continent and the deserts of Tartary- From | thence southward: a general prospect of the globe, followed by another of the midland part of Europe, suppose Italy. A city there upon the point of being swallowed up by an earthquake: signs that usher it in: described in its causes and effects at length-Eruption of a burning mountain, happening at the same time and from the same causes, likewise described.
From off the mountain's brow, roll blue away
In curling spires; and open all his woods,
High waving in the sky: th' uncolour'd stream,
Beneath her glowing ray, translucent shines.
Glad Nature feels her through her boundless realms
Of life and sense and calls forth all her sweets,
Fragrance and song. From each unfolding flower
Transpires the balm of life, that Zephyr wafts,
Delicious, on his rosy wing: each bird,
Or high in air, or secret in the shade,
Rejoicing, warbles wild his mattin hymn.
Contains, on the same plan, a survey of the solar While beasts of chase, by secret instinct mov'd, system, and of the fixed stars.
THE EXCURSION1.
CANTO 1.
COMPANION of the Muse, creative power,
Imagination! at whose great command
Arise unnumber'd images of things,
Thy hourly offspring: thou, who can'st at will
People with air-born shapes the silent wood,
And solitary vale, thy own domain,
Where Contemplation haunts; oh come, invok'd,
To waft me on thy many-tinctur'd wing,
O'er Earth's extended space: and thence, on high,
Spread to superior worlds thy bolder flight,
Excursive, unconfin'd. Hence from the haunts
Of vice and folly, vanity and man—
To yon expanse of plains, where Truth delights, Simple of heart; and, hand in hand with her, Where blameless Virtue walks. Now parting Spring, Parent of beauty and of song, has left
His mantle, flower-embroider'd, on the ground.
While Summer laughing comes, and bids the months
Crown his prime season with their choicest stores;
Fresh roses opening to the solar ray,
And fruits slow-swelling on the loaded bough.
Here let me frequent roam, preventing morn,
Attentive to the cock, whose early throat,
Heard from the distant village in the vale,
Crows cheerly out, far-sounding through the gloom.
Night hears from where, wide-hovering in mid-sky,
She rules the sable hour: and calls her train
Of visionary fears; the shrouded ghost,
The dream distressful, and th' incumbent hag,
That rise to Fancy's eye in horrid forms,
While Reason slumbering lies. At once they fly,
As shadows pass, nor is their path beheld.
And now, pale-glimmering on the verge of HeaFrom east to north in doubtful twilight seen, A whitening lustre shoots its tender beam; While shade and silence yet involve the ball. Now sacred Morn, ascending, smiles serene A dewy radiance, brightening o'er the world. Gay daughter of the air, for ever young, For ever pleasing! lo, she onward comes, In fluid gold and azure loose array'd, San-tinctur'd, changeful hues. At her approach, The western grey of yonder breaking clouds Slow-reddens into flame: the rising mists,
This poem is among the author's earliest performances. Whether the writing may, in some degree, atone for the irregularity of the composition, which be confesses, and does not even attempt to excuse, is submitted entirely to the candour of the reader.
Scud o'er the lawns, and, plunging into night,
In brake, or cavern, slumber out the day.
Invited by the cheerful Morn abroad,
See, from his humble roof, the good man comes
To taste her freshness, and improve her rise
In holy musing. Rapture in his eye,
And kneeling wonder speak his silent soul,
With gratitude o'erflowing, and with praise!
Now Industry is up. The village pours
Her useful sons abroad to various toil:
The labourer here, with every instrument
Of future plenty arm'd; and there the swain,
A rural king amid his subject-flocks,
Whose bleatings wake the vocal hills afar.
The traveller, too, pursues his early road,
Among the dews of morn. Aurora calls:
And all the living landscape moves around.
But see, the flush'd horizon flames intense
With vivid red, in rich profusion stream'd
O'er Heaven's pure arch. At once the clouds assume
Their gayest liveries; these with silvery beams
Fring'd lovely, splendid those in liquid gold:
And speak their sovereign's state. He comes, behold!
Fountain of light and colour, warmth and life!
The king of glory! round his head divine,
Diffusive showers of radiance circling flow,
As o'er the Indian wave uprising fair
He looks abroad on Nature, and invests,
Where'er his universal eye surveys,
Her ample bosom, earth, air, sea, and sky,
In one bright robe, with heavenly tinctures gay.
From this hoar hill, that climbs above the plain, Half-way up Heaven ambitious, brown with woods Of broadest shade, and terrass'd round with walks, Winding and wild, that deep embowering rise, Maze above maze, through all its shelter'd height; From hence, th' aërial concave without cloud, Translucent, and in purest azure drest;
The boundless scene beneath, hill, dale, and plain;
The precipice abrupt; the distant deep,
Whose shores remurmur to the sounding surge;
The nearest forest in wide circuit spread,
Solemn recess, whose solitary walks,
Fair Truth and Wisdom love; the bordering lawn,
With flocks and herds enrich'd; the daisy'd vale;
The river's crystal, and the meadows green-
Grateful diversity! allure the eye
Abroad, to rove amid ten thousand charms.
These scenes, where every Virtue, every Muse
Delighted range, serene the soul, and lift,
Borne on Devotion's wing, beyond the pole,
To highest Heaven her thought; to Nature's God,
First source of all things lovely, all things good,
Eternal, infinite! before whose throne
Sits sovereign Bounty, and through Heaven and
Earth
Careless diffuses plenitude of bliss.
Him all things own: he speaks, and it is day.
Obedient to his nod, alternate night
Obscures the world. The seasons at his call
Succeed in train, and lead the year around.
While reason thus and rapture fill the heart;
Friends of mankind, good angels, hovering near,
Their holy influence, deep-infusing, lend;
And in still whispers, soft as Zephyr's breath
When scarce the green leaf trembles, through her
Inspire new vigour, purer light supply,
And kindle every virtue into flame.
Celestial intercourse! superior bliss,
Which vice ne'er knew! health of th' enliven'd soul,
And Heaven on Earth begun! Thus ever fix'd
In solitude, may I, obscurely safe,
Deceive mankind, and steal through life along,
As slides the foot of Time, unmark'd, unknown!
Exalted to his noon the fervent Sun,
Full-blazing o'er the blue immense, burns out
With fierce effulgence. Now th' embowering maze
Of vale sequester'd, or the fir-crown'd side
Of airy mountain, whence with lucid lapse
Falls many a dew-fed stream, invites the step
Of musing poet, and secures repose
To weary pilgrim. In the flood of day,
Oppressive brightness deluging the world,
Sick Nature pants: and from the cleaving earth
Light vapours, undulating through the air,
Contagious fly, engendering dire disease,
Red plague, and fever; or, in fogs aloft
Condensing, show a ruffling tempest nigh.
And see, exhaling from th' Atlantic surge,
Wild world of waters, distant clouds ascend
In vapoury confluence, decpening cloud on cloud:
Then rolling dusk along to east and north,
As the blast bears them on his humid wing,
Draw total night and tempest o'er the noon!
Lo, bird and beast, impress'd by Nature's hand
In homeward warnings through each feeling nerve,
Haste from the hour of terrour and of storm.
The Thunder now, from forth his cloudy shrine,
Amid conflicting elements, where Dread
And Death attend, the servants of his nod,
First, in deaf murmurs, sounds the deep alarm,
Heard from afar, awakening awful thought.
Dumb sadness fills this nether world: the gloom
With double blackness lours; the tempest swells,
And expectation shakes the heart of man.
Where yonder clouds in dusky depth extend Broad o'er the south; fermenting in their womb, Pregnant with fate, the fiery tempest swells, Sulphureous steam and nitrous, late exhal'd From mine or unctuous soil: and lo, at once, Forth darted in slant stream, the ruddy flash, Quick-glancing, spreads a moment's horrid day. Again it flames expansive; sheets the sky, Wide and more wide, with mournful light around, On all sides burning; now the face of things Disclosing; swallowed now in tenfold night. Again the Thunder's voice, with pealing roar, From cloud to cloud continuous roll'd along, Amazing bursts! air, sea, and shore resound. Horrour sits shuddering in the felon-breast, And feels the deathful flash before it flies: Each sleeping sin, excited, starts to view; And all is storm within. The murderer, pale With conscious guilt, though hid in deepest shade, Hears and flies wild, pursued by all his fears: And sees the bleeding shadow of the slain Rise hideous, glaring on him through the gloom!
Hark! through th' aërial vault, the storm inflam'd Comes nearer, hoarsely loud, abrupt and fierce, Peal hurl'd on peal incessant, burst on burst: Torn from its base, as if the general frame Were tumbling into chaos-There it fell, With whirlwind-wing, in red diffusion flash'd. Destruction marks its path. Yon riven oak Is hid in smouldering fires: surpris'd beneath, The traveller ill-omen'd prostrate falls, A livid corse. Yon cottage flames to Heaven: And in its furthest cell, to which the hour, All-horrible, had sped their steps, behold! The parent breathless lies; her orphan-babes Shuddering and speechless round-O Power divine! Whose will, unerring, points the bolt of fate! Thy hand, though terrible, shall man decide If punishment, or mercy, dealt the blow?
Appeas'd at last, the tumult of the skies Subsides, the thunder's falling roar is hush'd: At once the clouds fly scattering, and the Sun Breaks out with boundless splendour o'er the world. Parent of light and joy! to all things he New life restores, and from each drooping field Draws the redundant rain, in climbing mists Fast-rising to his ray; till every flower Lift up its head, and Nature smiles reviv'd. At first 'tis awful silence over all, From sense of late-felt danger; till confirm'd, In grateful chorus mixing, beast and bird Rejoice aloud to Heaven: on either hand, The woodlands warble, and the valleys low. So pass the songful hours: and now the Sun, Declin'd, hangs verging on the western Main, Whose fluctuating bosom, blushing red The space of many seas beneath his eye, Heaves in soft swellings murmuring to the shore, A circling glory glows around his disk Of milder beams: part, streaming o'er the sky, Inflame the distant azure: part below In level lines shoot through the waving wood, Clad half in light, and half in pleasing shade, That lengthens o'er the lawn. Yon evening clouds, Lucid or dusk, with flamy purple edg'd, Float in gay pomp the blue horizon round, Amusive, changeful, shifting into shapes Of visionary beauty, antique towers With shadowy domes and pinnacles adorn'd; Or hills of white extent, that rise and sink As sportful Fancy lists: till late, the Sun From human eye, behind Earth's shading orb Total withdrawn, th' aërial landscape fades.
Distinction fails: and in the darkening west,
The last light, quivering, dimly dies away.
And now th' illusive flame, oft seen at eve,
Up-borne and blazing on the light-wing'd gale,
Glides o'er the lawn, betokening Night's approach:
Arising awful o'er the eastern sky,
Onward she comes with silent step and slow,
In her brown mantle wrapt, and brings along
The still, the mild, the melancholy hour,
And Meditation, with his eye on Heaven.
Musing, in sober mood, of Time and Life,
That fly with unreturning wing away
To that dark world, untravell'd and unknown,
Eternity! through desert ways I walk;
Or to the cypress-grove, at twilight shun'd
By passing swains. The chill breeze murmurs low,
And the boughs rustle round me where I stand,
With fancy all-arous'd.-Far on the left,
Shoots up a shapeless rock of dusky height,
The raven's haunt: and down its woody steep
A dashing flood in headlong torrent hurls
His sounding waters; white on every cliff
Their shores contiguous, lies the polar sea, One glittering waste of ice, and on the morn Casts cold a cheerless light. Lo, hills of snow,
Hangs the light foam, and sparkles through the Hill behind hill, and Alp on Alp, ascend,
Behind me rises huge a reverend pile Sole on his blasted heath, a place of tombs, Waste, desolate, where Ruin dreary dwells. Brooding o'er sightless sculls, and crumbling bones, Ghastful he sits, and eyes with stedfast glare. (Sad trophies of his power, where ivy twines Its fatal green around) the falling roof, The time-shook arch, the column grey with moss, The leaning wall, the sculptur'd stone defae'd, Whole monumental flattery, mix'd with dust, Now hides the name it vainly meant to raise. All is dread silence here, and undisturb'd, Save what the wind sighs, and the wailing owl Screams solitary to the mournful Moon, Glimmering her western ray through yonder isle, Where the sad spirit walks with shadowy foot His wonted round, or lingers o'er his grave.
Hail, midnight-shades! hail, venerable dome! By age more venerable; sacred shore, Beyond Time's troubled sea, where never wave, Where never wind of passion, or of guilt, Of suffering or of sorrow, shall invade The calm sound night of those who rest below. The weary are at peace: the small and great, Life's voyage ended, meet and mingle here. Here sleeps the prisoner safe, nor feels his chain, Nor hears th' oppressor's voice. The poor and old, With all the sons of mourning, fearless now Of want or woe, find unalarm'd repose. Proud greatness, too, the tyranny of power, The grace of beauty, and the force of youth, And name and place, are here--for ever lost! But, at near distance, on the mouldering wall Behold a monument, with emblem grac'd, And fair inscription: where with head declin'd, And folded arms, the Virtues weeping round Lean o'er a beauteous youth who dies below. Thyrsis-'tis he! the wisest and the best! Lamented shade! whom every gift of Heaven Profusely blest: all learning was his own. Pleasing his speech, by Nature taught to flow, Persuasive sense and strong, sincere and clear. His manners greatly plain; a noble grace, Self-taught, beyond the reach of mimic Art, Adorn'd him: his calm temper winning mild; Nor Pity softer, nor was Truth more bright. Constant in doing well, he neither sought Nor shunn'd applause. No bashful merit sigh'd Near him neglected: sympathizing he Wip'd off the tear from Sorrow's clouded eye With kindly hand, and taught her heart to smile. 'Tis morning: and the Sun, his welcome light, Swift, from beyond dark Ocean's orient stream, Casts through the air, renewing Nature's face With heaven-born beauty. O'er her ample breast, O'er sea and shore, light Fancy speeds along, Quick as the darted beam, from pole to pole, Excursive traveller. Now beneath the north, Alone with Winter in his inmost realm, Region of horrours! Here, amid the roar Of winds and waves, the drifted turbulence Of hail-mix'd snows, resides th' ungenial power, For ever silent, shivering, and forlorn! From Zembla's cliffs on to the straits surmis'd Of Anian eastward, where both worlds oppose
Pil'd up from eldest age, and to the Sun
Impenetrable; rising from afar
In misty prospect dim, as if on air
Each floating hill, an azure range of clouds.
Yet here, ev'n here, in this disastrous clime,
Horrid and harbourless, where all life dies,
Adventurous mortals, urg'd by thirst of gain,
Through floating isles of ice and fighting storms,
Roam the wild waves, in search of doubtful shores,
By west or east; a path yet unexplor'd.
Hence eastward to the Tartar's cruel coast,
By utmost ocean wash'd, on whose last wave
The blue Sky leans her breast, diffus'd immense
In solitary length the Desert lies,
Where Desolation keeps his empty court.
No bloom of spring, o'er all the thirsty vast,
Nor spiry grass is found; but sands instead
In steril hills, and rough rocks rising grey.
A land of fears! where visionary forms, Of griesly spectres from air, flood, and fire, Swarm: and before them speechless Horrour stalks! Here, night by night, beneath the starless dusk, The secret hag and sorcerer unblest Their sabbath hold, and potent spells compose, Spoils of the violated grave: and now, Late, at the hour that severs night from morn, When sleep has silenc'd every thought of man, They to their revels fall, infernal throng: And as they mix in circling dance, or turn To the four winds of Heaven with haggard gaze; Shot streaming from the bosom of the north, Opening the hollow gloom, red meteors blaze, To lend them light, and distant thunders roll, Heard in low murmurs through the lowering sky.
From these sad scenes, the waste abodes of Death, With devious wing, to fairer climes remote Southward I stray; where Caucasus in view, Bulwark of nations, in broad eminence Upheaves from realm to realm a hundred hills, On from the Caspian to the Euxine stretch'd, Pale-glittering with eternal snows to Heaven. From this chill steep, which midnight's highest shades [woods, Scarce climb to darken, rough with murmuring Imagination travels with quick eye Unbounded o'er the globe, and wondering views Her rolling seas and intermingled isles; Her mighty continents out-stretch'd immense, Where Europe, Asia, Afric, of old fame, Their regions numberless extend: and where To furthest point of west, Columbus late, Through untry'd oceans borne to shores unknown, Moor'd his first keel adventurous, and beheld A new, a fair, a fertile world arise! But nearer scenes of happy rural view, Green dale, and level down, and bloomy hill, The Muse's walk, on which the Sun's bright eye Propitious looks, invite her willing step. Here see, around me smiling, myrtle groves, And mountains crown'd with aromatic woods Of vegetable gold, with vales amidst, Lavish of flowers and fragrance; where soft Spring, Lord of the year, indulges to each field The fanning breeze, live spring, and sheltering grove. In these blest plains, a spacious city spreads Its round extent magnificent, and seems
The seat of empire. Dazzling in the sky,
With far-seen blaze her towery structures shine,
Elaborate works of art! each opening gate
Sends forth its thousands: Peace and Plenty round
Environ her. In each frequented school
Learning exalts his head: and Commerce pours
Into her arms a thousand foreign realms.
How fair and fortunate! how worthy all
Of lasting bliss secure! Yet all must fail,
Of this fair city, down her buildings sink!
Sinks the full pride her ample walls enclos'd,
In one wild havoc crash'd, with burst beyond
Heaven's loudest thunder! Uproar unconceiv'd!
Image of Nature's general frame destroy'd!
How greatly terrible, how dark and deep
The purposes of Heaven! At once o'erthrown,
White age and youth, the guilty and the just,
O, seemingly severe ! promiscuous fall.
O'erturn'd and lost―nor shall their place be found. Reason, whose daring eye in vain explores
A sullen calm unusual, dark and dead, Arises inauspicious o'er the heavens.
The beamless Sun looks wan; a sighing cold
Winters the shadow'd air; the birds on high,
Shrieking, give sign of fearful change at hand:
And now, within the bosom of the globe,
Where sulphur stor'd, and nitre peaceful slept,
For ages, in their subterranean bed,
Ferments th' approaching tempest.
Inflammable, perhaps by winds sublim'd,
Their deadly breath apply. Th' enkindled mass,
Mine fir'd by mine in train, with boundless rage,
With horrour unconceiv'd, disploded bursts
Its central prison-Shook from shore to shore,
Reels the broad continent with all its load,
Hills, forests, cities. The lone desert quakes:
Her savage sons howl to the thunder's groan,
And lightning's ruddy glare: while from beneath,
Deaf distant roarings, through the wide profound,
Rueful are heard, as when Despair complains.
Gather'd in air, o'er that proud capital,
Frowns an involving cloud of gloomy depth,
Casting dun night and terrour o'er the heads
Of her inhabitants. Aghast they stand,
Sad-gazing on the mournful skies around;
A moment's dreadful silence! Then loud screams
And eager supplications rend the skies.
Lo, crowds on crowds, in hurry'd stream along,
From street to street, from gate to gate roll'd on,
This, that way burst in waves, by horrour wing'd
To distant hill or cave: while half the globe,
Her frame convulsive rocking to and fro,
Trembles with second agony. Upheav'd
In surges, her vext surface rolls a sea.
Ruin ensues: towers, temples, palaces,
Flung from their deep foundations, roof on roof
Crush'd horrible, and pile on pile o'erturn'd,
Fall total-In that universal groan,
Sounding to Heaven, expir'd a thousand lives,
O'erwhelm'd at once, one undistinguish'd wreck!
Sight full of fate! up from the centre torn,
The ground yawns horrible a hundred mouths,
Flashing pale flames-down through the gulfs pro-
found,
Screaming, whole crowds of every age and rank,
With hands to Heaven rais'd high imploring aid,
Prone to th' abyss descend; and o'er their heads
Earth shuts her ponderous jaws. Part lost in night
Return no more: part on the wafting wave,
Borne through the darkness of th' infernal world,
Far distant rise, emerging with the flood;
Pale as ascending ghosts cast back to day,
A shuddering band! Distraction in each eye
Stares wildly motionless: they pant, they catch
A gulp of air, and grasp with dying aim
The wreck that drives along, to gain from Fate,
Short interval! a moment's doubtful life.
For now Earth's solid sphere asunder rent
With final dissolution, the huge mass
Fails undermin'd-down, down th' extensive seat
The fearful providence, confus'd, subdued
To silence and amazement, with due praise
Acknowledges th' Almighty, and adores
His will unerring, wisest, justest, best!
The country mourns around with alter'd look.
Fields, where but late the many-colour'd Spring
Sat gaily drest, amid the vernal breath
Of roses, and the song of nightingales,
Soft-warbled, silent languish now and die.
Rivers ingulf'd their ample channels leave
A sandy tract; and goodly mountains, hurl'd
In whirlwind from their seat, obstruct the plain
With rough encumbrance; or through depths of earth
Fall ruinous, with all their woods immers'd.
Sulphureous damps of dark and deadly power,
Steam'd from th' abyss, fly secret over-head,
Wounding the healthful air; whence foul disease,
Murrain and rot, in tainted herds and flocks:
In man sore sickness, and the lamp of life
Dimm'd and diminish'd; or more fatal ill
Of mind, unsettling reason overturn'd.
Here into madness work'd, and boiling o'er
Outrageous fancies, like the troubled sea
Foaming out mud and filth: here downward sunk
To folly, and in idle musing wrapt;
Now chasing with fond aim the flying cloud;
Now numbering up the drops of falling rain.
A while the fiery spirit in its cell
Insidious slumbers, till some chance unknown,
Perhaps some rocky fragment from the roof
Detach'd, and roll'd with rough collusion down
Its echoing vault, strikes out the fatal spark
That blows it into rage. Shakes Earth again,
Wide through her entrails torn. To all sides flash'd,
The flames bear downward on the central deep,
Immeasurable source, whence Ocean fills
His numerous seas, and pours them round the globe.
The liquid orb, through all its dark expanse,
In dire commotion boils, and, bursting way
Up through th' unsounded bottoms of the main,
Where never tempest ruffled, lifts the deeps,
At once,
in billowy mountains to the sky,
With raving violence. And now their shores,
Rebellowing to the surge, they swallow fierce,
O'erswelling mound and cliff: now swift and strange,
With refluent wave retreating, leave the beach
A naked waste of sands-Meantime, behold!
You neighbouring Mountain, rising bleak and bare,
Its double top in steril ashes hid,
But green around its base with oil and wine,
Gives sign of storm and desolation near:
Storehouse of fate! from whose infernal womb,
With fiery minerals and metallic ore
Pernicious fraught, ascends eternal smoke:
Now wavering loose in air; now borne on high,
A dusky column heightening to the Sun!
Imagination's eye looks down dismay'd
The steepy gulf, pale-flaming and profound,
With hourly tumult vext, but now incens'd
To sevenfold fury. First, discordant sounds,
As of a clamouring multitude enrag'd,
The dash of floods, and hollow howl of winds
Through wintery woods or cavern'd ruins heard,
Rise from the distant depth where uproar reigns.
Anon, with black eruption, from its jaws,
A night of smoke, thick-driving, wave on wave,
In stormy flow, and cloud involving cloud,
Rolls surging forth, extinguishing the day;
With vollied sparkles mix'd, and whirling drifts
Of stones and cinders rattling up the air.
Instant, in one broad burst, a stream of fire,
Red-issuing, floods the hemisphere around.
Nor pause, nor rest; again the mountain groans,
Amazing, from its inmost cavern shook :
Again, with loudening rage, intensely fierce,
Disgorges pyramids of quivering flame,
Spire after spire enormous, and torn rocks,
Flung out in thundering ruins to the sky.
But see, in second pangs, the roaring bill
From forth its depth a cloudy pillar shoots,
Gradual and vast, in one ascending trunk
Of length immense, heav'd by the force of fire,
On its own base direct, aloft in air,
Beyond the soaring eagle's sunward flight.
Still as it swells, through all the dark extent,
With wonder seen! ten thousand lightnings play
In flash'd vibrations; and from height to height
Incessant thunders roar. No longer now
Protruded by the explosive breath below,
At once the shadowy summit breaks away
To all sides round, in billows broad and black,
As of a turbid ocean stirr'd by winds,
A vapoury deluge hiding Earth and Heaven.
Thus all day long and now the beamless Sun Sets as in blood. A dreadful pause ensues; Deceitful calm, portending fiercer storm. Sad Night at once, with all her deep-dy'd shades, Falls back and boundless o'er the scene.
And terrour rule the hour. Behold, from far,
Imploring Heaven with supplicating hands
And streaming eyes, in mute amazement fix'd,
Yon peopled city stands; each sadden'd face
Turn'd toward the hill of fears: and hark! once
more
The rising tempest shakes its sounding vaults,
Now faint in distant murmurs, now more near
Rebounding horrible, with all the roar
Of winds and seas, or engines big with death,
That, planted by the murderous hand of War
To shake the round of some proud capital,
At once disploded, in one bursting peal
Their mortal thunders mix. Along the sky,
From east to south, a ruddy hill of smoke
Extends its ridge, with dismal light inflam'd.
Meanwhile, the fluid lake that works below,
Bitumen, sulphur, salt, and iron-seum,
Heaves up its boiling tide. The labouring mount
Is torn with agonizing throes-at once,
Forth from its side disparted, blazing pours
A mighty river, burning in prone waves,
That glimmer through the night, to yonder plain.
Divided there, a hundred torrent-streams,
Fach ploughing up its bed, roll dreadful on,
Resistless. Villages, and woods, and rocks,
Fail flat before their sweep. The region round,
Where myrtle walks and groves of golden fruit
Rose fair, where harvest wav'd in all its pride,
And where the vineyard spread her purple store,
Maturing into nectar, now despoil'd
Of herb, leaf, fruit, and flower, from end to end Lies buried under fire, a glowing sea!
Thus roaming with adventurous wing the globe, From scene to scene excursive, I behold In all her workings, beauteous, great, or new, Fair Nature, and in all with wonder trace The sovereign Maker, first, supreme, and best, Who actuates the whole at whose command, Obedient fire and flood tremendous rise, His ministers of vengeance, to reprove, And scourge the nations. Holy are his ways, His works unnumber'd, and to all proclaim Unfathom'd wisdom, goodness unconfin'd.
ENDLESS the wonders of creating power,
On Earth, but chief on high through Heaven display'd.
There shines the full magnificence unveil'd
Of Majesty divine: refulgent there
Ten thousand suns blaze forth, with each his train
Of worlds dependent, all beneath the eye
And equal rule of one eternal Lord.
To those bright climes, awakening all her powers,
And spreading her unbounded wing, the Muse
Ascending soars on, through the fluid space,
The buoyant atmosphere; whose vivid breath,
Soul of all sublunary life, pervades
The realms of Nature, to her inmost depths
Diffus'd with quickening energy.
Now still,
From pole to pole th' aërial ocean sleeps,
One limpid vacancy: now rous'd to rage
By blustering meteors, wind, hail, rain, or clouđ
With thunderous fury charg'd, its billows rise,
And shake the nether orb. Still as I mount,
A path the vulture's eye hath not observ'd,
Nor foot of eagle trod, th' ethereal sphere
Receding flies approach; its circling arch
Alike remote, translucent, and serene.
Glorious expansion! by th' Almighty spread,
Whose limits who hath seen! or who with him
Hath walk'd the sun-pav'd circuit from old time,
And visited the host of Heaven around!
Gleaming a borrow'd light, whence how small
The speck of Earth, and dim air circumfus'd!
Mutable region, vext with hourly change.
But here, unruffled Calm her even reign
Maintains external: here the lord of day,
The neighbouring Sun, shines out in all his strength,
Noon without night. Attracted by his beam,
I thither bend my flight, tracing the source
Where morning springs; whence her innumerous
Flow lucid forth, and roll through trackless ways
Their white waves o'er the sky. The fountain-orb,
Dilating as I rise, beyond the ken
Of mortal eye, to which earth, ocean, air,
Are but a central point, expands immense,
A shoreless sea of fluctuating fire,
That deluges all ether with its tide.
What power is that, which to its circle bounds
The violence of flame! in rapid whirls
Conflicting, floods with floods, as if to leave
Their place, and, bursting, overwhelm the world !
Motion incredible! to which the rage
Of oceans, when whole winter blows at once
In hurricane, is peace. But who shall tell
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