A Hurricane described.

But chief at sea, whose every flexile wave

Obeys the blast, the aërial tumult swells.

In the dread ocean, undulating wide,

Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,

The circling Typhon, whirl'd from point to point,
Exhausting all the rage of all the sky,

And dire Ecnephia reign. Amid the heavens,

Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck

Compress'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells;
Of no regard, save to the skilful

eye.

Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs

Aloft, or on the promontory's brow

Musters its force. A faint deceitful calm,

A fluttering gale, the demon sends before,

To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once,
Precipitant, descends a mingled mass

Of roaring winds, and fiame, and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fix'd the sailor stands.
Art is too slow: by rapid Fate oppress'd,
His broad-wing'd vessel drinks the whelming tide,

Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.

With such mad seas the daring GAMA fought,

For many a day, and many a dreadful night,

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The Shark.

Incessant, lab'ring round the stormy Cape;
By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst

of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerg❜d 1005 The rising world of trade; the Genius, then,

Of navigation, that, in hopeless sloth,

Had slumber'd on the vast Atlantic deep,

For idle ages, starting, heard at last

The Lusitanian Prince; who, HEAVEN-inspir'd, 1010

To love of useful glory rous'd mankind,

And in unbounded Commerce mix'd the world.
Increasing still the terrors of these storms,

His jaws horrific arm'd with threefold fate,
Here dwells the direful shark. Lur'd by the scent 1015
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,

Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the ship along;

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And, from the partners of that cruel trade,
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her sons,
Demands his share of prey; demands themselves.
The stormy Fates descend: one death involves
Tyrants and slaves; when strait, their mangled limbs
Crashing at once, he dies the purple seas

With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.

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Pestilential Diseases.

When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains
Flooded immense, looks out the joyless sun,
And draws the copious stream: from swampy fens,
Where putrefaction into life ferments,

And breathes destructive myriads; or from woods,
Impenetrable shades, recesses foul,

In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,
Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot
Has ever dar'd to pierce; then, wasteful, forth
Walks the dire Power of pestilent disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend;
Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless woe,
And feeble desolation, casting down
The towering hopes and all the pride of Man.
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd
The BRITISH fire. You, gallant VERNON! Saw
The miserable scene; you, pitying, saw
To infant-weakness sunk the warrior's arm;
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form,

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The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye

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No more with ardour bright: you heard the groans

Of agonizing ships, from shore to shore;

Heard, nightly plung'd amid the sullen waves,

The Plague.

The frequent corse; while on each other fix'd,
In sad presage, the blank assistants seem'd,
Silent, to ask, whom Fate would next demand.
What need I mention those inclement skies,
Where, frequent o'er the sickening city, Plague,
The fiercest child of NEMESIS divine,
Descends? From Ethiopia's poisoned woods,
From stifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields
With locust-armies putrefying heap'd,

This great destroyer sprung. Her awful rage
The brutes escape: Man is her destin'd prey;
Intemperate Man! and, c'er his guilty domes,
She draws a close incumbent cloud of death;
Uninterrupted by the living winds,

Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze; and stain'd
With many a mixture by the sun, suffus'd,

Of angry aspect. Princely wisdom, then,

Dejects his watchful eye; and from the hand

Of feeble justice, ineffectual, drop

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The sword and balance: mute the voice of joy,
And hush'd the clamour of the busy world.
Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad;
Into the worst of deserts sudden turn'd

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The Plague.

The cheerful haunt of Men: unless escap'd

From the doom'd house, where matchless horror reigns,
Shut up by barbarous fear, the smitten wretch,
With frenzy wild, breaks loose; and, loud to Heaven
Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns,

Inhuman, and unwise. The sullen 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,

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The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.

But vain their selfish care: the circling sky, The wide enlivening air is full of fate;

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And, struck by turns, in solitary pangs
They fall, unblest, untended, and unmourn'd.
Thus o'er the prostrate city black Despair
Extends her raven wing; while, to complete
The scene of desolation, stretch'd around,
The grim guards stand, denying all retreat,
And give the flying wretch a better death.
Much yet remains

unsung: the rage

Of brazen-vaulted skies, of iron fields,

intense

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Where drought and famine starve the blasted year :