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March 19, 1799
WHAT portents, from that distant region, ride, | |
| Unseen till now in ours, the astonished tide? | |
| In ages past, old Proteus, with his droves | |
| Of sea-calves, sought the mountains and the groves. | |
| But now descending whence of late they stood, | 5 |
| Themselves the mountains seem to rove the flood. | |
| Dire times were they, full-charged with human woes; | |
| And these, scarce less calamitous than those. | |
| What view we now? More wondrous still? Behold! | |
| Like burnished brass they shine, or beaten gold; | 10 |
| And all around the pearl’s pure splendor show, | |
| And all around the ruby’s fiery glow. | |
| Come they from India, where the burning earth, | |
| All bounteous, gives her richest treasures birth; | |
| And where the costly gems, that beam around | 15 |
| The brows of mightiest potentates, are found? | |
| No. Never such a countless dazzling store | |
| Had left, unseen, the Ganges’ peopled shore. | |
| Rapacious hands, and ever-watchful eyes, | |
| Should sooner far have marked and seized the prize. | 20 |
| Whence sprang they then? Ejected have they come | |
| From Ves’vius’ or from Ætna’s burning womb! | |
| Thus shine they self-illumed, or but display | |
| The borrowed splendors of a cloudless day? | |
| With borrowed beams they shine. The gales, that breathe | 25 |
| Now landward, and the current’s force beneath, | |
| Have borne them nearer: and the nearer sight, | |
| Advantaged more, contemplates them aright. | |
| Their lofty summits crested high, they show, | |
| With mingled sleet, and long-incumbent snow. | 30 |
| The rest is ice. Far hence, where most severe | |
| Bleak winter wellnigh saddens all the year, | |
| Their infant growth began. He bade arise | |
| Their uncouth forms, portentous in our eyes. | |
| Oft as dissolved by transient suns, the snow | 35 |
| Left the tall cliff, to join the flood below; | |
| He caught, and curdled with a freezing blast | |
| The current ere it reached the boundless waste. | |
| By slow degrees uprose the wondrous pile, | |
| And long successive ages rolled the while; | 40 |
| Till, ceaseless in its growth, it claimed to stand, | |
| Tall as its rival mountains on the land. | |
| Thus stood, and unremovable by skill, | |
| Or force of man, had stood the structure still; | |
| But that, though firmly fixed, supplanted yet | 45 |
| By pressure of its own enormous weight, | |
| It left the shelving beach, and with a sound | |
| That shook the bellowing waves and rocks around | |
| Self-launched, and swiftly, to the briny wave, | |
| As if instinct with strong desire to lave, | 50 |
| Down went the ponderous mass. So bards of old, | |
| How Delos swam the Ægean deep, have told. | |
| But not of ice was Delos. Delos bore | |
| Herb, fruit, and flower. She, crowned with laurel, wore, | |
| Even under wintry skies, a summer smile; | 55 |
| And Delos was Apollo’s favorite isle. | |
| But, horrid wanderers of the deep, to you | |
| He deems Cimmerian darkness only due. | |
| Your hated birth he deigned not to survey, | |
| But, scornful, turned his glorious eyes away. | 60 |
| Hence! seek your home, no longer rashly dare | |
| The darts of Phœbus, and a softer air; | |
| Lest ye regret, too late, your native coast, | |
| In no congenial gulf forever lost! | |
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