University of Virginia Library

Nine times the age of man that coral reef
Had bleach'd beneath the torrid noon, and borne
The thunder of a thousand hurricanes,
Raised by the jealous ocean to repel
That strange encroachment on his old domain.
His rage was impotent; his wrath fulfill'd
The counsels of eternal Providence,
And 'stablish'd what he strove to overturn:
For every tempest threw fresh wrecks upon it;
Sand from the shoals, exuviæ from the deep,
Fragments of shells, dead sloughs, sea-monsters' bones,
Whales stranded in the shallows, hideous weeds
Hurl'd out of darkness by the uprooting surges;
These, with unutterable relics more,
Heap'd the rough surface, till the various mass,
By Nature's chemistry combined and purged,
Had buried the bare rock in crumbling mould,
Not unproductive, but from time to time
Impregnated with seeds of plants, and rife
With embryo animals, or torpid forms
Of reptiles, shrouded in the clefts of trees
From distant lands, with branches, foliage, fruit,
Pluck'd up and wafted hither by the flood.
Death's spoils, and life's hid treasures, thus enrich'd
And colonised the soil; no particle
Of meanest substance but in course was turn'd
To solid use or noble ornament.
All seasons were propitious; every wind,
From the hot Siroc to the wet Monsoon,
Temper'd the crude materials; while heaven's dew
Fell on the sterile wilderness as sweetly
As though it were a garden of the Lord:
Nor fell in vain; each drop had its commission,
And did its duty, known to Him who sent it.

Such time had pass'd, such changes had transfigured
The aspect of that solitary isle,
When I again, in spirit as before,
Assumed mute watch above it. Slender blades
Of grass were shooting through the dark brown earth,
Like rays of light, transparent in the sun,
Or after showers with liquid gems illumined;
Fountains through filtering sluices sallied forth,
And led fertility where'er they turn'd;
Green herbage graced their banks, resplendent flowers
Unlock'd their treasures, and let flow their fragrance.
Then insect legions, prank'd with gaudiest hues,
Pearl, gold, and purple, swarm'd into existence;
Minute and marvellous creations these!
Infinite multitudes on every leaf,
In every drop, by me discern'd at pleasure,
Were yet too fine for unenlighten'd eye,
—Like stars, whose beams have never reach'd our world,
Though science meets them midway in the heaven
With prying optics, weighs them in her scale,
Measures their orbs, and calculates their courses:—
Some barely visible, some proudly shone,
Like living jewels; some grotesque, uncouth,
And hideous,—giants of a race of pigmies;
These burrow'd in the ground, and fed on garbage,
Those lived deliciously on honey-dews,
And dwelt in palaces of blossom'd bells;
Millions on millions, wing'd, and plumed in front,
And arm'd with stings for vengeance or assault,
Fill'd the dim atmosphere with hum and hurry;
Children of light, and air, and fire they seem'd,
Their lives all ecstasy and quick cross motion.
Thus throve this embryo universe, where all
That was to be was unbegun, or now
Beginning; every day, hour, instant, brought
Its novelty, though how or whence I knew not;
Less than omniscience could not comprehend
The causes of effects that seem'd spontaneous,
And sprang in infinite succession, link'd
With kindred issues infinite as they,
For which Almighty skill had laid the train
Even in the elements of chaos,—whence
The unravelling clue not for a moment lost
Hold of the silent hand that drew it out.
Thus He who makes and peoples worlds still works
In secrecy, behind a veil of light;
Yet, through that hiding of his power, such glimpses
Of glory break as strike presumption blind,
But humble and exalt the humbled soul,
Whose faith the things invisible discerns,
And God informing, guiding, ruling all:—
He speaks, 'tis done; commands, and it stands fast.
He calls an island from the deep,—it comes;
Ordains it culture,—soil and seed are there;
Appoints inhabitants,—from climes unknown,
By undiscoverable paths, they flock
Thither; like passage-birds to us in spring;
They were not yesterday,—and, lo! to-day
They are,—but what keen eye beheld them coming?

Here was the infancy of life, the age
Of gold in that green isle, itself new-born,
And all upon it in the prime of being,
Love, hope, and promise; 'twas in miniature
A world unsoil'd by sin; a Paradise
Where Death had not yet enter'd; Bliss had newly
Alighted, and shut close his rainbow wings,
To rest at ease, nor dread intruding ill.
Plants of superior growth now sprang apace,
With moon-like blossoms crown'd, or starry glories;
Light flexile shrubs among the greenwood play'd
Fantastic freaks,—they crept, they climb'd, they budded,
And hung their flowers and berries in the sun;
As the breeze taught, they danced, they sung, they twined
Their sprays in bowers, or spread the ground with network.
Through the slow lapse of undivided time,
Silently rising from their buried germs,
Trees lifted to the skies their stately heads,
Tufted with verdure, like depending plumage,
O'er stems unknotted, waving to the wind:
Of these, in graceful form and simple beauty,
The fruitful cocoa and the fragrant palm
Excell'd the wilding daughters of the wood,
That stretch'd unwieldy their enormous arms,
Clad with luxuriant foliage, from the trunk,
Like the old eagle, feather'd to the heel;
While every fibre, from the lowest root
To the last leaf upon the topmost twig,
Was held by common sympathy, diffusing
Through all the complex frame unconscious life.
Such was the locust with his hydra boughs,
A hundred heads on one stupendous trunk;
And such the mangrove, which, at full-moon flood,
Appear'd itself a wood upon the waters,—
But when the tide left bare its upright roots,
A wood on piles suspended in the air;
Such too the Indian fig, that built itself
Into a sylvan temple arch'd aloof
With airy aisles and living colonnades,
Where nations might have worshipp'd God in peace.
From year to year their fruits ungather'd fell;
Not lost, but, quickening where they lay, they struck
Root downward, and brake forth on every hand,
Till the strong saplings, rank and file, stood up,
A mighty army, which o'erran the isle,
And changed the wilderness into a forest.

All this appear'd accomplish'd in the space
Between the morning and the evening star:
So, in his third day's work, Jehovah spake,
And Earth, an infant, naked as she came
Out of the womb of chaos, straight put on
Her beautiful attire, and deck'd her robe
Of verdure with ten thousand glorious flowers,
Exhaling incense; crown'd her mountain-heads
With cedars, train'd her vines around their girdles,
And pour'd spontaneous harvests at their feet.

Nor were those woods without inhabitants
Besides the ephemera of earth and air:
—Where glid the sunbeams through the latticed boughs,
And fell like dew-drops on the spangled ground,
To light the diamond-beetle on his way;
—Where cheerful openings let the sky look down
Into the very heart of solitude,
On little garden-plots of social flowers,
That crowded from the shades to peep at daylight;
—Or where impermeable foliage made
Midnight at noon, and chill damp horror reign'd
O'er dead fall'n leaves and slimy funguses;
—Reptiles were quicken'd into various birth.
Loathsome, unsightly, swoln to obscene bulk,
Lurk'd the dark toad beneath the infected turf;
The slow-worm crawl'd, the light chameleon climb'd,
And changed his colour as his place he changed;
The nimble lizard ran from bough to bough,
Glancing through light, in shadow disappearing;
The scorpion, many-eyed, with sting of fire,
Bred there,—the legion-fiend of creeping things:
Terribly beautiful, the serpent lay,
Wreath'd like a coronet of gold and jewels,
Fit for a tyrant's brow; anon he flew
Straight as an arrow shot from his own rings,
And struck his victim, shrieking ere it went
Down his strain'd throat, that open sepulchre.

Amphibious monsters haunted the lagoon:
The hippopotamus, amidst the flood,
Flexile and active as the smallest swimmer;
But on the bank, ill-balanced and infirm,
He grazed the herbage, with huge head declined,
Or lean'd to rest against some ancient tree:
The crocodile, the dragon of the waters,
In iron panoply, fell as the plague,
And merciless as famine, cranch'd his prey,
While from his jaws, with dreadful fangs all serried,
The life-blood dyed the waves with deadly streams:
The seal and the sea-lion, from the gulf,
Came forth, and, couching with their little ones,
Slept on the shelving rocks that girt the shore,
Securing prompt retreat from sudden danger:
The pregnant turtle, stealing out at eve,
With anxious eye, and trembling heart, explored
The loneliest coves, and in the loose warm sand
Deposited her eggs, which the sun hatch'd;—
Hence the young brood, that never knew a parent,
Unburrow'd and by instinct sought the sea;
Nature herself, with her own gentle hand,
Dropping them one by one into the flood,
And laughing to behold their antic joy
When launch'd in their maternal element.

The vision of that brooding world went on:
Millions of beings, yet more admirable
Than all that went before them, now appear'd,
Flocking from every point of heaven, and filling
Eye, ear, and mind with objects, sounds, emotions
Akin to livelier sympathy and love
Than reptiles, fishes, insects, could inspire:
—Birds, the free tenants of land, air, and ocean,
Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace;
In plumage, delicate and beautiful,
Thick without burden, close as fishes' scales,
Or loose as full-blown poppies to the breeze;
With wings that might have had a soul within them,
They bore their owners by such sweet enchantment;
—Birds, small and great, of endless shapes and colours,
Here flew and perch'd, there swam and dived at pleasure;
Watchful and agile, uttering voices wild
And harsh, yet in accordance with the waves
Upon the beach, the winds in caverns moaning,
Or winds and waves abroad upon the water.
Some sought their food among the finny shoals,
Swift darting from the clouds, emerging soon
With slender captives glittering in their beaks;
These in recesses of steep crags constructed
Their eyries inaccessible, and train'd
Their hardy broods to forage in all weathers:
Others, more gorgeously apparell'd, dwelt
Among the woods, on Nature's dainties feeding,
Herbs, seeds, and roots; or, ever on the wing,
Pursuing insects through the boundless air:
In hollow trees or thickets these conceal'd
Their exquisitely woven nests; where lay
Their callow offspring, quiet as the down
On their own breasts, till from her search the dam
With laden bill return'd, and shared the meal
Among her clamorous suppliants, all agape;
Then, cowering o'er them with expanded wings,
She felt how sweet it is to be a mother.
Of these, a few, with melody untaught,
Turn'd all the air to music within hearing,
Themselves unseen; while bolder quiristers
On loftiest branches strain'd their clarion-pipes,
And made the forest echo to their screams
Discordant,—yet there was no discord there,
But temper'd harmony; all tones combining,
In the rich confluence of ten thousand tongues,
To tell of joy and to inspire it. Who
Could hear such concert, and not join in chorus?
Not I:—sometimes entranced, I seem'd to float
Upon a buoyant sea of sounds; again
With curious ear I tried to disentangle
The maze of voices, and with eye as nice
To single out each minstrel, and pursue
His little song through all its labyrinth,
Till my soul enter'd into him, and felt
Every vibration of his thrilling throat,
Pulse of his heart, and flutter of his pinions.
Often, as one among the multitude,
I sang from very fulness of delight;
Now like a winged fisher of the sea,
Now a recluse among the woods,—enjoying
The bliss of all at once, or each in turn.

In storm and calm, through every change of season,
Long flourish'd thus that era of our isle.
It could not last for ever: mark the end.

A cloud arose amid the tranquil heaven,
Like a man's hand, but held a hurricane
Within its grasp. Compress'd into a point,
The tempest struggled to break loose. No breath
Was stirring, yet the billows roll'd aloof,
And the air moan'd portentously; ere long
The sky was hidden, darkness to be felt
Confounded all things; land and water vanish'd,
And there was silence through the universe,—
Silence, that made my soul as desolate
As the blind solitude around. Methought
That I had pass'd the bitterness of death
Without the agony,—had, unaware,
Enter'd the unseen world, and, in the gap
Between the life that is and that to come,
Awaited judgment. Fear and trembling seized
All that was mortal or immortal in me:
A moment, and the gates of Paradise
Might open to receive, or Hell be moved
To meet me. Strength and spirit fail'd;
Eternity enclosed me, and I knew not,
Knew not, even then, my destiny. To doubt
Was to despair;—I doubted and despair'd.
Then horrible delirium whirl'd me down
To ocean's nethermost recess; the waves,
Disparting freely, let me fall, and fall,
Lower and lower, passive as a stone,
Yet rack'd with miserable pangs, that gave
The sense of vain but violent resistance:
And still the depths grew deeper; still the ground
Receded from my feet as I approach'd it.
O how I long'd to light on rocks, that sunk
Like quicksands ere I touch'd them; or to hide
In caverns ever open to ingulf me,
But, like the horizon's limit, never nearer!

Meanwhile, the irrepressible tornado
Burst and involved the elements in chaos;
Wind, rain, and lightning, in one vast explosion,
Rush'd from the firmament upon the deep:
Heaven's adamantine arch seem'd rent asunder,
And following in a cataract of ruins
My swift descent through bottomless abysses,
Where ocean's bed had been absorb'd in nothing.
I know no farther. When again I saw
The sun, the sea, the island, all was calm,
And all was desolation: not a tree,
Of thousands flourishing erewhile so fair,
But now was split, uprooted, snapt in twain,
Or hurl'd with all its honours to the dust.
Heaps upon heaps, the forest giants lay,
Even like the slain in battle, fall'n to rise
No more, till heaven, and earth, and sea, with all
Therein, shall perish, as to me they seem'd
To perish in that ruthless hurricane.