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(From The Seasons: Summer)
NOW come, bold Fancy, spread a daring flight, | |
| And view the wonders of the Torrid Zone: | |
| Climes unrelenting! with whose rage compared, | |
| Yon blaze is feeble, and yon skies are cool. | |
| See, how at once the bright effulgent sun, | 5 |
| Rising, direct, swift chases from the sky | |
| The short-lived twilight; and with ardent blaze | |
| Looks gayly fierce o’er all the dazzling air: | |
| He mounts his throne; but kind before him sends, | |
| Issuing from out the portals of the morn, | 10 |
| The gentle breeze, to mitigate his fire, | |
| And breathe refreshment on a fainting world. | |
| Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crowned | |
| And barbarous wealth, that see, each circling year, | |
| Returning suns and double seasons pass: | 15 |
| Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines, | |
| That on the high equator ridgy rise, | |
| Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays: | |
| Majestic woods, of every vigorous green, | |
| Stage above stage, high waving o’er the hills; | 20 |
| Or to the far horizon wide diffused, | |
| A boundless deep immensity of shade. | |
| Here lofty trees, to ancient song unknown, | |
| The noble sons of potent heat and floods | |
| Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to heaven | 25 |
| Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw | |
| Meridian gloom. Here, in eternal prime, | |
| Unnumbered fruits of keen delicious taste | |
| And vital spirit, drink amid the cliffs, | |
| And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales, | 30 |
| Redoubled day, yet in their rugged coats | |
| A friendly juice to cool its rage contain. | |
| Bear me, Pomona! to thy citron groves; | |
| To where the lemon and the piercing lime, | |
| With the deep orange, glowing through the green, | 35 |
| Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclined | |
| Beneath the spreading tamarind that shakes, | |
| Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit. | |
| Deep in the night the massy locust sheds, | |
| Quench my hot limbs; or lead me through the maze, | 40 |
| Embowering endless, of the Indian fig; | |
| Or thrown at gayer ease, on some fair brow, | |
| Let me behold, by breezy murmurs cooled, | |
| Broad o’er my head the verdant cedar wave, | |
| And high palmettos lift their graceful shade. | 45 |
| Or stretched amid these orchards of the sun, | |
| Give me to drain the cocoa’s milky bowl, | |
| And from the palm to draw its freshening wine! | |
| More bounteous far than all the frantic juice | |
| Which Bacchus pours. Nor, on its slender twigs | 50 |
| Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scorned; | |
| Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race | |
| Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells | |
| Unboasted worth, above fastidious pomp. | |
| Witness, thou best Anana, thou the pride | 55 |
| Of vegetable life, beyond whate’er | |
| The poets imaged in the Golden Age: | |
| Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat, | |
| Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove! | |
| From these the prospect varies. Plains immense | 60 |
| Lie stretched below, interminable meads, | |
| And vast savannas, where the wandering eye, | |
| Unfixed, is in a verdant ocean lost. | |
| Another Flora there, of bolder hues | |
| And richer sweets, beyond our garden’s pride, | 65 |
| Plays o’er the fields, and showers with sudden hand | |
| Exuberant spring; for oft these valleys shift | |
| Their green embroidered robe to fiery brown, | |
| And swift to green again, as scorching suns | |
| Or streaming dews and torrent rains prevail. | 70 |
| Along these lonely regions, where, retired | |
| From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells | |
| In awful solitude, and naught is seen | |
| But the wild herds that own no master’s stall, | |
| Prodigious rivers roll their fattening seas: | 75 |
| On whose luxuriant herbage, half concealed, | |
| Like a fallen cedar, far diffused his train, | |
| Cased in green scales, the crocodile extends. | |
| The flood disparts: behold! in plaited mail | |
| Behemoth rears his head. Glanced from his side, | 80 |
| The darted steel in idle shivers flies: | |
| He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills; | |
| Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds, | |
| In widening circle round, forget their food, | |
| And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze. | 85 |
| Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast | |
| Their ample shade o’er Niger’s yellow stream, | |
| And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave; | |
| Or mid the central depth of blackening woods, | |
| High raised in solemn theatre around, | 90 |
| Leans the huge elephant: wisest of brutes! | |
| O truly wise, with gentle might endowed, | |
| Though powerful, not destructive! here he sees | |
| Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth, | |
| And empires rise and fall; regardless he | 95 |
| Of what the never-resting race of men | |
| Project: thrice happy! could he ’scape their guile | |
| Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps; | |
| Or with his towery grandeur swell their state, | |
| The pride of kings! or else his strength pervert, | 100 |
| And bid him rage amid the mortal fray, | |
| Astonished at the madness of mankind. | |
| Wide o’er the winding umbrage of the floods, | |
| Like vivid blossoms glowing from afar, | |
| Thick swarm the brighter birds. For Nature’s hand, | 105 |
| That with a sportive vanity has decked | |
| The plumy nations, there her gayest hues | |
| Profusely pours. But, if she bids them shine, | |
| Arrayed in all the beauteous beams of day, | |
| Yet frugal still, she humbles them in song. | 110 |
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