A facred terror, a fevere delight,
Creep thro' my mortal frame; and thus, methinks,
A voice, than human more, th' abstracted ear
Of Fancy Arikes. Be not of us afraid,
"Poor kindred Man! thy fellow-creatures, we 545
"From the fame PARENT-POWER our beings drew,
"The fame our Lord, and laws, and great purfuit.
"Once fome of us, like thee, thro' stormy life,
"Toil'd, tempeft-beaten, ere we could attain
"This holy calm, this harmony of mind,
"Where purity and peace immingle charms.
"Then fear not us; but with responsive song,
"Amid these dim receffes, undisturb'd
By noify folly and discordant vice,
“Of Nature sing with us, and Nature's GOD.
"Here frequent, at the visionary hour,
"When musing midnight reigns, or filent noon, "Angelic harps are in full concert heard,
"And voices chanting from the wood-crown'd hill, “The deep'ning dale, or inmost sylvan glade: 560 "A privilege bestow'd by us, alone,
"On Contemplation, or the hallow'd ear
"Of Poet, fwelling to feraphic strain.”
And art thou, * STANLEY, of that facred band?
Alas, for us too. foon! Tho" rais'd above
The reach of human pain, above the flight
Of human joy; yet with a mingled ray
Of fadly-pleas'd remembrance, muft thou feel
A mother's love, a mother's tender wo;
Who seeks thee ftill in many a former scene;
Seeks thy fair form, thy lovely beaming eyes,
* A young lady, well known to the author, who died at the age of eighteen, in the year 1738.
Thy pleafing converfe, by gay lively fenfe
Infpir'd: where moral wisdom mildly fhone,
Without the toil of art; and virtue glow'd,
In all her smiles, without forbidding pride.
But, O thou beft of parents! wipe thy tears;
Or rather to PARENTAL NATURE pay
The tears of grateful joy, who for a while
Lent thee this younger felf, this opening bloom
Of thy enlightened mind and gentle worth.
Believe the Mufe: the wint'ry blast of death
Kills not the buds of virtue; no, they spread,
Beneath the heavenly beam of brighter funs,
Thro' endless ages, into higher powers.
Thus up the mount, in airy vifion rapt,
I ftray, regardless, whither; till the found
Of a near fall of water every fenfe
Wakes from the charm of thought: fwift-shrinking back, I check my steps, and view the broken fcene.
Smooth to the fhelving brink a copious flood 590 Rolls fair, and placid; where collected all, In one impetuous torrent, down the steep
It thundering fhoots, and shakes the country round.
At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad;
Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls,
And from the loud-refounding rocks below
Dash'd in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
A hoary mift, and forms a ceaseless shower.
Nor can the tortur'd wave here find repose::
But, raging ftill amid the fhaggy rocks,
Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now
Aflant the hollow'd channel rapid darts;
And falling faft from gradual flope to flope,
With wild infracted courfe, and leffen'd roar,
It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last,
Along the mazes of the quiet vale.
Invited from the cliff, to whose dark brow
He clings, the steep-afcending eagle foars,
With upward pinions thro' the flood of day;
And, giving full his bofom to the blaze,
Gains on the fun; while all the tuneful race,
Smit by afflictive noon, disorder'd droop,
Deep in the thicket; or, from bower to bower
Refponfive, force an interrupted strain.
The stock-dove only thro' the forest cooes,
Mournfully hoarse; oft ceasing from his plaint,
Short interval of weary woe! again
The fad idea of his murder'd mate,
Struck from his fide by favage fowler's guile,
Acrofs his fancy comes; and then refounds
A louder fong of forrow thro' the grove.
Befide the dewy border let me fit,
All in the freshness of the humid air;
There in that hollow'd rock, grotesque and wild,
An ample chair moss-lin'd, and over head
By flowering umbrage fhaded; where the bee
Strays diligent, and with th' extracted balm
Of fragrant wood-bine loads his little thigh.
Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade,
While Nature lyes around deep-lull'd in Noon, 630
Now come, bold Fancy, fpread a daring flight,
And view the wonders of the torrid zone:
Climes unrelenting! with whofe rage compar'd,
Yon blaze is feeble, and yon skies are cool.
See, how at once the bright effulgent fun,
Rifing direct, fwift chases from the sky
The short-liv'd twilight; and with ardent blaze
Looks gaily fierce o'er all the dazzling air:
He mounts his throne; but kind before him sends,
Iffuing from out the portals of the morn,
The general breeze, to mitigate his fire,
And breathe refreshment on a fainting world.
Great are the scenes, with dreadful beauty crown'd
And barbarous, wealth, that fee, each circling year,
Returning fans and + double feafons pafs: 645
Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines,
That on the high equator ridgy rife,
Whence many a bursting stream auriferous plays:
Majestic woods, of every vigorous green,
Stage above stage, high waving o'er the hills;
Or to the far horizon wide diffus'd,
A boundless deep immensity of fhade.
Here lofty trees, to ancient fong unknown,
The noble fons of potent heat and floods
Prone-rufhing from the clouds, rear high to Heaven
Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw 656
Meridian gloom. Here, in eternal prime,
Unnumber'd fruits, of keen delicious taste
And vital spirit, drink amid the cliffs,
And burning fands that bank the shrubby vales, 660
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,
Their lighter glories blend. Lay me reclin'd
Beneath the fpreading tamarind that shakes,
* Which blows conftantly between the tropics from the eaft, or the collateral points, the north-cast and fouth-east: caufed by the preffure of the rarefied air on that before it, according to the diurnal motion of the fun from east to west, + In all climates between the tropics, the fun, as he paffes and repaffes in his annual motion, is twice a-year vertical, which produces this effect.
Fann'd by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit.
Deep in the night the maffy locust sheds,
Quench my hot limbs; or lead me through the maze, Embowering endless, of the Indian fig;
Or thrown at gayer ease, on some fair brow,
Let me behold, by breezy murmurs cool'd,
Broad o'er my head the verdant cedar wave,
And high palmetos lift their graceful fhade.
ftretch'd amid these orchards of the fun, 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 flender twigs 680 Low-bending, be the full pomegranate fcorn'd; Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race. Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells Unboaftful worth, above faftidious pomp. Witness, thou best Anana, thou the pride Of vegetable life, beyond whate'er The poets imaged in the golden age: Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat,
Spread thy ambrofial ftores, and fealt with Jove! From these the prospect varies. Plains immenfe 690 Ly ftretch'd below, interminable meads,
And vaft favannahs, where the wandering eye,
Unfixt, is in a verdant ocean lost.
Another Flora there, of bolder hues,
And richer sweets, beyond our garden's pride,
Plays o'er the fields, and showers with sudden hand
Exuberant Spring: for oft these valleys shift
Their green embroider'd robe to fiery brown,
And swift to green again, as scorching suns,
Or streaming dews and torrent rains, prevail.
Along thefe lonely regions, where retir'd,
VOL. I.
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