends the genial Spring.
VII.
“Nymphs of aquatic Taste! whose placid smileBreathes sweet enchantment o'er Britannia's isle;
Whose sportive touch in showers resplendent slings
Her lucid cataracts, and her bubbling springs;
Through peopled vales the liquid silver guides,
And swells in bright expanse her freighted tides.
You with nice ear, in tiptoe trains, pervade
Dim walks of morn or evening's silent shade;
Join the lone Nightingale, her woods among,
And roll your rills symphonious to her song;
Through fount-full dells, and wave-worn valleys move,
And tune their echoing waterfalls to love;
Or catch, attentive to the distant roar,
The pausing murmurs of the dashing shore;
Or, as aloud she pours her liquid strain,
Pursue the Nereid on the twilight main.
—Her playful Sea-horse woos her soft commands,
Turns his quick ears, his webbed claws expands,
His watery way with waving volutes wins,
Or listening librates on unmoving fins.
Hangs o'er his glossy sides her silver feet,
With snow-white hands her arching veil detains,
Gives to his slimy lips the slacken'd reins,
Lifts to the star of Eve her eye serene,
And chaunts the birth of Beauty's radiant Queen.—
O'er her fair brow her pearly comb unfurls
Her beryl locks, and parts the waving curls,
Each tangled braid with glistening teeth unbinds,
And with the floating treasure musks the winds.—
Thrill'd by the dulcet accents, as she sings,
The rippling wave in widening circles rings;
Night's shadowy forms along the margin gleam
With pointed ears, or dance upon the stream;
The Moon transported stays her bright career,
And maddening Stars shoot headlong from the sphere.
VIII.
For human weal, and melt at human woe;
Late as you floated on your silver shells,
Sorrowing and slow by Derwent's willowy dells;
Through ponderous arches o'er impetuous wears,
By Derby's shadowy towers reflective sweeps,
And gothic grandeur chills his dusky deeps;
You pearl'd with Pity's drops his velvet sides,
Sigh'd in his gales, and murmur'd in his tides,
Waved o'er his fringed brink a deeper gloom,
And bow'd his alders o'er Milcena's tomb.
Printing with graceful step his spangled plain,
Explored his twinkling swarms, that swim or fly,
And mark'd his florets with botanic eye.—
“Sweet bud of Spring! how frail thy transient bloom,
“Fine film,” she cried, “of Nature's fairest loom!
“Soon Beauty fades upon its damask throne!”—
—Unconscious of the worm, that mined her own!—
Wan the warm cheek, and mute the tender tongue,
Cold rests that feeling heart on Derwent's shore,
And those love-lighted eye-balls roll no more!
Of murmuring cloysters, gazes on her tomb;
Hangs in mute anguish o'er the scutcheon'd hearse,
Or graves with trembling style the votive verse.
“When Time's cold hand shall close my aching eyes,
“Oh, gently lay this wearied earth of mine,
“Where wrap'd in night my loved Milcena lies.
“When the last trumpet thrills the caves of Death,
“Catch the first whispers of my waking love,
“And drink with holy kiss her kindling breath.
“Shall hail with sweeter smile returning day,
“And win on buoyant step her airy way.
“On clouds of silver her adoring knee,
“Approach with Seraphim the throne of light,
“—And Beauty plead with angel-tongue for Me!”
IX.
“Your virgin trains on Brindley's cradle smiled,And nursed with fairy-love the unletter'd child,
Spread round his pillow all your secret spells,
Pierced all your springs, and open'd all your wells.—
As now on grass, with glossy folds reveal'd,
Glides the bright serpent, now in flowers conceal'd;
Far shine the scales, that gild his sinuous back,
And lucid undulations mark his track;
His long canals, and parts the velvet meads;
Winding in lucid lines, the watery mass
Mines the firm rock, or loads the deep morass,
With rising locks a thousand hills alarms,
Flings o'er a thousand streams its silver arms,
Feeds the long vale, the nodding woodland laves,
And Plenty, Arts, and Commerce freight the waves.
—Nymphs! who erewhile round Brindley's early bier
On snow-white bosoms shower'd the incessant tear,
Adorn his tomb!—oh, raise the marble bust,
Proclaim his honours, and protect his dust!
With urns inverted round the sacred shrine
Their ozier wreaths let weeping Naiads twine;
While on the top Mechanic Genius stands,
Counts the fleet waves, and balances the lands.
X.
Of humid earth, and lift her ponderous waves;
The viewless columns of incumbent air;—
Press'd by the incumbent air the floods below,
Through opening valves in foaming torrents flow,
Foot after foot with lessen'd impulse move,
And rising seek the vacancy above.—
So when the Mother, bending o'er his charms,
Clasps her fair nurseling in delighted arms;
Throws the thin kerchief from her neck of snow,
And half unveils the pearly orbs below;
With sparkling eye the blameless Plunderer owns
Her soft embraces, and endearing tones,
Spreads his inquiring hands, and smiles, and sips.
To lull your infant in maternal arms;
Who, bless'd in vain with tumid bosoms, hear
His tender wailings with unfeeling ear;
The soothing kiss and milky rill deny,
To the sweet pouting lip, and glistening eye!—
Ah! what avails the cradle's damask roof,
The eider bolster, and embroider'd woof!—
Oft hears the gilded couch unpity'd plains,
And many a tear the tassel'd cushion stains!
No voice so sweet attunes his cares to rest,
So soft no pillow, as his Mother's breast!—
—Thus charm'd to sweet repose, when twilight hours
Shed their soft influence on celestial bowers,
The Cherub, Innocence, with smile divine
Shuts his white wings, and sleeps on Beauty's shrine.
XI.
Sweep the long street, invest the tower sublime;
Gild the tall vanes amid the astonish'd night,
And reddening heaven returns the sanguine light;
While with vast strides and bristling hair aloof
Pale Danger glides along the falling roof;
And Giant Terror howling in amaze
Moves his dark limbs across the lurid blaze.
Nymphs! you first taught the gelid wave to rise,
Hurl'd in resplendent arches to the skies;
And imp'd the torrent with unfailing wing;
—On the fierce flames the shower impetuous falls,
And sudden darkness shrouds the shatter'd walls;
Steam, smoak, and dust, in blended volumes roll,
And Night and Silence repossess the Pole.—
Which wrap'd in flames Augusta's sinking towers?
Why did ye linger in your wells and groves,
When sad Woodmason mourn'd her infant loves?
When thy fair Daughters with unheeded screams,
Ill-fated Molesworth! call'd the loitering streams?—
The trembling Nymph, on bloodless fingers hung,
Eyes from the tottering wall the distant throng,
Drops with singed hair into her lover's arms.—
The illumin'd Mother seeks with footsteps fleet,
Where hangs the safe balcony o'er the street,
Wrap'd in her sheet her youngest hope suspends,
And panting lowers it to her tiptoe friends;
Again she hurries on affection's wings,
And now a third, and now a fourth, she brings;
Safe all her babes, she smooths her horrent brow,
And bursts through bickering flames, unscorch'd below.
So, by her Son arraigned, with feet unshod
O'er burning bars indignant Emma trod.
The flames surprised them in their nuptial bed;—
Seen at the opening sash with bosom bare,
With wringing hands, and dark dishevel'd hair,
The blushing Bride with wild disorder'd charms
Round her fond lover winds her ivory arms;
Beat, as they clasp, their throbbing hearts with fear,
And many a kiss is mixed with many a tear;—
Ah me! in vain the labouring engines pour
Round their pale limbs the ineffectual shower!—
And Love and Virtue sunk amid the fire!—
With piercing screams afflicted strangers mourn,
And their white ashes mingle in their urn.
XII.
The shine of welfare, or the shade of woe;
Who with soft lips salute returning Spring,
And hail the Zephyr quivering on his wing;
Or watch, untired, the wintery clouds, and share
With streaming eyes my vegetable care;
Go, shove the dim mist from the mountain's brow,
Chase the white fog, which floods the vale below;
Melt the thick snows, that linger on the lands,
And catch the hailstones in your little hands;
Guard the coy blossom from the pelting shower,
And dash the rimy spangles from the bower,
And close the timorous floret's golden bell.
Climb the tall rock, spectatress of the storm;
Life's sinking wrecks with secret sighs deplore,
And bleed for others' woes, Herself on shore;
To friendless Virtue, gasping on the strand,
Bare her warm heart, her virgin arms expand,
Charm with kind looks, with tender accents cheer,
And pour the sweet consolatory tear;
Grief's cureless wounds with lenient balms asswage,
Or prop with firmer staff the steps of Age;
And snatch the dagger pointed at his breast;
Or lull to slumber Envy's haggard mien,
And rob her quiver'd shafts with hand unseen.
—Sound, Nymphs of Helicon! the trump of Fame,
And teach Hibernian echoes Jones's name;
Bind round her polished brow the civic bay,
And drag the fair Philanthropist to day,—
So from secluded springs, and secret caves,
Her Liffy pours his bright meandering waves,
Cools the parch'd vale, the sultry mead divides,
And towns and temples star his shadowy sides.
XIII.
Pierce with sharp spades the tremulous peat beneath;
With colters bright the rushy sward bisect,
And in new veins the gushing rills direct;—
So flowers shall rise in purple light array'd,
And blossom'd orchards stretch their silver shade;
And Labour sleep amid the waving gold.
Braved the soft smiles of Pleasure's harlot train;
To valiant toils his forceful limbs assign'd,
And gave to Virtue all his mighty mind;
Fierce Achelous rush'd from mountain-caves,
O'er sad Etolia pour'd his wasteful waves,
O'er lowing vales and bleating pastures roll'd,
Swept her red vineyards, and her glebes of gold,
Mined all her towns, uptore her rooted woods,
And Famine danced upon the shining floods.
The youthful Hero seized his curled crest,
And dash'd with lifted club the watery Pest;
And to his course the bellowing Fiend repell'd.
His lengthen'd form, with scales of silver burn'd;
Lash'd with resistless sweep his dragon-train,
And shot meandering o'er the affrighted plain.
The Hero-God, with giant fingers clasp'd
Firm round his neck, the hissing monster grasp'd;
With starting eyes, wide throat, and gaping teeth,
Curl his redundant folds, and writhe in death.
The grisly Demon foam'd, and roar'd along;
With silver hoofs the flowry meadows spurn'd,
Roll'd his red eye, his threatening antlers turn'd
Dragg'd down to earth, the Warrior's victor-hands
Press'd his deep dewlap on the imprinted sands;
Then with quick bound his bended knee he fix'd
High on his neck, the branching horns betwixt,
Strain'd his strong arms, his sinewy shoulders bent,
And from his curled brow the twisted terror rent.
And hang their chaplets round the resting God;
Link their soft hands, and rear with pausing toil
The golden trophy on the furrow'd soil;
Fill with ripe fruits, with wreathed flowers adorn,
And give to Plenty her prolific horn.
XIV.
From airy urns the sun-illumin'd shower,
Feed with the dulcet drops my tender broods,
Mellifluous flowers, and aromatic buds;
Hang from each bending grass and horrent thorn
The tremulous pearl, that glitters to the morn;
Or where cold dews their secret channels lave,
And Earth's dark chambers hide the stagnant wave,
Oh pierce, ye Nymphs! her marble veins, and lead
Her gushing fountains to the thirsty mead;
Wide o'er the shining vales, and trickling hills,
Spread the bright treasure in a thousand rills.
Exult, inebriate with the genial shower;
Dip their long tresses from the mossy brink,
With tufted roots the glassy currents drink;
Shade your cool mansions from meridian beams,
And view their waving honours in your streams.
And milky eddies with the purple blend;
The Chyle's white trunk, diverging from its source,
Seeks through the vital mass its shining course;
O'er each red cell, and tissued membrane spreads
In living net-work all its branching threads;
Maze within maze its tortuous path pursues,
Winds into glands, inextricable clues;
Steals through the stomach's velvet sides, and sips
The silver surges with a thousand lips;
Fills each fine pore, pervades each slender hair,
And drinks salubrious dew-drops from the air.
Or press with pious kiss Medina's tomb,
League after league, through many a lingering day,
Steer the swart Caravans their sultry way;
Or print with pilgrim-steps the burning soil;
If from lone rocks a sparkling rill descend,
O'er the green brink the kneeling nations bend,
Bathe the parch'd lip, and cool the feverish tongue,
And the clear lake reflects the mingled throng.”
Still seem to hear, and dwell upon her smile;
Then with soft murmur sweep in lucid trains
Down the green slopes, and o'er the pebbly plains,
To each bright stream on silver sandals glide,
Reflective fountain, and tumultuous tide.
Their glittering net-work o'er the autumnal lawn;
From blade to blade connect with cordage fine
The unbending grass, and live along the line;
Or bathe unwet their oily forms, and dwell
With feet repulsive on the dimpling well.
Piles high his snows, and floors his seas with glass;
Marks its slow chronicle by lunar days;
Stout youths and ruddy damsels, sportive train,
Leave the white soil, and rush upon the main;
From isle to isle the moon-bright squadrons stray,
And win in easy curves their graceful way;
On step alternate borne, with balance nice
Hang o'er the gliding steel, and hiss along the ice.
CANTO IV.
ARGUMENT OF THE FOURTH CANTO.
Address to the Sylphs. I. Trade-winds. Monsoons. N. E. and S. W. winds. Land and sea breezes. Irregular winds, 9. II. Production of vital air from oxygene and light. The marriage of Cupid and Psyche, 25. III. I. Syroc. Simoom. Tornado, 63. 2. Fog. Contagion. Story of Thyrsis and Ægle. Love and Death, 79. IV. 1. Barometer. Air-pump. 127. 2. Air-balloon of Mongolfier. Death of Rozier. Icarus, 143. V. Discoveries of Dr. Priestley. Evolutions and combinations of pure air. Rape of Proserpine, 177. VI. Sea-balloons, or houses constructed to move under the sea. Death of Mr. Day. Of Mr. Spalding. Of Captain Pierce and his Daughters, 207. VII. Sylphs of music. Cecilia singing. Cupid with a lyre riding upon a lion, 245. VIII. Destruction of Senacherib's army by a pestilential wind. Shadow of Death, 275. IX. 1. Wish to possess the secret of changing the course of the winds, 307. 2. Monster devouring air subdued by Mr. Kirwan, 333. X. 1. Seeds suspended in their pods. Stars discovered by Mr. Herschel. Destruction and resuscitation of all things, 363. 2. Seeds within seeds, and bulbs within bulbs. Picture on the retina of the eye. Concentric strata of the earth. The great seed, 393. 3. The root, pith, lobes, plume, calyx, corol, sap, blood, leaves respire and absorb light. The crocodile in its egg, 421. XI. Opening of the flower. The petals, style, anthers,
Cacalia opens all her honey'd flowers;
And nations hover on aurelian wing;
So round the Goddess, ere she speaks, on high
Impatient Sylphs in gawdy circlets fly;
Quivering in air their painted plumes expand,
And coloured shadows dance upon the land.
I.
“Sylphs! your light troops the tropic Winds confine,And guide their streaming arrows to the Line;
While in warm floods ecliptic Breezes rise,
And sink with wings benumb'd in colder skies.
You bid Monsoons on Indian seas reside,
And veer, as moves the sun, their airy tide;
While southern Gales, o'er western oceans roll,
And Eurus steals his ice-winds from the Pole.
Your playful trains, on sultry islands born,
Turn on fantastic toe at eve and morn;
With soft susurrant voice alternate sweep
Earth's green pavilions and encircling deep.
On tides of ether, float from clime to clime;
O'er waving Autumn bend your airy ring,
Or waft the fragrant bosom of the Spring.
II.
O'er the bright plains her dewy lustre showers;
Till from her sable chariot Eve serene
Drops the dark curtain o'er the brilliant scene;
You form with chemic hands the airy surge,
Mix with broad vans, with shadowy tridents urge.
Sylphs! from each sun-bright leaf, that twinkling shakes
O'er Earth's green lap, or shoots amid her lakes,
Your playful bands with simpering lips invite,
And wed the enamour'd Oxygene to Light.—
Cling the fond Pair with unabating love;
Hand link'd in hand on buoyant step they rise,
And soar and glisten in unclouded skies.
Whence in bright floods the Vital Air expands,
And with concentric spheres involves the lands;
Where teeming Nature broods her myriad births;
Fills the fine lungs of all that breathe or bud,
Warms the new heart, and dyes the gushing blood;
With Life's first spark inspires the organic frame,
And, as it wastes, renews the subtile flame.
Fair Psyche, kneeling at the ethereal throne;
Won with coy smiles the admiring court of Jove,
And warm'd the bosom of unconquer'd Love.—
Beneath a moving shade of fruits and flowers
Onward they march to Hymen's sacred bowers;
With lifted torch he lights the festive train,
Sublime, and leads them in his golden chain;
Joins the fond pair, indulgent to their vows,
And hides with mystic veil their blushing brows.
Round their fair forms their mingling arms they fling,
Meet with warm lip, and clasp with rustling wing.—
Her fading forms, repeoples all her realms;
Soft Joys disport on purple plumes unfurl'd,
And Love and Beauty rule the willing world.
III.
1.
Stay the fell Syroc's suffocative breath;
Arrest Simoom in his realms of sand,
The poisoned javelin balanced in his hand;—
Points his keen eye, and waves his whistling hair;
Rolls in red waves, and billowy deserts boil.
Burst his dense clouds, his wheeling spires untwist;
Wide o'er the West when borne on headlong gales,
Dark as meridian night, the Monster sails,
Howls high in air, and shakes his curled brow,
Lashing with serpent-train the waves below,
Whirls his black arm, the forked lightning flings,
And showers a deluge from his demon-wings.
2.
That lingering slumbers on the sedge-wove bog,
Or flings his hairy limbs on stagnant deeps,
You meet Contagion issuing from afar,
And dash the baleful conqueror from his car;
When, Guest of Death! from charnel vaults he steals,
And bathes in human gore his armed wheels.
Look'd through the mist and shook his clotted hair;
O'er shrinking nations steer'd malignant clouds,
And rain'd destruction on the gasping crouds.
The beauteous Ægle felt the venom'd dart,
Slow roll'd her eye, and feebly throbb'd her heart;
And starting Friendship shunn'd her, as she pass'd.
—With weak unsteady step the fainting Maid
Seeks the cold garden's solitary shade,
Sinks on the pillowy moss her drooping head,
And prints with lifeless limbs her leafy bed.
—On wings of Love her plighted Swain pursues,
Shades her from winds, and shelters her from dews,
Extends on tapering poles the canvas roof,
Spreads o'er the straw-wove mat the flaxen woof,
Sweet buds and blossoms on her bolster strows,
And binds his kerchief round her aching brows;
Sooths with soft kiss, with tender accents charms,
And clasps the bright Infection in his arms.—
With pale and languid smiles the grateful Fair
Applauds his virtues, and rewards his care;
Mourns with wet cheek her fair companions fled
On timorous step, or number'd with the dead;
And pours on Thyrsis the collected blaze;
Braves the chill night, caressing and caress'd,
And folds her Hero-lover to her breast.—
Less bold, Leander at the dusky hour
Eyed, as he swam, the far love-lighted tower;
Breasted with struggling arms the tossing wave,
And sunk benighted in the watery grave.
Less bold, Tobias claim'd the nuptial bed
Where seven fond Lovers by a Fiend had bled;
And drove, instructed by his Angel-Guide,
The enamour'd Demon from the fatal bride.—
—Sylphs! while your winnowing pinions fann'd the air,
And shed gay visions o'er the sleeping pair;
Love round their couch effused his rosy breath,
And with his keener arrows conquer'd Death.
IV.
1.
“You charm'd, indulgent Sylphs! their learned toil,And crown'd with fame your Torricell, and Boyle;
The spring and pressure of the viewless air.
Of liquid silver from the lake below,
Weigh the long column of the incumbent skies,
And with the changeful moment fall and rise.
—How, as in brazen pumps the pistons move,
The membrane-valve sustains the weight above;
Stroke follows stroke, the gelid vapour falls,
And misty dew-drops dim the crystal walls;
Rare and more rare expands the fluid thin,
And Silence dwells with Vacancy within.—
So in the mighty Void with grim delight
Primeval Silence reign'd with ancient Night.
2.
Bade from low earth the bold Mongolfier rise;
And bore the Sage on levity of wing;—
Where were ye, Sylphs! when on the ethereal main
Young Rosiere launch'd, and call'd your aid in vain?
Fair mounts the light balloon, by Zephyr driven,
Parts the thin clouds, and sails along the heaven;
Higher and yet higher the expanding bubble flies,
Lights with quick flash, and bursts amid the skies.—
Headlong He rushes through the affrighted Air
With limbs distorted, and dishevel'd hair,
Whirls round and round, the flying croud alarms,
And Death receives him in his sable arms!—
Breathes the loud sob, and sheds the incessant tear;
Pursues the sad procession, as it moves
Through winding avenues and waving groves;
Hears the slow dirge amid the echoing ailes,
And mingles with her sighs discordant smiles.
Then with quick step advancing through the gloom,
“I come!” she cries, and leaps into his tomb.
“Oh, stay! I follow thee to realms above!—
“Oh, wait a moment for thy dying love!—
“Thus, thus I clasp thee to my bursting heart!—
“Close o'er us, holy Earth!—We will not part!”—
Sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings;
His scatter'd plumage danced upon the wave,
And sorrowing Mermaids deck'd his watery grave;
And strew'd with crimson moss his marble bed;
Struck in their coral towers the pausing bell,
And wide in ocean toll'd his echoing knell.
V.
Where oft your Priestley woos your airy powers,
As sits the Sage with Science by his side;
Or pour your secrets on his raptured ear.
How nitrous Gas from iron ingots driven
Drinks with red lips the purest breath of heaven;
How, while Conferva from its tender hair
Gives in bright bubbles empyrean air,
The crystal floods phlogistic ores calcine,
And the pure Ether marries with the Mine.
When playful Proserpine from Ceres stray'd,
O'er Etna's steeps, and Enna's golden plains;
Pluck'd with fair hand the silver-blossom'd bower,
And purpled mead,—herself a fairer flower;
Sudden, unseen amid the twilight glade,
Rush'd gloomy Dis, and seized the trembling maid.—
Her starting damsels sprung from mossy seats,
Dropp'd from their gauzy laps the gather'd sweets,
Clung round the struggling Nymph, with piercing cries
Pursued the chariot, and invoked the skies;—
Pleased as he grasps her in his iron arms,
Frights with soft sighs, with tender words alarms,
The wheels descending roll'd in smoky rings,
Infernal Cupids flapp'd their demon wings;
And far in Night celestial Beauty blaz'd.
VI.
“Led by the Sage, Lo! Britain's sons shall guideHuge Sea-balloons beneath the tossing tide;
Ribb'd with strong oak, and barr'd with bolts of brass,
Buoy'd with pure air shall endless tracks pursue,
And Priestley's hand the vital flood renew.—
Then shall Britannia rule the wealthy realms,
Which Ocean's wide insatiate wave o'erwhelms;
Confine in netted bowers his scaly flocks,
Part his blue plains, and people all his rocks.
Deep, in warm waves beneath the Line that roll,
Beneath the shadowy ice-isles of the Pole,
Onward, through bright meandering vales, afar,
Obedient Sharks shall trail her sceptred car,
With harness'd necks the pearly flood disturb,
Stretch the silk rein, and champ the silver curb;
Pleased round her triumph wondering Tritons play,
And Sea-maids hail her on the watery way.
—Oft shall she weep beneath the crystal waves
O'er shipwreck'd lovers weltering in their graves;
Mingling in death the Brave and Good behold
With slaves to glory, and with slaves to gold;
Shrin'd in the deep shall Day and Spalding mourn,
Each in his treacherous bell, sepulchral urn!—
Her sighs shall breathe, her sorrows dew their hearse.—
He cried, and clasp'd them to his aching heart,—
—Dash'd in dread conflict on the rocky grounds,
Crash the shock'd masts, the staggering wreck rebounds;
Through gaping seams the rushing deluge swims,
Chills their pale bosoms, bathes their shuddering limbs,
Climbs their white shoulders, buoys their streaming hair,
And the last sea-shriek bellows in the air.—
Each with loud sobs her tender sire caress'd,
And gasping strain'd him closer to her breast!—
—Stretch'd on one bier they sleep beneath the brine,
And their white bones with ivory arms intwine!
VII.
The fine vibrations of the aerial tide;
Or stretch and modulate the trembling cords.
You strung to melody the Grecian lyre,
Breathed the rapt song, and fan'd the thought of fire,
Or brought in combinations, deep and clear,
Immortal harmony to Handel's ear.—
You with soft breath attune the vernal gale,
When breezy evening broods the listening vale;
Or wake the loud tumultuous sounds, that dwell
In Echo's many-toned diurnal shell.
You melt in dulcet chords, when Zephyr rings
The Eolian Harp, and mingle all its strings;
Or trill in air the soft symphonious chime,
When rapt Cecilia lifts her eye sublime,
Swell, as she breathes, her bosom's rising snow,
O'er her white teeth in tuneful accents flow,
Through her fair lips on whispering pinions move,
And form the tender sighs, that kindle love!
With ribbon-rein the indignant Lion guides;
And shakes delirious rapture from the strings;
Slow as the pausing Monarch stalks along,
Sheaths his retractile claws, and drinks the song;
Soft Nymphs on timid step the triumph view,
And listening Fawns with beating hoofs pursue;
With pointed ears the alarmed forest starts,
And Love and Music soften savage hearts.
VIII.
“Sylphs! your bold hosts, when Heaven with justice dreadCalls the red tempest round the guilty head,
Fierce at his nod assume vindictive forms,
And launch from airy cars the vollied storms.—
From Ashur's vales when proud Senacherib trod,
Pour'd his swoln heart, defied the living God,
Urged with incessant shouts his glittering powers,
And Judah shook through all her massy towers;
Round her sad altars press the prostrate crowd,
Hosts beat their breasts, and suppliant chieftains bow'd;
Loud shrieks of matrons thrill'd the troubled air,
And trembling virgins rent their scatter'd hair;
Spread the blaspheming scroll before the Lord,
Raised his pale hands, and breathed his pausing sighs,
And fixed on Heaven his dim imploring eyes,—
“Oh! Mighty God! amidst thy Seraph-throng
“Who sit'st sublime, the Judge of Right and Wrong;
“Thine the wide earth, bright sun, and starry zone,
“That twinkling journey round thy golden throne;
“Thine is the crystal source of life and light,
“And thine the realms of Death's eternal night.
“Oh! bend thine ear, thy gracious eye incline,
“Lo! Ashur's King blasphemes thy holy shrine,
“Insults our offerings, and derides our vows,—
“Oh! strike the diadem from his impious brows,
“Tear from his murderous hand the bloody rod,
“And teach the trembling nations, “Thou Art God!”
—Sylphs! in what dread array with pennons broad
Onward ye floated o'er the ethereal road,
Contagious vapours, and volcanic gales,
Gave the soft South with poisonous breath to blow,
And rolled the dreadful whirlwind on the foe!—
Man falls on Man, on buckler buckler rings;
Groan answers groan, to anguish anguish yields,
And Death's loud accents shake the tented fields!
—High rears the Fiend his grinning jaws, and wide
Spans the pale nations with colossal stride,
Waves his broad falchion with uplifted hand,
And his vast shadow darkens all the land.
IX.
1.
“Ethereal Cohorts! Essences of Air!Make the green children of the Spring your care!
Oh, Sylphs! disclose in this inquiring age
One Golden Secret to some favour'd sage;
Or guides the changeful pinions of the winds!
—No more shall hoary Boreas, issuing forth
With Eurus, lead the tempests of the North;
Rime the pale Dawn, or veil'd in flaky showers
Chill the sweet bosoms of the smiling Hours.
By whispering Auster waked shall Zephyr rise,
Meet with soft kiss, and mingle in the skies,
Fan the gay floret, bend the yellow ear,
And rock the uncurtain'd cradle of the year;
Autumn and Spring in lively union blend,
And from the skies the golden Age descend.
2.
“Castled on ice, beneath the circling Bear,A vast Camelion drinks and vomits air;
O'er twelve degrees his ribs gigantic bend,
And many a league his gasping jaws extend;
Half-fish, beneath, his scaly volutes spread,
And vegetable plumage crests his head;
From panting gills, wide lungs, and waving leaves;
Then with dread throes subsides his bloated form,
His shriek the thunder, and his sigh the storm.
Oft high in heaven the hissing Demon wins
His towering course, upborne, on winnowing fins;
Steers with expanded eye and gaping mouth,
His mass enormous to the affrighted South;
Spreads o'er the shuddering Line his shadowy limbs,
And Frost and Famine follow as he swims.—
Sylphs! round his cloud-built couch your bands array,
And mould the Monster to your gentle sway;
Charm with soft tones, with tender touches check,
Bend to your golden yoke his willing neck,
With silver curb his yielding teeth restrain,
And give to Kirwan's hand the silken rein.
—Pleased shall the Sage, the dragon-wings between,
Bend o'er discordant climes his eye serene,
And call to Hindostan antarctic gales,
Adorn with wreathed ears Kampschatca's brows,
And scatter roses on Zealandic snows,
Earth's wondering Zones the genial seasons share,
And nations hail him “Monarch of the Air.”
X.
1.
Brood the green children of parturient Spring!—
Where in their bursting cells my Embryons rest,
I charge you, guard the vegetable nest;
Count with nice eye the myriad Seeds, that swell
Each vaulted womb of husk, or pod, or shell;
Or hang, inshrined, their little orbs in air.
Hang the bright squadrons of the twinkling Night;
Ten thousand marshall'd stars, a silver zone,
Effuse their blended lustres round her throne;
Suns call to suns, in lucid clouds conspire,
And light exterior skies with golden fire;
Resistless rolls the illimitable sphere,
And one great circle forms the unmeasured year.
—Roll on, ye Stars! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach;—
Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall,
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!
—Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.
2.
“Lo! on each Seed within its slender rindLife's golden threads in endless circles wind;
Maze within maze the lucid webs are roll'd,
And, as they burst, the living flame unfold.
The Oak's vast branches in its milky veins;
Each ravel'd bud, fine film, and fibre-line
Traced with nice pencil on the small design.
The young Narcissus, in its bulb compress'd,
Cradles a second nestling on its breast;
In whose fine arms a younger embryon lies,
Folds its thin leaves, and shuts its floret-eyes;
Grain within grain successive harvests dwell,
And boundless forests slumber in a shell.
—So yon grey precipice, and ivy'd towers,
Long winding meads, and intermingled bowers,
Green files of poplars, o'er the lake that bow,
And glimmering wheel, which rolls and foams below,
In one bright point with nice distinction lie
Plann'd on the moving tablet of the eye.
—So, fold on fold, Earth's wavy plains extend,
And, sphere in sphere, its hidden strata bend;—
Incumbent Spring her beamy plumes expands
O'er restless oceans, and impatient lands,
With genial lustres warms the mighty ball,
And the Great Seed evolves, disclosing All;
And the vast surface kindles, as it rolls!
3.
“Come, ye soft Sylphs! who sport on Latian land,Come, sweet-lip'd Zephyr, and Favonius bland!
Teach the fine Seed, instinct with life, to shoot
On Earth's cold bosom its descending root;
Part the twin Lobes, expand the throbbing Gem;
Clasp in your airy arms the aspiring Plume,
Fan with your balmy breath its kindling bloom,
Each widening scale and bursting film unfold,
Swell the green cup, and tint the flower with gold;
While in bright veins the silvery Sap ascends,
And refluent blood in milky eddies bends;
Or drink the golden quintessence of day.
—So from his shell on Delta's shower-less isle
Bursts into life the Monster of the Nile;
First in translucent lymph with cobweb-threads
The Brain's fine floating tissue swells, and spreads;
Nerve after nerve the glistening spine descends,
The red Heart dances, the Aorta bends;
Through each new gland the purple current glides,
New Veins meandering drink the refluent tides;
And sheaths his slimy skin in silver mail.
—Erewhile, emerging from the brooding sand,
With Tyger-paw He prints the brineless strand,
High on the flood with speckled bosom swims,
Helm'd with broad tail, and oar'd with giant limbs;
Rolls his fierce eye-balls, clasps his iron claws,
And champs with gnashing teeth his massy jaws;
Old Nilus sighs along his cane-crown'd shores,
And swarthy Memphis trembles and adores.
XI.
“Come, ye soft Sylphs! who fan the Paphian groves,And bear on sportive wings the callow Loves;
Call with sweet whisper, in each gale that blows,
The slumbering Snow-drop from her long repose;
Charm the pale Primrose from her clay-cold bed,
Unveil the bashful Violet's tremulous head;
While from her bud the playful Tulip breaks,
And young Carnations peep with blushing cheeks;
Bid the closed Corol from nocturnal cold
Curtain'd with silk the virgin Stigma fold,
And wave in light its iridescent hues.
So shall from high the bursting Anther trust
To the mild breezes the prolific dust;
Or bow his waxen head with graceful pride,
Watch the first blushes of his waking bride,
Give to her hand the honey'd cup, or sip
Celestial nectar from her sweeter lip;
Hang in soft raptures o'er the yielding Fair,
Love out his hour, and leave his life in air.
Warm'd with new life, unfolds his larva-form;
Erewhile aloft in wanton circles moves,
And woos on Hymen-wings his velvet loves.
XII.
1.
“If prouder branches with exuberance rudePoint their green germs, their barren shoots protrude;
Wound them, ye Sylphs! with little knives, or bind
A wiry ringlet round the swelling rind;
Or bend to earth the inhospitable bough.
Delay the leaf-bud, and expand the flower;
The lengthening Wood in circling Stamens bend;
The smoother Rind its soft embroidery spread
In vaulted Petals o'er the gorgeous bed;
Form the green Calyx, fold including fold;
Each widening Bracte expand it's foliage hard,
And hem the bright pavillion, Floral Guard.
—So the cold rill from Cintra's steepy sides,
Headlong, abrupt, in barren channels glides;
Round the rent cliffs the bark-bound Suber spreads,
And lazy monks recline on corky beds;
Till, led by art, the wondering water moves
Through vine hung avenues, and citron groves;
Green slopes the velvet round it's silver source,
And flowers, and fruits, and foliage mark it's course.
At breezy eve, along the irriguous plain
The fair Beckfordia leads her virgin train;
Seeks the cool grot, the shadowy rocks among,
And tunes the mountain-echoes to her song;
Or prints with graceful steps the margin green,
And brighter glories gild the inchanted scene.
2.
Stint the young germ, the tender blossom stain;
Pith press'd to pith, and rind applied to rind,
So shall the trunk with loftier crest ascend,
And wide in air it's happier arms extend;
Nurse the new buds, admire the leaves unknown,
And blushing bend with fruitage not it's own.
And offer'd on the shrine his mystic rod;
New buds emerging widen into leaves;
Fair fruits protrude, enascent flowers expand,
And blush and tremble round the living wand.
XIII.
1.
“Sylphs! on each Oak-bud wound the wormy galls,With pigmy spears, or crush the venom'd balls;
Fright the green Locust from his foamy bed,
Unweave the Caterpillar's gluey thread;
Chase the fierce Earwig, scare the bloated Toad,
Arrest the Snail upon his slimy road;
Arm with sharp thorns the Sweet-brier's tender wood,
And dash the Cynips from her damask bud;
Steep in ambrosial dews the Woodbine's bells,
And drive the Night-moth from her honey'd cells.
So where the Humming-bird in Chili's bowers
On murmuring pinions robs the pendent flowers;
Seeks, where fine pores their dulcet balm distill,
And sucks the treasure with proboscis-bill;
Knits her smooth brow, extinguishes her smile;
Hide her fine form, and mask her blushing charms;
In ambush sly the mimic warrior lies
And on quick wing the panting plunderer flies.
2.
“Shield the young Harvest from devouring blight,The Smut's dark poison and the Mildew white;
Deep-rooted Mould, and Ergot's horn uncouth,
And break the Canker's desolating tooth.
Mines unperceived beneath the shrivel'd rind;
Then climbs the branches with increasing strength,
Spreads as they spread, and lengthens with their length;
—Thus the slight wound ingraved on glass unneal'd
Runs in white lines along the lucid field;
And the frail fabric shivers into dust.
XIV.
1.
“Sylphs! if with morn destructive Eurus springs,O, clasp the Harebel with your velvet wings;
Screen with thick leaves the Jasmine as it blows,
And shake the white rime from the shuddering Rose;
Whilst Amaryllis turns with graceful ease
Her blushing beauties, and eludes the breeze.—
Sylphs! if at noon the Fritillary droops,
With drops nectareous hang her nodding cups;
And hide the vale's chaste Lily from the ray;
Whilst Erythrina o'er her tender flower
Bends all her leaves, and braves the sultry hour;—
Shield, when cold Hesper sheds his dewy light,
Mimosa's soft sensations from the night;
Fold her thin foliage, close her timid flowers,
And with ambrosial slumbers guard her bowers;
O'er each warm wall while Cerea flings her arms,
And wastes on night's dull eye a blaze of charms.
2.
The gadding tendrils of the adventurous Vine;
From arm to arm in gay festoons suspend
Her fragrant flowers, her graceful foliage bend;
Swell with sweet juice her vermil orbs, and feed;
Shrined in transparent pulp her pearly seed;
Hang round the Orange all her silver bells,
And guard her fragrance with Hesperian spells;
Bud after bud her polish'd leaves unfold,
And load her branches with successive gold.
So the learn'd Alchemist exulting sees
Rise in his bright matrass Diana's trees;
The red-fumed acid on Potosi's ores;
With sudden flash the fierce bullitions rise,
And wide in air the gas phlogistic flies;
Slow shoot, at length, in many a brilliant mass
Metallic roots across the netted glass;
Branch after branch extend their silver stems,
Bud into gold, and blossom into gems.
Imperial Kew by Thames's glittering side;
Obedient sails from realms unsurrow'd bring
For her the unnam'd progeny of spring;
And nurse in fostering arms the tender year,
Plant the young bulb, inhume the living seed,
Prop the weak stem, the erring tendril lead;
Or fan in glass-built fanes the stranger flowers
With milder gales, and steep with warmer showers.
Delighted Thames through tropic umbrage glides,
And flowers antarctic, bending o'er his tides;
Drinks the new tints, the sweets unknown inhales,
And calls the sons of science to his vales.
In one bright point admiring Nature eyes
The fruits and foliage of discordant skies,
Twines the gay floret with the fragrant bough,
And bends the wreath round George's royal brow.
—Sometimes retiring, from the public weal
One tranquil hour the Royal Partners steal;
Through glades exotic pass with step sublime,
Or mark the growths of Britain's happier clime;
With beauty blossom'd, and with virtue blaz'd,
Mark the fair Scions, that themselves have rais'd;
Sweet blooms the Rose, the towering Oak expands,
The Grace and Guard of Britain's golden lands.
XV.
Attend the radiant chariot of the morn;
Lead the gay hours along the ethereal hight,
And on each dun meridian shower the light;
Sylphs! who from realms of equatorial day
To climes, that shudder in the polar ray,
From zone to zone pursue on shifting wing,
The bright perennial journey of the spring;
Bring my rich Balms from Mecca's hallow'd glades,
Sweet flowers, that glitter in Arabia's shades;
Fruits, whose fair forms in bright succession glow
Gilding the banks of Arno, or of Po;
Each leaf, whose fragrant steam with ruby lip
Gay China's nymphs from pictur'd vases sip;
Each spicy rind, which sultry India boasts,
Scenting the night-air round her breezy coasts;
Roots, whose bold stems in bleak Siberia blow,
And gem with many a tint the eternal snow;
Barks, whose broad umbrage high in ether waves
O'er Ande's steeps, and hides his golden caves;
—And, where yon oak extends his dusky shoots
Wide o'er the rill, that bubbles from his roots;
A turf-built altar rears it's rustic form;
Sylphs! with religious hands fresh garlands twine,
And deck with lavish pomp Hygeia's shrine.
On floating cloud, wide wave, or bubbling well;
Stamp with charm'd foot, convoke the alarmed Gnomes
From golden beds, and adamantine domes;
Each from her sphere with beckoning arm invite,
Curl'd with red flame the Vestal Forms of light.
Close all your spotted wings, in lucid ranks
Press with your bending knees the crowded banks,
Cross your meek arms, incline your wreathed brows,
And win the Goddess with unwearied vows.
Thy serpent-wand, and mark it for thy own;
Lead round her breezy coasts thy guardian trains,
Her nodding forests, and her waving plains;
Shed o'er her peopled realms thy beamy smile,
And with thy airy temple crown her isle!”
The wandering Zephyrs, joins them to her car;
Mounts with light bound, and graceful, as she bends,
Whirls the long lash, the flexile rein extends;
On whispering wheels the silver axle slides,
Climbs into air, and cleaves the crystal tides;
Burst from it's pearly chains, her amber hair
Streams o'er her ivory shoulders, buoy'd in air;
Swells her white veil, with ruby clasp confined
Round her fair brow, and undulates behind;
The lessening coursers rise in spiral rings,
Pierce the slow-sailing clouds, and stretch their shadowy wings.
II. PART II. CONTAINING THE LOVES OF THE PLANTS
Felix arbor amat; nutant ad mutua Palmæ
Fædera, populeo suspirat Populus ictu,
Et Platani Platanis, Alnoque assibilat Alnus.
Claud. epith.
CANTO I.
And sweep with little hands your silver lyres;
With fairy footsteps print your grassy rings,
Ye Gnomes! accordant to the tinkling strings:
While in soft notes I tune to oaten reed
Gay hopes, and amorous sorrows of the mead.—
From giant Oaks, that wave their branches dark,
To the dwarf Moss that clings upon their bark,
What Beaux and Beauties crowd the gaudy groves,
And woo and win their vegetable Loves.
Their tender tears, as o'er the stream they bend;
The love-sick Violet, and the Primrose pale,
Bow their sweet heads, and whisper to the gale;
With secret sighs the Virgin Lily droops,
And jealous Cowslips hang their tawny cups.
How the young Rose in beauty's damask pride
Drinks the warm blushes of his bashful bride;
With honey'd lips enamour'd Woodbines meet,
Clasp with fond arms, and mix their kisses sweet.—
Hush, whispering Winds; ye rustling Leaves, be still;
Rest, silver Butterflies, your quivering wings;
Alight, ye Beetles, from your airy rings;
Bow your wide horns, your spiral trunks uncurl;
Glitter, ye Glow-worms, on your mossy beds;
Descend, ye Spiders, on your lengthened threads;
Slide here, ye horned Snails, with varnish'd shells;
Ye Bee-nymphs, listen in your waxen cells!
Led by your airy hand the Swedish sage,
Bade his keen eye your secret haunts explore
On dewy dell, high wood, and winding shore;
Say on each leaf how tiny Graces dwell;
How laugh the Pleasures in a blossom's bell;
How insect Loves arise on cobweb wings,
Aim their light shafts, and point their little stings.
Erect to heaven, and plights his nuptial vow;
Dread the rude blast of Autumn's icy morn;
Round the chill fair he folds his crimson vest,
And clasps the timorous beauty to his breast.
Smit with thy starry eye and radiant hair;—
On the green margin sits the youth, and laves
His floating train of tresses in the waves;
Sees his fair features paint the streams that pass,
And bends for ever o'er the watery glass.
The same their features, and their forms the same,
With rival love for fair Collinia sigh,
Knit the dark brow, and roll the unsteady eye.
With sweet concern the pitying beauty mourns,
And sooths with smiles the jealous pair by turns.
And ten fond brothers woo the haughty maid.
Adored Melissa! and two squires attend.—
And hand in hand the laughing belle address;
Rolls her dark eye, and waves her golden hair.
Meets her fond husband with averted eye:
With soft attentions of Platonic love.
And, like sad Eloisa, loves and mourns.
And three unjealous husbands wed the dame.
Cupressus dark disdains his dusky bride,
One dome contains them, but two beds divide.
Two houses hold the fashionable pair.
A monster-birth! and lifts his hundred heads;
And clasps the beauty in his hundred arms.
So hapless Desdemona, fair and young,
Won by Othello's captivating tongue,
Sigh'd o'er each strange and piteous tale, distress'd,
And sunk enamour'd on his sooty breast.
With thee, Anthoxa! lead ambrosial lives;
And scatter'd furze its golden lustre blends,
Closed in a green recess, unenvy'd lot!
The blue smoak rises from their turf-built cot;
Bosom'd in fragrance blush their infant train,
Eye the warm sun, or drink the silver rain.
The ivy canopy, and dripping cell;
Till the green progeny betrays her loves.
O'er the soft hearts of five fraternal swains;
If sighs the changeful nymph, alike they mourn;
And, if she smiles, with rival raptures burn.
Sounds in sweet symphony thy kindred wire;
Now, gently swept by Zephyr's vernal wings,
Sink in soft cadences the love-sick strings;
And now with mingling chords, and voices higher,
Peal the full anthems of the aërial choir.
With thee, fair Lychnis! vow,—but vow in vain;
Beneath one roof resides the virgin band,
Flies the fond swain, and scorns his offer'd hand;
But when soft hours on breezy pinions move,
And smiling May attunes her lute to love,
Shakes the bright dew-drops from her blushing face;
In gay undress displays her rival charms,
And calls her wondering lovers to her arms.
Wove the fresh rose-bud, and the lily fair,
Proud Gloriosa led three chosen swains,
The blushing captives of her virgin chains.—
Round her weak limbs, and silver'd o'er her head,
Three other youths her riper years engage,
The flatter'd victims of her wily age.
With fatal smiles her gay unconscious son.—
Clasp'd in his arms she own'd a mother's name,—
“Desist, rash youth! restrain your impious flame,
“First on that bed your infant form was press'd,
“Born by my throes, and nurtured at my breast.”
Back as from death he sprung, with wild amaze
Fierce on the fair he fix'd his ardent gaze;
And stole a guilty glance toward the bed;
Then breath'd from quivering lips a whisper'd vow,
And bent on heaven his pale repentant brow;
“Thus, thus!” he cried, and plung'd the furious dart,
And life and love gush'd mingled from his heart.
Skill'd in destruction, spread the viscous snare,
And, frowning, guard the magic nets unseen.
Haste, glittering nations, tenants of the air,
Oh, steer from hence your viewless course afar!
If with soft words, sweet blushes, nods, and smiles,
The three dread Syrens lure you to their toils,
Limed by their art, in vain you point your stings,
In vain the efforts of your whirring wings!—
Go, seek your gilded mates and infant hives,
Nor taste the honey purchas'd with your lives!
Fair Amaryllis flies the incumbent storm,
And turns her blushing beauties from the gale.—
Calm all her fears, and charm her cares to rest.—
So shines at eve the sun-illumin'd fane,
Lifts its bright cross, and waves its golden vane;
From every breeze the polish'd axle turns,
And high in air the dancing meteor burns.
Each grasps a thousand arrows in his hand;
Form the bright terrors of his bristly mail.—
And slew the wily dragon of the well.—
Sudden with rage their injur'd bosoms burn,
Retort the insult, or the wound return;
Unwrong'd, as gentle as the breeze that sweeps
The unbending harvests or undimpled deeps,
They guard, the Kings of Needwood's wide domains,
Their sister-wives and fair infantine trains;
Lead the lone pilgrim through the trackless glade,
Or guide in leafy wilds the wandering maid.
Hurls his red lavas to the troubled night;
Skies burst in flames, and blazing oceans dash;—
Or bids in sweet repose his shades recede,
Winds the still vale, and slopes the velvet mead;
On the pale stream expiring Zephyrs sink,
And Moonlight sleeps upon its hoary brink.
The grace and terror of Orixa's plains;
And nerves Herculean bend her sinewy limbs;
With frolic eye she views the affrighted throng,
And shakes the meadows as she towers along;
With playful violence displays her charms,
And bears her trembling lovers in her arms.
So fair Thalestris shook her plumy crest,
And bound in rigid mail her jutting breast;
Poised her long lance amid the walks of war,
And Beauty thunder'd from Bellona's car;
Greece arm'd in vain, her captive heroes wove
The chains of conquest with the wreaths of love.
Retiring Autumn flings her howling blasts,
Bends in tumultuous waves the struggling woods,
And showers their leafy honours on the floods,
In withering heaps collects the flowery spoil,
And each chill insect sinks beneath the soil;
And folds her infant closer in her arms;
In some lone cave, secure pavilion, lies,
And waits the courtship of serener skies.—
Indulgent Sleep! beneath thy eider breast,
In fields of Fancy climbs the kernel'd groves,
Or shares the golden harvest with his loves.—
Then bright from earth amid the troubled sky
Ascends fair Colchica with radiant eye,
And lights with Beauty's blaze the dusky sphere.
Three blushing Maids the intrepid Nymph attend,
And six gay Youths, enamour'd train! defend.
So shines with silver guards the Georgian star,
And drives on Night's blue arch his glittering car;
Hangs o'er the billowy clouds his lucid form,
Wades through the mist, and dances in the storm.
In gay solemnity his Dervise-trains;
Each gaudy band a plumed Lady leads;
With zealous step he climbs the upland lawn,
And bows in homage to the rising dawn;
Imbibes with eagle eye the golden ray,
And watches, as it moves, the orb of day.
Rush-fringed banks, and moss-embroider'd beds;
Her slender waist, and trail upon the ground;
Five sister-nymphs collect with graceful ease,
Or spread the floating purple to the breeze;
And five fair youths with duteous love comply
With each soft mandate of her moving eye.
As with sweet grace her snowy neck she bows,
A zone of diamonds trembles round her brows;
And, as she steps, the living lustre burns.
And decks with brighter blush the vermil dawn;
And scents with sweeter breath the summer-gales,
With artless grace and native ease she charms,
And bears the horn of plenty in her arms.
Five rival Swains their tender cares unfold,
And watch with eye askance the treasured gold.
Aspiring Draba builds her eagle nest;
Her pendant eyry icy caves surround,
Where erst Volcanoes mined the rocky ground.
Pleased round the Fair four rival Lords ascend
The shaggy steeps, two menial youths attend.
High in the setting ray the beauty stands,
And her tall shadow waves on distant lands.
Celestial Visca, from thy angel-flight!—
—Scorning the sordid soil, aloft she springs,
Shakes her white plume, and claps her golden wings;
High o'er the fields of boundless ether roves,
And seeks amid the clouds her soaring loves!
Queen of the coral groves, Zostera sleeps;
And distant surges murmuring o'er her head.—
High in the flood her azure dome ascends,
The crystal arch on crystal columns bends;
And far in ocean dart their colour'd rays;
O'er the white floor successive shadows move,
As rise and break the ruffled waves above.—
Around the nymph her mermaid-trains repair,
And weave with orient pearl her radiant hair;
With rapid fins she cleaves the watery way,
Shoots like a silver meteor up to day;
Sounds a loud conch, convokes a scaly band,
Her sea-born lovers, and ascends the strand.
And icy bosoms feel the secret fire!—
Cradled in snow and fann'd by arctic air
Shines, gentle Barometz! thy golden hair;
And round and round her flexile neck she bends;
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime.
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
Or seems to bleat, a Vegetable Lamb.
—So, warm and buoyant in his oily mail,
Gambols on seas of ice the unwieldy Whale;
Wide waving fins round floating islands urge
His bulk gigantic through the troubled surge;
With hideous yawn the flying shoals he seeks,
Or clasps with fringe of horn his massy cheeks;
Lifts o'er the tossing wave his nostrils bare,
And spouts pellucid columns into air;
The silvery arches catch the setting beams,
And transient rainbows tremble o'er the streams.
From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands;
Alarm'd she trembles at the moving shade;
The whisper'd murmurs of the gathering storm;
Shuts her sweet eye-lids to approaching night,
And hails with freshen'd charms the rising light.
Veil'd, with gay decency and modest pride,
Slow to the mosque she moves, an eastern bride;
There her soft vows unceasing love record,
Queen of the bright seraglio of her lord.—
So sinks or rises with the changeful hour
The liquid silver in its glassy tower.
So turns the needle to the pole it loves,
With fine librations quivering, as it moves.
The sad Anemone reclin'd her head;
And her sweet eye-lids dropp'd with pearly dew.
—“See, from bright regions, born on odorous gales
“The Swallow, herald of the summer, sails;
“Thy balmy influence to my anguish'd heart;
“Whose pencil paints them, and whose breath perfumes;
“Oh chase the Fiend of Frost, with leaden mace
“Who seals in death-like sleep my hapless race;
“Melt his hard heart, release his iron hand,
“And give my ivory petals to expand.
“So may each bud, that decks the brow of spring,
“Shed all its incense on thy wafting wing!”—
To her fond prayer propitious Zephyr yields,
Sweeps on his sliding shell through azure fields,
O'er her fair mansion waves his whispering wand,
And gives her ivory petals to expand!
Gives with new life her filial train to rise,
And hail with kindling smiles the genial skies.
So shines the Nymph in beauty's blushing pride,
When Zephyr wafts her deep calash aside,
Tears with rude kiss her bosom's gauzy veil,
And flings the fluttering kerchief to the gale.
Glides the gilt Landau o'er the velvet lawn,
Of beaux and belles displays the glittering throng,
And soft airs fan them, as they roll along.
O'er Conway, listening to the surge below;
Retiring Lichen climbs the topmost stone,
And drinks the aerial solitude alone.—
Bright shine the stars unnumber'd o'er her head,
And the cold moon-beam gilds her flinty bed;
While round the rifted rocks hoarse whirlwinds breathe,
And dark with thunder sail the clouds beneath.—
And tracks her light step o'er the imprinted dews;
Delighted Hymen gives his torch to blaze,
Winds round the craggs, and lights the mazy ways;
Sheds o'er their secret vows his influence chaste,
And decks with roses the admiring waste.
And o'er Britannia shakes his fiery hairs:
When no soft shower descends, no dew distills,
Her wave-worn channels dry, and mute her rills;
When droops the sickening herb, the blossom fades,
And parch'd earth gapes beneath the withering glades;
—With languid step fair Dypsaca retreats,
“Fall, gentle dews!” the fainting nymph repeats,
Invokes in vain the Naiads to her aid.—
Four sylvan youths in crystal goblets bear
The untasted treasure to the grateful fair;
Pleased from their hands with modest grace she sips,
And the cool wave reflects her coral lips.
Her vermil dyes, and o'er the cauldron bends;
As blushes in a mist the dewy rose.
With chemic art four favour'd youths aloof
Stain the white fleece, or stretch the tinted woof;
O'er Age's cheek the warmth of youth diffuse,
Or deck the pale-ey'd nymph in roseate hues.
So when Medea to exulting Greece
From plunder'd Colchis bore the golden fleece;
On the loud shore a magic pile she rais'd,
The cauldron bubbled, and the faggots blaz'd;
And feels new vigour stretch his swelling limbs;
Through his thrill'd nerves forgotten ardors dart,
And warmer eddies circle round his heart;
With softer fires his kindling eye-balls glow,
And darker tresses wanton round his brow.
Lifts to the skies her canopy of woods;
Pleased Epidendra climbs the waving pines,
And high in heaven the intrepid beauty shines,
Gives to the tropic breeze her radiant hair,
Drinks the bright shower, and feeds upon the air.
Her brood delighted stretch their callow wings,
As poised aloft their pendent cradle swings,
Eye the warm sun, the spicy zephyr breathe,
And gaze unenvious on the world beneath.
Her flush'd cheek press'd upon her lily hand,
Calls her lost lover, and upbraids the skies;
For him she breathes the silent sigh, forlorn,
Each setting day; for him each rising morn.—
“Bright orbs, that light yon high ethereal plain,
“Or bathe your radiant tresses in the main;
“Pale moon, that silver'st o'er night's sable brow;—
“For ye were witness to his parting vow!
“Ye shelving rocks, dark waves, and sounding shore,—
“Ye echoed sweet the tender words he swore!—
“O guide my wanderer to my arms again!”
And seeks her Lord amid the trackless tides;
And hovering Halcyons guard her infant-loves;
And dimpling Ocean bears the fleet along.—
Thus o'er the waves, which gently bend and swell,
Fair Galatea steers her silver shell;
Her playful Dolphins stretch the silken rein,
Hear her sweet voice, and glide along the main.
As round the wild meandring coast she moves
By gushing rills, rude cliffs, and nodding groves;
And wondering Naiads peep amid the rocks!
Pleased trains of Mermaids rise from coral cells;
Admiring Tritons sound their twisted shells;
Charm'd o'er the car pursuing Cupids sweep,
Their snow-white pinions twinkling in the deep;
And, as the lustre of her eye she turns,
Soft sighs the Gale, and amorous Ocean burns.
And view'd her playful image in the flood;
Sung the sweet sorrows of her secret love.
Cry'd the sad Naiads,—she return'd no more!—
Now girt with clouds the sullen Evening frown'd,
And withering Eurus swept along the ground;
The misty moon withdrew her horned light,
And sunk with Hesper in the skirt of night;
No dim electric streams, (the northern dawn)
With meek effulgence quiver'd o'er the lawn;
No star benignant shot one transient ray
To guide or light the wanderer on her way.
Round the dark crags the murmuring whirlwinds blow,
Woods groan above, and waters roar below;
As o'er the steeps with pausing foot she moves,
The pitying Dryads shriek amid their groves.
She flies—she stops—she pants—she looks behind,
And hears a demon howl in every wind.
—As the bleak blast unfurls her fluttering vest,
Cold beats the snow upon her shuddering breast;
Through her numb'd limbs the chill sensations dart,
And the keen ice-bolt trembles at her heart.
Her stiffening tongue the unfinish'd sound denies;
Tear after tear adown her cheek succeeds,
And pearls of ice bestrew the glittering meads;
Congealing snows her lingering feet surround,
Arrest her flight, and root her to the ground;
With suppliant arms she pours the silent prayer;
Her suppliant arms hang crystal in the air;
Pellucid films her shivering neck o'erspread,
Seal her mute lips, and silver o'er her head;
Veil her pale bosom, glaze her lifted hands,
And shrined in ice the beauteous statue stands.
—Dove's azure nymphs on each revolving year
For fair Tremella shed the tender tear;
With rush-wove crowns in sad procession move,
And sound the sorrowing shell to hapless love.”
Sail the dim clouds, the echoing thunders roll;
The trembling Wood-nymphs, as the tempest lowers,
Lead the gay goddess to their inmost bowers;
And round her temples bind the myrtle wreath.
—Now the light swallow with her airy brood
Skims the green meadow, and the dimpled flood;
Loud shrieks the lone thrush from his leafless thorn,
Th' alarmed beetle sounds his bugle horn;
Each pendant spider winds with fingers fine
His ravel'd clue, and climbs along the line;
Gay Gnomes in glittering circles stand aloof
Beneath a spreading mushroom's fretted roof;
Swift bees returning seek their waxen cells,
And Sylphs cling quivering in the lily's bells.
Through the still air descend the genial showers,
And pearly rain-drops deck the laughing flowers.
CANTO II.
And tunes to wilder notes the warbling wire;
With soft suspended step Attention moves,
And Silence hovers o'er the listening groves;
Orb within orb the charmed audience throng,
And the green vault reverberates the song.
“Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies.
“As Morn's fair hand her opening roses strews;
“How bright, when Iris blending many a ray,
“Binds in embroider'd wreath the brow of Day;
“O'er heav'n's blue arch unfurls her milky veil;
“While from the north long threads of silver light
“Dart on swift shuttles o'er the tissued night!
“Breathe soft, ye Zephyrs! hear my fervent sighs,
“Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies!”
—Plume over plume in long divergent lines
On whale-bone ribs the fair Mechanic joins;
Inlays with eider down the silken strings,
And weaves in wide expanse Dædalian wings;
Round her bold sons the waving pennons binds,
And walks with angel-step upon the winds.
Launch'd the vast concave of his buoyant ball.—
Journeying on high, the silken castle glides
Bright as a meteor through the azure tides;
Or mounts sublime, and gilds the vault of day.
Silent with upturn'd eyes unbreathing crowds
Pursue the floating wonder to the clouds;
And, flush'd with transport or benumb'd with fear,
Watch, as it rises, the diminish'd sphere.
—Now less and less—and now a speck is seen;—
And now the fleeting rack obtrudes between!
With bended knees, raised arms, and suppliant brows,
To every shrine they breathe their mingled vows.
“Save him, ye Saints! who o'er the good preside;
“Bear him, ye Winds! ye Stars benignant! guide.”
—The calm Philosopher in ether sails,
Views broader stars, and breathes in purer gales;
Sees, like a map, in many a waving line
Round Earth's blue plains her lucid waters shine;
And hears innocuous thunders roar below.
—Rise, great Mongolfier! urge thy venturous flight
High o'er the Moon's pale ice-reflected light;
High o'er the pearly Star, whose beamy horn
Hangs in the east, gay harbinger of morn;
Leave the red eye of Mars on rapid wing,
Jove's silver guards, and Saturn's crystal ring;
Leave the fair beams, which, issuing from afar,
Play with new lustres round the Georgian star;
Shun with strong oars the Sun's attractive throne,
The sparkling Zodiac, and the milky zone;
Where headlong Comets with increasing force
Thro' other systems bend their blazing course.—
For thee Cassiope her chair withdraws,
For thee the Bear retracts his shaggy paws;
And blaze eternal round the wondering pole.
So Argo, rising from the southern main,
Lights with new stars the blue ethereal plain;
With favouring beams the mariner protects,
And the bold course, which first it steer'd, directs.
The flying shuttle through the dancing strings;
Inlays the broider'd weft with flowery dyes,
Quick beat the reeds, the pedals fall and rise;
Slow from the beam the lengths of warp unwind,
And dance and nod the massy weights behind.—
Immortal Isis clothed the banks of Nile;
And fair Arachne with her rival loom
Found undeserved a melancholy doom.—
Five Sister-nymphs with dewy fingers twine
The beamy flax, and stretch the fibre-line;
Quick eddying threads from rapid spindles reel,
Or whirl with beating foot the dizzy wheel.
—Charm'd round the busy Fair five shepherds press,
Praise the nice texture of their snowy dress,
Admire the Artists, and the art approve,
And tell with honey'd words the tale of love.
Through vaulted mountains, and a night of woods,
The Nymph, Gossypia, treads the velvet sod,
And warms with rosy smiles the watery God;
And pours o'er massy wheels his foamy urns;
And wields his trident,—while the Monarch spins.
—First with nice eye emerging Naiads cull
From leathery pods the vegetable wool;
With wiry teeth revolving cards release
The tangled knots, and smooth the ravell'd fleece;
Next moves the iron hand with fingers fine,
Combs the wide card, and forms the eternal line;
Slow, with soft lips, the whirling Can acquires
The tender skeins, and wraps in rising spires;
With quicken'd pace successive rollers move,
And these retain, and those extend the rove;
And slowly circumvolves the labouring wheel below.
Spread her smooth leaf, and waved her silver style.
The trophy'd arch had crumbled into dust;
The sacred symbol, and the epic song,
(Unknown the character, forgot the tongue,)
With each unconquer'd chief, or sainted maid,
Sunk undistinguished in oblivion's shade.
Sad o'er the scatter'd ruins Genius sigh'd,
And infant Arts but learn'd to lisp and died.
Till to astonish'd realms Papyra taught
To paint in mystic colours Sound and Thought.
And mark in adamant the steps of Time,
—Three favour'd youths her soft attention share,
The fond disciples of the studious Fair,
Hear her sweet voice, the golden process prove;
Gaze, as they learn; and, as they listen, love.
The first from Alpha to Omega joins
The letter'd tribes along the level lines;
Weighs with nice ear the vowel, liquid, surd,
And breaks in syllables the volant word.
Then forms the next upon the marshal'd plain
In deepening ranks his dexterous cypher-train;
And counts, as wheel the decimating bands,
The dews of Ægypt, or Arabia's sands.
And then the third on four concordant lines
Prints the lone crotchet, and the quaver joins;
Marks the gay trill, the solemn pause inscribes,
And parts with bars the undulating tribes.
Clapp'd their rude hands, their swarthy foreheads bow'd;
With loud acclaim “a present God!” they cry'd,
“A present God!” rebellowing shores reply'd.—
Then peal'd at intervals with mingled swell
The echoing harp, shrill clarion, horn, and shell;
While Bards ecstatic, bending o'er the lyre,
Struck deeper chords, and wing'd the song with fire.
Then mark'd Astronomers with keener eyes
The Moon's refulgent journey through the skies:
Watch'd the swift Comets urge their blazing cars,
And weigh'd the Sun with his revolving Stars.
High raised the Chymists their Hermetic wands,
(And changing forms obey'd their waving hands,)
Her treasured Gold from Earth's deep chambers tore,
Or fused and harden'd her chalybeate ore.
Wove by her hands the wreath of deathless fame.
—Exulting Genius crown'd his darling child,
The young arts clasp'd her knees, and Virtue smiled.
Her paper foliage, and her silken flowers;
Vein the green leaf, the purple petal dye:
Round wiry stems the flaxen tendril bends,
Moss creeps below, and waxen fruit impends.
Cold Winter views amid his realms of snow
Delany's vegetable statues blow;
Smooths his stern brow, delays his hoary wing,
And eyes with wonder all the blooms of spring.
And bright Calendula with golden hair,
Marking her solar and sidereal day,
And trace with mimic art the march of Time;
Round his light foot a magic chain they fling,
And count the quick vibrations of his wing.—
First in its brazen cell reluctant roll'd
Bends the dark spring in many a steely fold.
On spiral brass is stretch'd the wiry thong
Tooth urges tooth, and wheel drives wheel along;
In diamond-eyes the polish'd axles flow,
Smooth slides the hand, the balance pants below.
Round the white circlet in relievo bold,
A Serpent twines his scaly length in gold;
And brightly pencil'd on the enamel'd sphere
Live the fair trophies of the passing year.
—Here Time's huge fingers grasp his giant mace,
And dash proud Superstition from her base;
The crumbling fragments round her guilty head.
There the gay Hours, whom wreaths of roses deck,
Lead their young trains amid the cumberous wreck,
And, slowly purpling o'er the mighty waste,
Plant the fair growths of Science and of Taste.
While each light Moment, as it dances by
With feathery foot and pleasure-twinkling eye,
Feeds from its baby-hand, with many a kiss,
The callow nestlings of domestic Bliss.
Change their thin forms, and lose their lucid dyes;
So the soft bloom of beauty's vernal charms
Fades in our eyes, and withers in our arms.
—Bright as the silvery plume, or pearly shell,
The snow-white rose, or lily's virgin bell,
The fair Helleboras attractive shone,
Warm'd every Sage, and every Shepherd won.—
And seek with soft solicitude their hands.
—Erewhile how chang'd!—in dim suffusion lies
The glance divine, that lighten'd in their eyes;
Cold are those lips, where smiles seductive hung,
And the weak accents linger on their tongue;
Each roseate feature fades to livid green—
—Disgust with face averted shuts the scene.
The mighty Monarch of Assyria hurl'd,
Changed by avenging Heaven in mind and form.
—Prone to the earth He bends his brow superb,
Crops the young floret and the bladed herb;
Lolls his red tongue, and from the reedy side
Of slow Euphrates laps the muddy tide.
Long eagle plumes his arching neck invest,
Steal round his arms, and clasp his sharpen'd breast;
Dark-brinded hairs, in bristling ranks, behind,
Rise o'er his back, and rustle in the wind;
Clothe his lank sides, his shrivel'd limbs surround,
And human hands with talons print the ground.
Silent in shining troops the Courtier-throng
Pursue their monarch, as he crawls along;
E'en Beauty pleads in vain with smiles and tears,
Nor Flattery's self can pierce his pendant ears.
Bend their light steps, the lucid water drink,
(As eight black Eunuchs guard the sacred plains),
With playful malice watch the scaly brood,
And shower the inebriate berries on the flood.—
Stay in your crystal chambers, silver tribes!
Turn your bright eyes, and shun the dangerous bribes;
The tramell'd net with less destruction sweeps
Your curling shallows, and your azure deeps;
With less deceit, the gilded fly beneath,
Lurks the fell hook unseen,—to taste is death!
—Dim your slow eyes, and dull your pearly coat,
Drunk on the waves your languid forms shall float,
On useless fins in giddy circles play,
And Herons and Otters seize you for their prey.—
In silent anguish sought the barren strand,
High on the shatter'd beech sublime He stood,
Still'd with his waving arm the babbling flood;
“To Man's dull ear,” He cry'd, “I call in vain,
“Hear me, ye scaly tenants of the main!”—
Mishapen Seals approach in circling flocks,
In dusky mail the Tortoise climbs the rocks,
Torpedoes, Sharks, Rays, Porpus, Dolphins, pour
Their twinkling squadrons round the glittering shore;
With tangled fins, behind, huge Phocæ glide,
And Whales and Grampi swell the distant tide.
Then kneel'd the hoary Seer, to Heav'n address'd
His fiery eyes, and smote his sounding breast;
“Bless ye the Lord,” with thundering voice he cry'd,
“Bless ye the Lord!” the bending shores reply'd;
The winds and waters caught the sacred word,
And mingling echoes shouted “Bless the Lord!”
The listening shoals the quick contagion feel,
Pant on the floods, inebriate with their zeal,
And dash with frantic fins their foamy beds.
Her meads of asphodel, and amaranth bowers,
Where Sleep and Silence guard the soft abodes,
In sullen apathy Papaver nods.
Faint o'er her couch in scintillating streams
Pass the thin forms of Fancy and of Dreams;
Fair youths and beauteous ladies glitter round;
On crystal pedestals they seem to sigh,
Bend the meek knee, and lift the imploring eye.
—And now the Sorceress bares her shrivel'd hand,
And circles thrice in air her ebon wand;
Flush'd with new life descending statues talk,
The pliant marble softening as they walk;
With deeper sobs reviving lovers breathe,
Fair bosoms rise, and soft hearts pant beneath;
With warmer lips relenting damsels speak,
And kindling blushes tinge the Parian cheek;
To viewless lutes aerial voices sing,
And hovering loves are heard on rustling wing.
—She waves her wand again!—fresh horrors seize
Their stiffening limbs, their vital currents freeze;
By each cold nymph her marble lover lies,
And iron slumbers seal their glassy eyes.
So with his dread Caduceus Hermes led
From the dark regions of the imprison'd dead,
To Night's dull shore, and Pluto's dreary reign.
The realms of Taste, and Fancy's fairy lands;
Calls up with magic voice the shapes, that sleep
In earth's dark bosom, or unfathom'd deep;
That shrined in air on viewless wings aspire,
Or blazing bathe in elemental fire.
As with nice touch her plastic hand she moves,
Rise the fine forms of Beauties, Graces, Loves;
Kneel to the fair Inchantress, smile or sigh,
And fade or flourish, as she turns her eye.
Call'd her light choir, and trod the dewy lawn;
As cradled yet in April's lap she lay.
I
“Born in yon blaze of orient sky,“Sweet May! thy radiant form unfold,
“And wave thy shadowy locks of gold.
II
“For Thee the fragrant zephyrs blow,“For Thee descends the sunny shower;
“The rills in softer murmurs flow,
“And brighter blossoms gem the bower.
III
“Light Graces dress'd in flowery wreaths,“And tiptoe Joys their hands combine;
“And Love his sweet contagion breathes,
“And laughing dances round thy shrine.
IV
“Warm with new life the glittering throngs“On quivering fin and rustling wing
“Delighted join their votive songs,
“And hail thee, Goddess of the Spring.”
In changeful rings, her sprightly troops She led;
And blew with glowing lip his sevenfold reed;
Emerging Naiads swell'd the jocund strain,
And aped with mimic step the dancing train.—
“I faint, I fall!”—at noon the Beauty cried,
“Weep o'er my tomb, ye Nymphs!”—and sunk and died.
—Thus, when white Winter o'er the shivering clime
Drives the still snow, or showers the silver rime;
As the lone shepherd o'er the dazzling rocks
Prints his steep step, and guides his vagrant flocks;
Views the green holly veil'd in net-work nice,
Her vermil clusters twinkling in the ice;
Admires the lucid vales, and slumbering floods,
Suspended cataracts, and crystal woods,
Transparent towns, with seas of milk between,
And eyes with transport the refulgent scene:
Or flits on tepid wing the western breeze,
In liquid dews descends the transient glare,
And all the glittering pageant melts in air.
And roots his base on burning sands below;
Cinchona, fairest of Peruvian maids,
To Health's bright Goddess in the breezy glades
On Quito's temperate plain an altar rear'd,
Trill'd the loud hymn, the solemn prayer preferr'd:
Each balmy bud she cull'd, and honey'd flower,
And hung with fragrant wreaths the sacred bower;
And piled their treasures on the gorgeous shrine;
Her suppliant voice for sickening Loxa raised,
Sweet breath'd the gale, and bright the censor blazed.
“—Divine Hygeia! on thy votaries bend
“Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!
“While streaming o'er the night with baleful glare
“The star of Autumn rays his misty hair;
“Fierce from his fens the Giant Ague springs,
“And wrapp'd in fogs descends on vampire wings;
“Before, with shuddering limbs cold Tremor reels,
“And Fever's burning nostril dogs his heels;
“Loud claps the grinning Fiend his iron hands,
“Stamps with black hoof, and shouts along the lands;
“Withers the damask cheek, unnerves the strong,
“And drives with scorpion-lash the shrieking throng.
“Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!”
—Hygeia, leaning from the blest abodes,
The crystal mansions of the immortal gods,
Saw the sad Nymph uplift her dewy eyes,
Spread her white arms, and breathe her fervid sighs;
Call'd to her fair associates, Youth and Joy,
And shot all radiant through the glittering sky;
Loose waved behind her golden train of hair,
Her sapphire mantle swam diffused in air.—
O'er the grey matted moss, and pansied sod,
With step sublime the glowing Goddess trod,
Gilt with her beamy eye the conscious shade,
And with her smile celestial bless'd the maid.
“Come to my arms, with seraph voice she cries,
“Thy vows are heard, benignant Nymph! arise;
“Where yon aspiring trunks fantastic wreath
“Their mingled roots, and drink the rill beneath,
“And strew the bitter foliage on the flood.”
In silent homage bow'd the blushing maid,—
Five youths athletic hasten to her aid,
O'er the scar'd hills re-echoing strokes resound,
And headlong forests thunder on the ground.
Round the dark roots, rent bark, and shatter'd boughs,
From ocherous beds the swelling fountain flows;
With streams austere its winding margin laves,
And pours from vale to vale its dusky waves.
—As the pale squadrons, bending o'er the brink,
View with a sigh their alter'd forms, and drink;
Slow-ebbing life with refluent crimson breaks
O'er their wan lips, and paints their haggard cheeks:
Through each fine nerve rekindling transports dart,
Light the quick eye, and swell the exulting heart.
—Thus Israel's heav'n-taught chief o'er trackless sands
Led to the sultry rock his murmuring bands.
And high in air the rod divine He raised.—
Wide yawns the cliff!—amid the thirsty throng
Rush the redundant waves, and shine along;
With gourds, and shells, and helmets, press the bands,
Ope their parch'd lips, and spread their eager hands,
Snatch their pale infants to the exuberant shower,
Kneel on the shatter'd rock, and bless the Almighty Power.
Pale Dropsy rears his bloated form, and pants;
“Quench me, ye cool pellucid rills!” he cries,
Wets his parch'd tongue, and rolls his hollow eyes.
So bends tormented Tantalus to drink,
While from his lips the refluent waters shrink;
Again the rising stream his bosom laves,
And Thirst consumes him 'mid circumfluent waves.
—Divine Hygeia, from the bending sky
Descending, listens to his piercing cry;
Her ruby cheek, white neck, and raven hair;
And like the Nymph the Goddess steps along.—
O'er him She waves her serpent-wreathed wand,
Cheers with her voice, and raises with her hand,
Warms with rekindling bloom his visage wan,
And charms the shapeless monster into man.
And wither'd Famine urged the work of death;
Marseilles' good Bishop, London's generous Mayor,
With food and faith, with medicine and with prayer,
Or with new life relumed the swimming eye.—
—And now, Philanthropy! thy rays divine
Dart round the globe from Zembla to the Line;
O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light,
Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night.—
From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd,
Where'er Mankind and Misery are found,
O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow,
Thy Howard journeying seeks the house of woe.
Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank;
To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone,
And cells, whose echoes only learn to groan;
Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose,
No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows,
He treads, inemulous of fame or wealth,
Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health,
With soft assuasive eloquence expands
Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands;
Leads stern-ey'd Justice to the dark domains,
If not to sever, to relax the chains;
Or guides awaken'd Mercy through the gloom,
And shews the prison, sister to the tomb!—
Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife,
To her fond husband liberty and life!—
—The Spirits of the Good, who bend from high
Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye,
When first, array'd in Virtue's purest robe,
They saw her Howard traversing the globe;
In arrowy circles of unwearied rays;
Mistook a Mortal for an Angel-Guest,
And ask'd what Seraph-foot the earth imprest.
—Onward he moves!—Disease and Death retire,
And murmuring Demons hate him, and admire.”
Obsequious Gnomes repose the lyre divine;
Descending Sylphs relax the trembling strings,
And catch the rain-drops on their shadowy wings.
—And now her vase a modest Naiad fills
With liquid crystal from her pebbly rills;
Piles the dry cedar round her silver urn,
(Bright climbs the blaze, the crackling faggots burn),
Culls the green herb of China's envy'd bowers,
In gaudy cups the steamy treasure pours;
And, sweetly smiling, on her bended knee
Presents the fragrant quintessence of Tea.
CANTO III.
And shakes with deeper tones the inchanted dell;
Pale, round her grassy throne, bedew'd with tears,
Flit the thin forms of Sorrows, and of Fears;
Soft Sighs responsive whisper to the chords,
And Indignations half-unsheath their swords.
And chaunts the numbers, which disturb the dead;
Waves her dread wand, and strikes the echoing tomb!
The tim'rous moon withholds her conscious light;
Shrill scream the famish'd bats, and shivering owls,
And loud and long the dog of midnight howls!—
—Then yawns the bursting ground!—two imps obscene
Rise on broad wings, and hail the baleful queen;
Each with dire grin salutes the potent wand,
And leads the Sorceress with his sooty hand;
Onward they glide, where sheds the sickly yew
O'er many a mouldering bone its nightly dew;
The ponderous portals of the church unbar,—
Hoarse on their hinge the ponderous portals jar;
As through the colour'd glass the moon-beam falls,
Huge shapeless spectres quiver on the walls;
And to each step the pealing ailes resound;
By glimmering lamps, protecting saints among,
The shrines all trembling as they pass along,
O'er the still choir with hideous laugh they move,
(Fiends yell below, and angels weep above!)
Their impious march to God's high altar bend,
With feet impure the sacred steps ascend;
With wine unbless'd the holy chalice stain,
Assume the mitre, and the cope profane:
To heaven their eyes in mock devotion throw,
And to the cross with horrid mummery bow;
Adjure by mimic rites the powers above,
And plight alternate their Satanic love.
With maniac step the Pythian Laura moves;
Foam on her lips, and fury in her eyes,
Strong writhe her limbs, her wild dishevell'd hair
Starts from her laurel-wreath, and swims in air.—
While twenty Priests the gorgeous shrine surround
Cinctur'd with ephods, and with garlands crown'd,
Contending hosts and trembling nations wait
The firm immutable behests of Fate;
With words unwill'd, and wisdom not her own.
Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog;
Seeks some love-wilder'd Maid with sleep oppress'd,
Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast.
—Such as of late amid the murky sky
Was mark'd by Fuseli's poetic eye;
Whose daring tints, with Shakespear's happiest grace,
Gave to the airy phantom form and place.—
Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head,
Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed;
While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath,
Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death.
—Then shrieks of captur'd towns, and widows tears,
Pale lovers stretch'd upon their blood-stain'd biers,
The trackless desert, the cold starless night,
And stern-eye'd Murderer with his knife behind,
In dread succession agonize her mind.
O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet,
Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet;
In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries,
And strains in palsy'd lids her tremulous eyes;
In vain she wills to run, fly, swim, walk, creep;
The Will presides not in the bower of Sleep.
Erect, and balances his bloated shape;
Rolls in their marble orbs his Gorgon-eyes,
And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries.
Descending Fica dives into the sands;
Nor heeds, ye Suitor-train, your amorous sighs;
Erewhile with renovated beauty blooms,
Mounts into air, and moves her leafy plumes.
—Where Hamps and Manifold, their cliffs among,
Each in his flinty channel winds along;
With lucid lines the dusky moor divides,
Hurrying to intermix their sister tides.
Where still their silver-bosom'd Nymphs abhor,
The blood-smear'd mansion of gigantic Thor,—
Of cloud-wrapp'd Wetton raised the massy dome;
Form the tall turrets, and the lengthen'd ailes;
Broad ponderous piers sustain the roof, and wide
Branch the vast rain-bow ribs from side to side.
While from above descends in milky streams
One scanty pencil of illusive beams,
Suspended crags and gaping gulfs illumes,
And gilds the horrors of the deepen'd glooms.
—Here oft the Naiads, as they chanced to stray
Near the dread Fane on Thor's returning day,
Saw from red altars streams of guiltless blood
Stain their green reed-beds, and pollute their flood;
Heard dying babes in wicker prisons wail,
And shrieks of matrons thrill the affrighted Gale;
While from dark caves infernal Echoes mock,
And Fiends triumphant shout from every rock!
—So still the Nymphs emerging lift in air
Their snow-white shoulders and their azure hair;
Sail with sweet grace the dimpling streams along,
Listening the Shepherd's or the Miner's song;
On timorous sins they circle on the wave,
With streaming eyes and throbbing hearts recoil,
Plunge their fair forms, and dive beneath the soil.—
Closed round their heads reluctant eddies sink,
And wider rings successive dash the brink.—
Three thousand steps in sparry clefts they stray,
Or seek through sullen mines their gloomy way;
On beds of Lava sleep in coral cells,
Or sigh o'er jasper fish, and agate shells.
Till, where famed Ilam leads his boiling floods
Through flowery meadows and impending woods,
Pleased with light spring they leave the dreary night,
And 'mid circumfluent surges rise to light;
Shake their bright locks, the widening vale pursue,
Their sea-green mantles, fringed with pearly dew;
In playful groups by towering Thorp they move,
Bound o'er the foaming wears, and rush into the Dove.
Swells her pale cheeks, and brandishes her hands,
And hurls her infants from her frantic arms.
—So when Medæa left her native soil,
Unaw'd by danger, unsubdued by toil;
Her weeping sire and beckoning friends withstood,
And launch'd enamour'd on the boiling flood;
One ruddy boy her gentle lips caress'd,
And one fair girl was pillowed on her breast;
While high in air the golden treasure burns,
And Love and Glory guide the prow by turns.
But, when Thessalia's inauspicious plain
Received the matron-heroine from the main;
While horns of triumph sound, and altars burn,
And shouting nations hail their Chief's return;
Aghast, She saw new-deck'd the nuptial bed,
And proud Creusa to the temple led;
Deride her virtues, and insult her charms;
Saw her dear babes from fame and empire torn,
In foreign realms deserted and forlorn;
Her love rejected, and her vengeance braved,
By Him her beauties won, her virtues saved.—
With stern regard she eyed the traitor-king,
And felt, Ingratitude! thy keenest sting;
“Nor Heaven,” she cried, “nor Earth, nor Hell can hold
“A Heart abandon'd to the thirst of Gold!”
Stamp'd with wild foot, and shook her horrent brow,
And call'd the furies from their dens below.
—Slow out of earth, before the festive crowds,
On wheels of fire, amid a night of clouds,
Drawn by fierce fiends arose a magic car,
Received the Queen, and hovering flam'd in air.—
As with raised hands the suppliant traitors kneel,
And fear the vengeance they deserve to feel,
And thrice she clasp'd them to her tortur'd breast;
Awhile with white uplifted eyes she stood,
Then plung'd her trembling poniards in their blood.
“Go, kiss your sire! go, share the bridal mirth!”
She cry'd, and hurl'd their quivering limbs on earth.
Rebellowing thunders rock the marble towers,
And red-tongued lightnings shoot their arrowy showers;
Earth yawns!—the crashing ruin sinks!—o'er all
Death with black hands extends his mighty Pall;
Their mingling gore the Fiends of Vengeance quaff,
And Hell receives them with convulsive laugh.
Or tropic breezes sooth the sultry shore;
O'er the dim flowers, and veils the misty meads;
Slow o'er the twilight sands or leafy walks,
With gloomy dignity Dictamna stalks;
Plays the light gas, or kindles into flame.
If rests the traveller his weary head,
Grim Mancinella haunts the mossy bed,
Pours the curst venom in his tortured ear.—
Wide o'er the mad'ning throng Urtica flings
Her barbed shafts, and darts her poison'd stings.
Loads the dank pinion of the gale with death.
Yet own with tender care their kindred Loves!—
Her shatter'd aqueducts, and prostrate fanes,
(As the bright orb of breezy midnight pours
Long threads of silver through her gaping towers,
O'er mouldering tombs, and tottering columns gleams,
And frosts her deserts with diffusive beams),
Lifts her wet eyes, her tremulous hands extends.—
If from lone cliffs a bursting rill expands
Its transient course, and sinks into the sands;
O'er the moist rock the fell Hyæna prowls,
The Leopard hisses, and the Panther growls;
On quivering wing the famish'd Vulture screams,
Dips his dry beak, and sweeps the gushing streams;
With foaming jaws, beneath, and sanguine tongue,
Laps the lean Wolf, and pants, and runs along;
Stern stalks the Lion, on the rustling brinks
Hears the dread Snake, and trembles as he drinks;
Quick darts the scaly Monster o'er the plain,
Fold, after fold, his undulating train;
And, bending o'er the lake his crested brow,
Starts at the Crocodile, that gapes below.
Round the green coasts of Java's palmy isle;
Rocks rise on rocks, and fountains gush between;
Soft zephyrs blow, eternal summers reign,
And showers prolific bless the soil,—in vain!
—No spicy nutmeg scents the vernal gales,
Nor towering plaintain shades the mid-day vales;
No grassy mantle hides the sable hills,
No flowery chaplet crowns the trickling rills;
Nor tufted moss, nor leathery lichen creeps
In russet tapestry o'er the crumbling steeps.
—No step retreating, on the sand impress'd,
Invites the visit of a second guest;
No refluent fin the unpeopled stream divides,
No revolant pinion cleaves the airy tides;
Nor handed moles, nor beaked worms return,
That mining pass the irremeable bourn.—
Fierce in dread silence on the blasted heath
Fell Upas sits, the Hydra-Tree of death.
A thousand vegetative serpents grow;
In shining rays the scaly monster spreads
O'er ten square leagues his far-diverging heads;
Or in one trunk entwists his tangled form,
Looks o'er the clouds, and hisses in the storm.
A thousand tongues in quick vibration dart;
Snatch the proud Eagle towering o'er the heath,
Or pounce the Lion, as he stalks beneath;
Or strew, as marshall'd hosts contend in vain,
With human skeletons the whiten'd plain.
—Chain'd at his root two scion-demons dwell,
Breathe the faint hiss, or try the shriller yell;
Rise, fluttering in the air on callow wings,
And aim at insect-prey their little stings.
So Time's strong arms with sweeping scythe erase
Art's cumberous works, and empires, from their base:
While each young Hour its sickle fine employs,
And crops the sweet buds of domestic joys!
And lulls her infant in her fondling arms;
And guards his life, forgetful of her own.
Pierced by some ambush'd archer of the night,
And drops of blood bedew the conscious lawn;
There hid in shades she shuns the cheerful day,
Hangs o'er her young, and weeps her life away.
O'er Minden's plain, spectatress of the fight,
Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strife
Her dearer self, the partner of her life;
From hill to hill the rushing host pursued,
And view'd his banner, or believed she view'd.
Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker tread
Fast by his hand one lisping boy she led;
And one fair girl amid the loud alarm
Slept on her kerchief, cradled by her arm;
While round her brows bright beams of Honour dart,
And Love's warm eddies circle round her heart.
—Near and more near the intrepid Beauty press'd,
Saw through the driving smoke his dancing crest;
Bright stars of gold, and mystic knots of love;
Heard the exulting shout, “They run! they run!”
“Great God!” she cried, “He's safe! the battle's won!”
—A ball now hisses through the airy tides,
(Some Fury wing'd it, and some Demon guides!)
Parts the fine locks, her graceful head that deck,
Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck;
The red stream, issuing from her azure veins,
Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains.—
—“Ah me;” she cried, and sinking on the ground,
Kiss'd her dear babes, regardless of the wound;
“Oh, cease not yet to beat, thou Vital Urn!
“Wait, gushing Life, oh, wait my Love's return!
“Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far!—
“The angel, Pity, shuns the walks of war!—
“On me, on me,” she cried, “exhaust your rage!”—
Then with weak arms her weeping babes caress'd,
And, sighing, hid them in her blood-stain'd vest.
Fear in his heart, and frenzy in his eyes;
Eliza's name along the camp he calls,
Eliza echoes through the canvas walls;
Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread,
O'er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead,
Vault o'er the plain, and in the tangled wood,
Lo! dead Eliza weltering in her blood!—
—Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds,
With open arms and sparkling eyes he bounds:—
“Speak low,” he cries, and gives his little hand,
“Eliza sleeps upon the dew-cold sand;
“And tried with pouting lips her milkless breast;
“Alas! we both with cold and hunger quake—
“Why do you weep?—Mamma will soon awake.”
—“She'll wake no more!” the hopeless mourner cried,
Upturn'd his eyes, and clasp'd his hands, and sigh'd:
Stretch'd on the ground awhile entranc'd he lay,
And press'd warm kisses on the lifeless clay;
And then upsprung with wild convulsive start,
And all the Father kindled in his heart;
“Oh, Heavens!” he cried, “my first rash vow forgive;
“These bind to earth, for these I pray to live!”—
Round his chill babes he wrapp'd his crimson vest,
And clasp'd them sobbing to his aching breast.
With labour'd negligence, and studied ease;
The eye averted, and the smile chastised,
And round their victim wind their wiry arms.
So by Scamander when Laocoon stood,
Where Troy's proud turrets glitter'd in the flood,
Raised high his arm, and with prophetic call
To shrinking realms announced her fated fall;
Whirl'd his fierce spear with more than mortal force,
And pierced the thick ribs of the echoing horse;
Lashing the white waves with redundant train,
Arch'd their blue necks, and shook their towering crests,
And plough'd their foamy way with speckled breasts;
Then, darting fierce amid the affrighted throngs,
Roll'd their red eyes, and shot their forked tongues.—
—Two daring youths to guard the hoary sire,
Thwart their dread progress, and provoke their ire.
Round sire and sons the scaly monsters roll'd,
Ring above ring, in many a tangled fold,
Close and more close their writhing limbs surround,
And fix with foamy teeth the envenom'd wound.
—With brow upturn'd to heaven the holy Sage
In silent agony sustains their rage;
While each fond Youth, in vain, with piercing cries
Bends on the tortured Sire his dying eyes.
The maudlin tear-drop glittering in her eyes;
Green leaves and purple clusters crown her head,
And the tall Thyrsus stays her tottering tread.
—Five hapless swains with soft assuasive smiles
The harlot meshes in her deathful toils;
“Drink deep,” she carols, as she waves in air
The mantling goblet, “and forget your care.”—
O'er the dread feast malignant Chemia scowls,
And mingles poison in the nectar'd bowls;
And bloated Dropsy pants behind unseen;
Wrapp'd in his robe white Lepra hides his stains,
And silent Frenzy writhing bites his chains.
Stole from his blazing throne ethereal fire,
Bore the bright treasure to his Man of clay;—
High on cold Caucasus by Vulcan bound,
The lean impatient Vulture fluttering round,
His writhing limbs in vain he twists and strains
To break or loose the adamantine chains.
The gluttonous bird, exulting in his pangs,
Tears his swoln liver with remorseless fangs.
Breathes o'er her lifeless babe the parting sigh;
Inhumes her dear Departed in the sands.
“Sweet Nursling! withering in thy tender hour,
“Oh, sleep,” she cries, “and rise a fairer flower!”
—So when the Plague o'er London's gasping crowds
Shook her dank wing, and steer'd her murky clouds;
When o'er the friendless bier no rites were read,
No dirge slow-chaunted, and no pall out-spread;
While Death and Night piled up the naked throng,
And Silence drove their ebon cars along;
Six lovely daughters, and their father, swept
To the throng'd grave Cleone saw, and wept;
Her tender mind, with meek Religion fraught,
Drank all-resign'd Affliction's bitter draught;
Alive and listening to the whisper'd groan
Of other's woes, unconscious of her own!—
Hush'd on her bosom, circled in her arms.—
Daughter of woe! ere morn, in vain caress'd,
Clung the cold babe upon thy milkless breast,
With feeble cries thy last sad aid required,
Stretch'd its stiff limbs, and on thy lap expired!—
—Long with wide eye-lids on her child she gazed,
And long to Heaven their tearless orbs she raised;
Then with quick foot and throbbing heart she found
Where Chartreuse open'd deep his holy ground;
And kneeling dropp'd it in the mighty tomb;
“I follow next!” the frantic mourner said,
And living plung'd amid the festering dead.
And feeds the trackless forests on his sides,
Fair Cassia trembling hears the howling woods,
And trusts her tawny children to the floods.—
And guard the beauty on her native land,
And bears to Norway's coasts her infant loves.
From bloody Memphis stole her silent flight;
Wrapp'd her dear babe beneath her folded vest,
And clasp'd the treasure to her throbbing breast,
With soothing whispers hush'd its feeble cry,
Press'd the soft kiss, and breath'd the secret sigh.—
—With dauntless step she seeks the winding shore,
Hears unappal'd the glimmering torrents roar;
And hides the smiling boy in Lotus-leaves;
Gives her white bosom to his eager lips,
The salt-tears mingling with the milk he sips;
Waits on the reed-crown'd brink with pious guile,
And trusts the scaly monsters of the Nile.—
—Erewhile majestic from his lone abode,
Embassador of Heaven, the Prophet trod;
Wrench'd the red scourge from proud Oppression's hands,
And broke, curst Slavery! thy iron bands.
Which shook the waves and rent the sky?—
Weeps pale Despair, and writhing Anguish roars:
E'en now in Afric's groves with hideous yell
Fierce Slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell;
From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound,
And sable nations tremble at the sound!
Britannia's realms, whom either Ind obeys;
Who right the injured, and reward the brave,
Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power to save!
Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort,
Inexorable Conscience holds his court;
With still small voice the plots of Guilt alarms,
Bares his mask'd brow, his lifted hand disarms;
But, wrapp'd in night with terrors all his own,
He speaks in thunder, when the deed is done.
Hear him, ye Senates! hear this truth sublime,
“He, who allows oppression, shares the crime.”
No gem, that twinkling hangs from Beauty's ears,
Not the bright stars, which Night's blue arch adorn,
Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn,
Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.”
Tumultuous woes her panting bosom swell,
O'er her flush'd cheek her gauzy veil she throws,
Folds her white arms, and bends her laurel'd brows;
For human guilt awhile the Goddess sighs,
And human sorrows dim celestial eyes.
CANTO IV.
Flames in the west, and paints the parted clouds;
O'er heaven's wide arch refracted lustres flow,
And bend in air the many-colour'd bow.—
—The tuneful Goddess on the glowing sky
Fix'd in mute ecstasy her glistening eye;
And then her lute to sweeter tones she strung,
And swell'd with softer chords the Paphian song;
Long ailes of Oaks return'd the silver sound,
And amorous Echoes talk'd along the ground;
Bow'd her tall groves, and shook her stately towers.
Nymph! not for thee the golden solstice burns,
Refulgent Cerea!—at the dusky hour
She seeks with pensive step the mountain-bower,
The dull cold eye of Midnight with her charms.
There to the skies she lifts her pencill'd brows,
Opes her fair lips, and breathes her virgin vows;
Eyes the white zenith; counts the suns that roll
Their distant fires, and blaze around the Pole;
O'er Heaven's blue vault,—Herself a brighter star.
—There as soft zephyrs sweep with pausing airs
Thy snowy neck, and part thy shadowy hairs,
Sweet Maid of Night! to Cynthia's sober beams
Glows thy warm cheek, thy polish'd bosom gleams.
In crowds around thee gaze the admiring swains,
And guard in silence the enchanted plains;
Drop the still tear, or breathe the impassion'd sigh,
And drink inebriate rapture from thine eye.
Thus when old Needwood's hoary scenes the Night
Paints with blue shadow, and with milky light;
Where Mundy pour'd, the listening nymphs among,
Loud to the echoing vales his parting song;
With measured step the Fairy Sovereign treads,
Shakes her high plume, and glitters o'er the meads;
And little footsteps mark the circled plain;
Each haunted rill with silver voices rings,
And Night's sweet bird in livelier accents sings.
Hangs o'er the blushing east his diamond eye,
The chaste Tropæo leaves her secret bed;
A saint-like glory trembles round her head:
With amorous steps pursue the virgin light;
O'er her fair form the electric lustre plays,
And cold she moves amid the lambent blaze.
So shines the glow-fly, when the sun retires,
And gems the night-air with phosphoric fires;
And charm the unwary wanderer from his way.
So when thy King, Assyria, fierce and proud,
Three human victims to his idol vow'd;
Rear'd a vast pyre before the golden shrine
Of sulphurous coal, and pitch-exsuding pine;—
—Loud roar the flames, the iron nostrils breathe,
And the huge bellows pant and heave beneath;
Bright and more bright the blazing deluge flows,
And white with seven-fold heat the furnace glows.
And now the Monarch fix'd with dread surprise
Deep in the burning vault his dazzled eyes.
“Lo! Three unbound amid the frightful glare,
“Unscorch'd their sandals, and unsing'd their hair!
“Descends, accosts them, and outshines the light!
“Fierce flames innocuous, as they step, retire!
“And slow they move amid a world of fire!”
He spoke,—to Heaven his arms repentant spread,
And kneeling bow'd his gem-incircled head.
Their fleecy squadrons on the lawns of Tweed;
And wake his Echoes with their silver tongue;
Or touch the reed, as gentle Love inspires,
In notes accordant to their chaste desires.
I
“Sweet Echo! sleeps thy vocal shell,“Where this high arch o'erhangs the dell;
“While Tweed with sun-reflecting streams
“Chequers thy rocks with dancing beams?—
II
“Here may no clamours harsh intrude,“No brawling hound or clarion rude;
“And teach thy tortured cliffs to howl!
III
“Be thine to pour these vales along“Some artless Shepherd's evening song;
“While Night's sweet bird, from yon high spray
“Responsive, listens to his lay.
IV
“And if, like me, some love-lorn Maid“Should sing her sorrows to thy shade,
“Oh, sooth her breast, ye rocks around!
“With softest sympathy of sound.”
The Swans pursuing cleave the glassy deep,
On hovering wings the wondering Reed-larks play,
And silent Bitterns listen to the lay.—
Three shepherd-swains beneath the beechen shades
Twine rival garlands for the tuneful maids;
Or on white sands inscribe the favour'd name.
Green swells the beech, the widening knots improve,
So spread the tender growths of living love;
Wave follows wave, the letter'd lines decay,
So Love's soft forms uncultured melt away.
In proud succession all her Patriot-Kings;
O'er desert-sands, deep gulfs, and hills sublime,
Extends her massy wall from clime to clime;
With bells and dragons crests her Pagod-bowers,
Her silken palaces, and porcelain towers;
With long canals a thousand nations laves;
Plants all her wilds, and peoples all her waves;
Slow treads fair Cannabis the breezy strand,
The distaff streams dishevell'd in her hand;
And leads in Paphian curves its azure lines;
Dark waves the fringed lid, the warm cheek glows,
And the Fair ear the parting locks disclose;
Now to the right with airy sweep she bends,
Quick join the threads, the dancing spole depends.
—Five Swains attracted guard the Nymph, by turns
Her grace inchants them, and her beauty burns;
Hears his soft vows, and turns her spole the while.
Stern Clotho weaves the chequer'd thread of life;
Hour after hour the growing line extends,
The cradle and the coffin bound its ends;
Soft cords of silk the whirling spoles reveal,
If smiling Fortune turn the giddy wheel;
But if sweet Love with baby-fingers twines,
And wets with dewy lips the lengthening lines,
Skein after skein celestial tints unfold,
And all the silken tissue shines with gold.
And prints with frolic step the melting snows:
Six rival swains the playful beauty leads,
Chides with her dulcet voice the tardy Spring,
Bids slumbering Zephyr stretch his folded wing,
And calls the wondering Dormouse from his grave,
Bids the mute Redbreast cheer the budding grove,
And plaintive Ringdove tune her notes to love.
Delighted Bellis calls her infant throng.
Each on his reed astride, the Cherub-train
Watch her kind looks, and circle o'er the plain;
Now with young wonder touch the sliding snail,
Admire his eye-tipp'd horns, and painted mail;
Chase with quick step, and eager arms outspread,
The pausing Butterfly from mead to mead;
The azure harebel, and the primrose pale,
Join hand in hand, and in procession gay
Adorn with votive wreaths the shrine of May.
—So moves the Goddess to the Idalian groves,
And leads her gold-hair'd family of Loves.
These, from the flaming furnace, strong and bold
Pour the red steel in many a sandy mould;
On tinkling anvils (with Vulcanian art),
Turn with hot tongs, and forge the dreadful dart;
And dip the point in poison for the mind;
Each polish'd shaft with snow-white plumage wing,
Or strain the bow reluctant to its string.
Those on light pinion twine with busy hands,
Or stretch from bough to bough the flowery bands;
Scare the dark beetle, as he wheels on high,
Or catch in silken nets the gilded fly;
Call the young Zephyrs to their fragrant bowers,
And stay with kisses sweet the Vernal Hours.
And with misshapen turrets crests the Peak,
Old Matlock gapes with marble jaws, beneath,
And o'er scar'd Derwent bends his flinty teeth;
Deep in wide caves below the dangerous soil
Blue sulphurs flame, imprison'd waters boil.
Through rifted rocks, impatient for the skies;
As heave and toss the billowy fires below;
Condensed on high, in wandering rills they glide
From Masson's dome, and burst his sparry side;
Round his grey towers, and down his fringed walls,
From cliff to cliff, the liquid treasure falls;
In beds of stalactite, bright ores among,
O'er corals, shells, and crystals, winds along;
Crusts the green mosses, and the tangled wood,
And sparkling plunges to its parent flood.
—O'er the warm wave a smiling youth presides,
Attunes its murmurs, its meanders guides,
(The blooming Fucus) in her sparry coves
To amorous Echo sings his secret loves,
And with sweet breath perfumes the rising steam.
—So, erst, an Angel o'er Bethesda's springs,
Each morn descending, shook his dewy wings;
Salubrious powers enrich the troubled waves.
Emerging Trapa lifts her pearly head;
A panoply of scales deforms the rest;
But spreads her silver arms upon the tides;
Slow as she sails, her ivory neck she laves,
And shakes her golden tresses o'er the waves.
Charm'd round the Nymph, in circling gambols glide
Four Nereid-forms, or shoot along the tide;
Now all as one they rise with frolic spring,
And beat the wondering air on humid wing;
Now all descending plunge beneath the main,
And lash the foam with undulating train;
Above, below, they wheel, retreat, advance,
In air and ocean weave the mazy dance;
Bow their quick heads, and point their diamond eyes,
And twinkle to the sun with ever-changing dyes.
Sheds a long line of light on Plata's streams;
Opes all his springs, unlocks his golden caves,
And feeds and freights the immeasurable waves;
Calls her light car, and leaves the sultry bowers;—
Bloom'd on her cheek, and brighten'd in her eye;
Chaste, pure, and white, a zone of silver graced
Her tender breast, as white, as pure, as chaste;—
By four fond swains in playful circles drawn,
On glowing wheels she tracks the moon-bright lawn,
Mounts the rude cliff, unveils her blushing charms,
And calls the panting zephyrs to her arms.
Emerged from ocean springs the vaporous air,
Bathes her light limbs, uncurls her amber hair,
Incrusts her beamy form with films saline,
And Beauty blazes through the crystal shrine.—
Her rimy foliage and her candied stems.
So from his glassy horns, and pearly eyes,
The diamond-beetle darts a thousand dyes;
Mounts with enamel'd wings the vesper gale,
And wheeling shines in adamantine mail.
And heaving earthquakes shook his realms accurst,
An Angel-guest led forth the trembling Fair
With shadowy hand, and warn'd the guiltless pair;
“Haste from these lands of sin, ye Righteous! fly,
“Speed the quick step, nor turn the lingering eye!”—
—Such the command, as fabling Bards recite,
When Orpheus charm'd the grisly King of Night;
Sooth'd the pale phantoms with his plaintive lay,
And led the fair Assurgent into day.—
Wide yawn'd the earth, the fiery tempest flash'd,
And towns and towers in one vast ruin crash'd;—
And shrieks of Anguish bellow in the wind.
With many a sob, amid a thousand fears,
The beauteous wanderer pours her gushing tears;
Each soft connection rends her troubled breast,
—She turns, unconscious of the stern behest!—
“I faint!—I fall!—ah, me!—sensations chill
“Shoot through my bones, my shuddering bosom thrill!
“I freeze! I freeze! just Heaven regards my fault,
“Numbs my cold limbs, and hardens into salt!—
“Not yet, not yet, your dying love resign!
“This last, last kiss receive!—no longer thine!”—
She said, and ceased,—her stiffen'd form He press'd,
And strain'd the briny column to his breast;
Printed with quivering lips the lifeless snow,
And wept, and gazed the monument of woe.
So when Æneas through the flames of Troy
Bore his pale sire, and led his lovely boy;
With loitering step the fair Creusa stay'd,
And death involved her in eternal shade.—
Marks the wide ruins, and the sulphur'd lakes;
On mouldering piles amid asphaltic mud
Hears the hoarse bittern, where Gomorrah stood;
Recals the unhappy Pair with lifted eye,
Leans on the crystal tomb, and breathes the silent sigh.
And scarlet robe lapell'd upon her breast,
Stern Ara frowns, the measured march assumes,
Trails her long lance, and nods her shadowy plumes;
And Beauty lightens through the thin disguise.
So erst, when Hercules, untamed by toil,
Own'd the soft power of Dejanira's smile;—
And gives the distaff to his awkward hands;
O'er her white neck the bristly mane she throws,
And binds the gaping whiskers on her brows;
Plaits round her slender waist the shaggy vest,
And clasps the velvet paws across her breast.
Next with soft hands the knotted club she rears,
Heaves up from earth, and on her shoulder bears.
Onward with loftier step the Beauty treads,
And trails the brinded ermine o'er the meads;
Wolves, bears, and pards, forsake the affrighted groves,
And grinning Satyrs tremble, as she moves.
And gazing burns with unallow'd desires;
And wins the damsel to illicit loves.
Mask'd in the damask beauties of the bride.
So, when the Nightingale in eastern bowers
On quivering pinion woos the Queen of flowers;
Inhales her fragrance, as he hangs in air,
And melts with melody the blushing fair;
Half-rose, half-bird, a beauteous Monster springs,
Waves his thin leaves, and claps his glossy wings;
Long horrent thorns his mossy legs surround,
And tendril-talons root him to the ground;
Green films of rind his wrinkled neck o'erspread,
And crimson petals crest his curled head;
Soft warbling beaks in each bright blossom move,
And vocal Rosebuds thrill the enchanted grove!—
And still Night listens from his ebon car;
While on white wings descending Houries throng,
And drink the floods of odour and of song.
O'er Afric's sable sons the sultry hours;
When not a gale flits o'er her tawny hills,
Save where the dry Harmattan breathes and kills;
And writh'd in foamy folds her serpents die;
And Gambia trembles for his sinking floods;
Contagion stalks along the briny sand,
And Ocean rolls his sick'ning shoals to land.
—Fair Chunda smiles amid the burning waste,
Her brow unturban'd, and her zone unbrac'd;
Or fan with busy hands the panting maid;
Loose wave her locks, disclosing, as they break,
The rising bosom and averted cheek;
Clasp'd round her ivory neck with studs of gold
Flows her thin vest in many a gauzy fold;
O'er her light limbs the dim transparence plays,
And the fair form, it seems to hide, betrays.
The gushing waters to his sultry meads;
By moon-crown'd mosques with gay reflections glides,
And vast pagodas trembling on his sides;
With sweet loquacity Nelumbo sails,
Shouts to his shores, and parleys with his gales;
Invokes his echoes, as she moves along,
And thrills his ripling surges with her song.
—As round the Nymph her listening lovers play,
And guard the Beauty on her watery way;
And pausing buffaloes forget to graze;
Admiring elephants forsake their woods,
Stretch their wide ears, and wade into the floods;
In silent herds the wondering sea-calves lave,
Or nod their slimy foreheads o'er the wave;
Poised on still wing attentive vultures sweep,
And winking crocodiles are lull'd to sleep.
High o'er the snow-clad earth, and icy main,
With milky light the white horizon streams,
And to the moon each sparkling mountain gleams.
Slow o'er the printed snows with silent walk
Huge shaggy forms across the twilight stalk;
And ever and anon with hideous sound
Burst the thick ribs of ice, and thunder round.—
And lingering leaves his empire to the Spring,
Pierced with quick shafts of silver-shooting light
Fly in dark troops the dazzled imps of night.—
“Awake, my Love!” enamour'd Muschus cries,
“Stretch thy fair limbs, refulgent Maid arise;
“And hail with ruby lips returning day.
“Down the white hills dissolving torrents pour,
“Green springs the turf, and purple blows the flower;
“His torpid wing the Rail exulting tries,
“Mounts the soft gale, and wantons in the skies;
“Rise, let us mark how bloom the awaken'd groves,
“And 'mid the banks of roses hide our loves.”
Impatient Æga views the bright expanse;
Wave after wave rolls freightless to the shore.
—Now dim amid the distant foam she spies
A rising speck,—“'tis he! 'tis he!” she cries;
As with firm arms he beats the streams aside,
And cleaves with rising chest the tossing tide,
With bended knee she prints the humid sands,
Up-turns her glistening eyes, and spreads her hands;
—“'Tis he, 'tis he!—my Lord, my life, my love!
“Slumber, ye winds; ye billows, cease to move!
“Beneath his arms your buoyant plumage spread,
“Ye Swans! ye Halcyons! hover round his head!”
—With eager step the boiling surf she braves,
And meets her refluent lover in the waves;
And the clear stream betrays her snowy limbs.
At parting day, and mark'd the dashing flood;
While high in air, the glimmering rocks above,
Shone the bright lamp, the pilot-star of Love.
—With robe outspread the wavering flame behind
She kneels, and guards it from the shifting wind;
Breathes to her Goddess all her vows, and guides
Her bold Leander o'er the dusky tides;
Wrings his wet hair, his briny bosom warms,
And clasps her panting lover in her arms.
Daughter of Earth, the chaste Truffelia smiles;
Meets her Gnome-husband, and avows her love.
—High o'er her couch impending diamonds blaze,
And branching gold the crystal roof inlays;
With verdant light the modest emeralds glow,
Blue sapphires glare, and rubies blush, below;
Light piers of lazuli the dome surround,
And pictured mochoes tesselate the ground:
In glittering threads along reflective walls
The warm rill murmuring twinkles, as it falls;
Now sink the Eolian strings, and now they swell,
And Echoes woo in every vaulted cell;
While on white wings delighted Cupids play,
Shake their bright lamps, and shed celestial day.
Bosom'd in down, fair Capri-fica dwells;—
In the dark chambers of the cavern'd nut,
And quits on filmy wings its narrow cell.
So the pleased Linnet in the moss-wove nest,
Waked into life beneath its parent's breast,
Chirps in the gaping shell, bursts forth erelong,
Shakes its new plumes, and tries its tender song,—
Her husband-Sylph,—and calls him to her arms.—
Quick, the light Gnat her airy Lord bestrides,
With cobweb reins the flying courser guides,
From crystal steeps of viewless ether springs,
Cleaves the soft air on still expanded wings;
Darts like a sunbeam o'er the boundless wave,
And seeks the beauty in her secret cave.
So with quick impulse through all nature's frame
Shoots the electric air its subtle flame.
So turns the impatient needle to the pole,
Tho' mountains rise between, and oceans roll.
Scooping with ceaseless rage the incumbent shore,
Wide o'er the deep a dusky cavern bends
Its marble arms, and high in air impends;
And steep their massy sandals in the main;
Round the dim walls, and through the whispering ailes
Hoarse breathes the wind, the glittering water boils.
Here the charm'd Byssus with his blooming bride
Spreads his green sails, and braves the foaming tide;
The star of Venus gilds the twilight wave,
And lights her votaries to the secret cave;
And each coy Sea-maid hides her blushing head.
Slopes the green dell to meet the briny floods,
The sparkling noon-beams trembling on the tide,
The Proteus-lover woos his playful bride,
Basks on the sands, or gambols in the storms.
A Dolphin now, his scaly sides he laves,
And bears the sportive Damsel on the waves;
She strikes the cymbal as he moves along,
And wondering Ocean listens to the song.
—And now a spotted Pard the lover stalks,
Plays round her steps, and guards her favour'd walks;
As with white teeth he prints her hand, caress'd,
And lays his velvet paw upon her breast,
O'er his round face her snowy fingers strain
The silken knots, and fit the ribbon-rein.
—And now a Swan, he spreads his plumy sails,
And proudly glides before the fanning gales;
Pleas'd on the flowery brink with graceful hand
She waves her floating lover to the land;
Bright shines his sinuous neck, with crimson beak
He prints fond kisses on her glowing cheek,
And clasps the beauty to his downy breast.
And fond Adonis leads the sprightly trains;
Pair after pair, along his sacred groves
To Hymen's fane the bright procession moves;
And wreaths of roses veil the blushing maids;
Light Joys on twinkling feet attend the throng,
Weave the gay dance, or raise the frolic song;
—Thick, as they pass, exulting Cupids fling
Promiscuous arrows from the sounding string;
On wings of gossamer soft Whispers fly,
And the sly Glance steals side-long from the eye.
—As round his shrine the gawdy circles bow,
And seal with muttering lips the faithless vow,
Licentious Hymen joins their mingled hands,
And loosely twines the meretricious bands.—
Thus where pleased Venus, in the southern main,
Sheds all her smiles on Otaheite's plain,
Wide o'er the isle her silken net she draws,
And the Loves laugh at all but Nature's laws.”
Applauding Zephyrs swept their fluttering wings;
To air-wove canopies and pillowy clouds;
Each Gnome reluctant sought his earthy cell,
And each chill Floret clos'd her velvet bell.
Then, on soft tiptoe, Night approaching near
Hung o'er the tuneless lyre his sable ear;
Gem'd with bright stars the still ethereal plain,
And bade his Nightingales repeat the strain.
The botanic garden, a poem | ||