scene,

so wie auch die eines Erdbebens, sind dem Dichter

sehr wohl gelungen. Den Beschlufs dieses Gesanges macht die schöne Episode Junio and Theana. Die Erndte des Zuk kerrohrs und das Sieden desselben sind der vornehmste Gegenstand des dritten Gesangs. Der Verfasser zeigt hierbei so wie überall, viele Sachkenntnifs. Nach einer kleinen Digression zum Lobe des beliebten Rum, folgt eine der Vollendung nahe schöne Schilderung einer Westindischen Gegend. Der Gegenstand des vierten Gesangs ist die Behandlung der Neger. Auch unser Dichter redet nachdrücklich für die se unterdrückten Unglücklichen. Lesenswerth ist unter andern in diesem Gesange die Beschreibung eines Negertanzes. Die hier mitgetheilten Probestücke werden den Leser überzeu gen, dafs unser Dichter sehr glücklich ist, wenn er Naturscenen schildert; wir mögten beinah sagen, dafs er darin den grofsern Theil der übrigen Englischen Dichter weit hinter sich zurückläfst; wir wollen indessen sehr gern zugeben, dafs er vielleicht darum leichter seinen Zweck erreicht, weil er Gegenstände schildert, die für den Europäischen Leser noch den Reiz der Neuheit haben. Was den eigentlichen didaktischen Theil seines Gedichts betrifft, so ist dieser allerdings kier und da trocken, und der Verfasser scheint bei dem Bestreben zu unterrichten, zuweilen zu vergessen, dafs er seinen Gegenstand als Dichter zu behandeln gehabt habe.

I) BRYAN AND PEREEN E.

(A West-Indian Ballad.)

The north-east wind did briskly blow

The ship was safely moor'd,
Young Bryan thought the boat's crew slow,
And so leapt over board.

Pereene, the pride of Indian dames,
His heart did long enthral,
And whoso his impatience blames,
I wot ne'er loved at all.

A long, long year, one month and day
He dwelt on English land,

Nor once in thought would ever stray,
Though ladies sought his hand.

For Bryan he was tall and strong,
Right blithsome roll'd his een,
Sweet was his voice whene'er he sung,
He scant had twenty seen.

But who the countless charms can draw,
That grac'd his mistress true;

Such charms the old world never saw,
Nor oft I ween the new.

Her raven hair plays round her neck,
Like tendrils of the vine,

Her cheeks red dewy rose buds deck,
Her eyes like diamonds shine.

Soon as his well known ship she spied,"
She cast her weeds away,

And to the palmy shore she hied,

All in her best array.

In sea- green silk so neatly clad,
She there impatient stood;
The crew with wonder saw the lad,
Repel the foaming flood.

Her hands a handkerchief display'd,
Which he at parting gave;
Well pleas'd the token he survey'd
And manlier beat the wave,

Her fair companions one and all,
Rejoicing crowd the strand;

For now her lover swam in call
And almost touch'd the land.

Then through the white surf *) did she haste,
To clasp her lovely swain,

When, ah! a shark bit through his waist:
His heart's blood dy'd the main!

1

Now haste, now haste, ye maids, I pray,

Fetch water from the spring:

She falls, she falls, she dies away,
And soon her knell they ring.

Now each May morning round her tomb,
Ye fair, fresh flow'rets strew,

So may your lovers 'scape his doom,
Her hapless fate 'scape you.

2) A HURRICANE DESCRIBED.

EARTHQUAKES *),

OF CALMS AND

Say, can the Muse, the pencil in her hand,

The all-wasting hurricane observant ride?
Can she, undazzled, view the lightning's glare,
That fires the welkin? Can she, unappall'd,
When all the flood-gates of the sky are ope.
The shoreless deluge stem? The muse hath seen
The pillar'd flame, whose top hath reach'd the stars;
Seen rocky, molten fragments, slung in air
From Etna's vext abyss; seen burning streams

Pour down its channell'd sides; tremendous scenes!
Yet not vext Ætna's pillar'd flames, that strike
The stars; nor molten mountains hurl'd on high;
Nor ponderous rapid deluges, that burn
Its deeply-channell'd sides; cause such dismay,
Such desolation, Hurricane! as thou;
When the Almighty gives thy rage to blow,
And all the battles of thy winds engage.

Soon as the Virgin's charms ingross the sun;
And till his weaker flame the Scorpion feels;
But, chief, while Libra weighs the unsteady year:
Planter, with mighty props thy dome support:
Each flaw repair; and well, with massy bars,
Thy doors and windows guard; securely lodge
Thy stocks and mill-points **).
Breathless the royal palm-tree's airiest van;

Then, or calms obtain;

*) Sugar Cane B. II. v. 270 427- ") The sails are fastened to the mill-points, as those are to the stocks. They should always be taken down before the hurricane season.

While, o'er the panting isle, the demon heat
High hurls his flaming brand; vast, distant waves
The main drives furious, in, and heaps the shore
With strange productions: Or, the blue serene
Assumes a louring aspect, as the clouds

Fly, wild-careering, through the vault of heaven;
Then transient birds, of various kinds, frequent
Each stagnant pool; some hover o'er thy roof;
Then Eurus reigns no more; but each bold wind,
By turns usurps the empire of the air

With quick inconstancy;

Thy herds, as sapient of the coming storm,
(For beasts partake some portion of the sky,)
In troops associate; and, in cold sweats bath'd,
Wild- bellowing, eye the pole. Ye seamen, now,
Ply to the southward, if the changeful moon,,
Or, in her interlunar palace hid,

Shuns night: or, full-orb'd, in night's forehead glowas
For, see! the mists, that late involv'd the hill,

Disperse; the mid-day sun looks red; strange burs *)
Surround the stars, which vaster fill the eye.

A horrid stench the pools, the main emits;
Fearful the genius of the forest sighs;

The mountains moan; deep groans the cavern'd cliff,
A night of vapour, closing fast around,

Snatches the golden noon. Each wind appeas'd,
The north flies forth, and hurls the frighted air:
Not all the brazen engineries of man,

At once exploded, the wild burst surpass.
Yet thunder, yok'd with lightning and with rain,
Water with fire, increase the infernal din:

Canes, shrubs, trees, huts, are whirl'd aloft in air,
The wind is spent; and ,, all the isle below

Soon issues forth the west, with sudden burst;
And blasts more rapid, more resistless drives:

*) These are astral halos. Columbus soon made himself más, ter of the signs that precede a hurricane in the West-Indies, by which means he saved his own squadron; while another large fleet, whose commander despised his prognostics, put to sea, and was wrecked.

Rushes the headlong sky; the city rocks;

The good man throws him on the trembling ground;
And dies the murderer in his inmost soul
Sullen, the west withdraws his eager storms.
Will not the tempest now his furies chain?
Ah, no! as when in Indian forests, wild,
Barbaric armies suddenly retire

After some furious onset, and, behind

Vast rocks and trees, their horrid forms conceal,
Brooding on slaughter, not repuls'd: for soon
Their growing yell the affrighted welkin rends,
And bloodier carnage mows th' ensanguin'd plain:
So the south, sallying from his iron caves
With mightier force, renews the aerial war;
Sleep, frighted, flies; and, see! yon lofty palm,
Fair nature's triumph, pride of Indian groves,
Cleft by the sulphurous bolt! See yonder dome,
Where grandeur with propriety combin'd,
And Theodorus with devotion dwelt;

Involv'd in smouldering flames. From every rock
Dashes the turbid torrent; through each street
A river foams, which sweeps, with untam'd might,
Men, oxen, cane-lands to the billowy main.
Pauses the wind.

Anon the savage east
Bids his wing'd tempests more relentless rave;
Now brighter, vaster corruscations flash;
Deepens the deluge; nearer thunder roll;
Earth trembles; ocean reels, and, in her fangs,
Grim desolation tears the shrieking isle,
Ere rosy morn possess the ethereal plain,
To pour on darkness the full flood of day
Nor does the hurricane's all-wasting wrath

Alone bring ruin on its sounding wing:
Even calins are dreadful, and the fiery south
Oft reigns a tyrant in these fervid isles:
For, from its burning furnace, when it breathes,
Europe and Asia's vegetable sons,

Touch'd by its fainting vapour, shrivel'd, die.
The hardiest children of the rocks repine:
And all the upland Tropic-plants hang down
Their drooping heads; show arid, coil'd, adust.
The main itself seems parted into streams,