And breathes deftructive myriads; or from woods,
Impenetrable fhades, receffes foul,
In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,
Whofe gloomy horrors yet no defperate foot
Has ever dar'd to pierce; then, wasteful, forth
Walks the dire Power of peftilent disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,
Sick Nature blafting, and to heartless woe,
And feeble defolation, cafting down
The towering hopes and all the pride of Man.
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd
The BRITISH fire. You, gallant Vernon, faw
The miferable scene; you, pitying, faw
To infant-weakness funk the warrior's arm;
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form,
The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye
No more with ardour bright: you heard the groans
Of agonizing fhips, from fhore to shore;
Heard, nightly plung'd amid the fullen waves,
The frequent corfe; while on each other fix'd,
In fad prefage, the blank affistants feem'd,
Silent, to afk, whom Fate would next demand.
What need I mention those inclement fkies, Where, frequent o'er the fickening city, Plague, The fierceft child of NEMESIS divine,
Defcends? From Ethiopia's poifoned woods,
From ftifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields
With locuft-armies putrefying * heap'd,
This great destroyer fprung. Her awful rage
The brutes efcape: Man is her deftin'd prey,
Intemperate Man! and, o'er his guilty domes,
She draws a clofe incumbent cloud of death;
Uninterrupted by the living winds,
Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze; and ftain'd
With many a mixture by the fun, fuffus'd,
Of angry afpect. Princely wifdom, then,
Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand
Of feeble justice, ineffectual, drop
The fword and balance: mute the voice of joy,
And hufh'd the clamour of the bufy world.
Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad;
Into the worst of deserts fudden turn'd
The cheerful haunt of Men: unless escap'd
From the doom'd house, where matchlefs horror reigns,
Shut up by barbarous fear, the fmitten wretch,
With frenzy wild, breaks loose; and, loud to heaven
Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns,
* These are the causes fupposed to be the first origin of the Plague, in Dr. MEAD's elegant book on that subject.
Inhuman, and unwife. The fullen door,
Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge
Fearing to turn, abhors society:
Dependants, friends, relations, Love himself,
Savag'd by woe, forget the tender tie,
The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.
But vain their selfish care: the circling sky,
The wide enlivening air is full of fate;
And, ftruck by turns, in folitary pangs
They fall, unbleft, untended, and unmourn'd.
Thus o'er the proftrate city black Despair
Extends her raven wing; while, to complete
The scene of defolation, ftretch'd around,
The grim guards ftand, denying all retreat,
And give the flying wretch a better death.
Much yet remains unfung: the rage intenfe
Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields,
Where drought and famine starve the blasted year:
Fir'd by the torch of noon to tenfold rage,
The infuriate hill that shoots the pillar'd flame;
And, rous'd within the fubterranean world,
Th' expanding earthquake, that refiftlefs fhakes
Afpiring cities from their folid base,
And buries mountains in the flaming gulph.
But 'tis enough; return, my vagrant Muse:
A nearer scene of horror calls thee home.
Behold, flow-fettling o'er the lurid grove
Unusual darkness broods; and growing gains
The full poffeffion of the sky, furcharg'd
With wrathful vapour, from the fecret beds,
Where fleep the mineral generations, drawn.
Thence Nitre, Sulphur, and the fiery spume
Of fat Bitumen, fteaming on the day,
With various-tinctur'd trains of latent flame,
Pollute the sky, and in yon baleful cloud,
A reddening gloom, a magazine of fate,
Ferment; till, by the touch ethereal rous'd,
The dash of clouds, or irritating war
Of fighting winds, while all is calm below,
They furious fpring. A boding filence reigns,
Dread thro' the dun expanse; fave the dull found
That from the mountain, previous to the ftorm,
Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood,
And shakes the foreft-leaf without a breath.
Prone, to the lowest vale, the aërial tribes
Defcend: the tempeft-loving raven scarce
Dares wing the dubious dufk. In rueful gaze
The cattle ftand, and on the fcowling heavens
Caft a deploring eye; by Man forfook,
Who to the crowded cottage hies him fast,
Or feeks the fhelter of the downward cave.
'Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all:
When to the ftartled eye the fudden glance
Appears far fouth, eruptive thro' the cloud;
And following flower, in explosion vast,
The Thunder raises his tremendous voice.
At first, heard folemn o'er the verge of heaven,
The tempeft growls; but as it nearer comes,
And rolls its awful burden on the wind,
The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more
The noise aftounds: till over head a sheet
Of livid flame difclofes wide; then fhuts,
And opens wider; fhuts and opens ftill
Expanfive, wrapping ether in a blaze.
Follows the loofen'd aggravated roar,
Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal
Crush'd horrible, convulfing heaven and earth.
Down comes a deluge of fonorous hail,
Or prone-defcending rain. Wide-rent, the clouds
Pour a whole flood; and yet, its flame unquench'd,
Th' unconquerable lightning struggles through,
Ragged and fierce, or in red whirling balls,
And fires the mountains with redoubled rage.
Black from the stroke, above, the fmouldering pine
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