| |
| ON ocean’s cliff, see beauty wild and pale, | |
| Watching alone the fury of the gale: | |
| Amid the dangers of the rugged coast, | |
| She marks her sailor’s gallant vessel tost; | |
| Frantic with grief, her sunny locks she tears, | 5 |
| As the red lightning on the breakers glares, | |
| And o’er the tumult of the boiling deep, | |
| Mad whirlwinds howl, and dark tornadoes sweep. | |
| Shall she, delighted, hear the tempest rave, | |
| And list the murmurs of the dashing wave! | 10 |
| Think ye the grandeur of the scene can charm | |
| Her heart, that throbs at every gust alarm! | |
| |
| Behold yon volumes of sulphureous smoke, | |
| Roll in black wreaths, and heaven with vapor choke | |
| The mountain trembles, and the earth afar | 15 |
| Feels the dread shock of elemental war; | |
| Loud roars the ocean, and the mingled din | |
| Breaks on the ear from rumbling caves within: | |
| Then flames the crater: to the skies aspire | |
| The liquid gushes of volcanic fire. | 20 |
| Aghast the peasant of Campania stands, | |
| And mourns his ruin’d cot, his deluged lands, | |
| Perchance his wife, his children’s hapless doom, | |
| Buried in flame, and hurried to the tomb. | |
| While his lorn bosom is with anguish wrung, | 25 |
| Cares he what bards the scene sublime have sung? | |
| How many Plinies once admired the sight, | |
| Its grandeur traced, then perish’d in delight? | |
| |
| But hark!—in southern climes along the ground, | |
| Like distant thunders, runs a hollow sound: | 30 |
| Wide and more wide extends the sullen jar, | |
| As when conflicting chariots rush to war; | |
| Rocks, woods, and plains the wild commotion feel, | |
| And the tall Andes to their bases reel; | |
| In mountain waves, the undulating lea | 35 |
| Heaves, like the tossings of a troubled sea; | |
| Impending ruin mocks the force of art, | |
| And ghastly terror seizes every heart. | |
| Then yawns the fathomless abyss, and down | |
| At once are hurl’d the works of old renown, | 40 |
| The monuments of ages; all that man, | |
| His genius, taste, and luxury could plan: | |
| All, all in one promiscuous grave repose, | |
| O’er which the earth, and gushing waters close, | |
| And hence along the stagnant lake and plain, | 45 |
| Shall solitude and desolation reign. | |
| |
| Oh! who hath not in fancy trod alone, | |
| The trackless deserts of the burning zone, | |
| Nor felt a dreariness oppress his soul, | |
| To mark the sands in eddies round him roll, | 50 |
| Like ocean’s billows, threatening to o’erwhelm, | |
| His wilder’d march, through many a weary realm? | |
| No verdure smiles, no crystal fountains play, | |
| To quench the arrows of the god of day, | |
| No breezy lawns, no cool, meandering streams, | 55 |
| Allay the fervor of his torrid beams; | |
| No whispering zephyrs fan the glowing skies; | |
| But o’er long tracts the mournful siroc sighs, | |
| Whose desolating march, whose withering breath | |
| Sweeps through the caravan with instant death; | 60 |
| The wandering Arab, startled at the sound, | |
| Mantles his face, and presses close the ground, | |
| Till o’er his prostrate, weary limbs hath pass’d, | |
| In sullen gusts, the poison-wafting blast. | |
| |
| ’T is night: but there the sparkling heavens diffuse | 65 |
| No genial showers, no soft-distilling dews; | |
| In the hot sky, the stars, of lustre shorn, | |
| Burn o’er the pathway of the wanderer lorn, | |
| And the red moon, from Babelmandel’s strand, | |
| Looks, as she climbs, through pyramids of sand, | 70 |
| That whirl’d aloft, and gilded by her light, | |
| Blaze the lone beacons of the desert night. | |
| From distant wilds is heard the dismal howl | |
| Of hideous monsters, that in darkness prowl: | |
| Urged by gaunt famine from his lair and home. | 75 |
| Along the waste, the tiger’s footsteps roam, | |
| And from afar, the fierce hyena’s scream | |
| At midnight breaks the traveller’s fitful dream. | |
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