The raven's haunt: and down its woody steep
A dashing flood in headlong torrent burls
His sounding waters; white on every cliff

Their shores contiguous, lies the polar sea,
One glittering waste of ice, and on the morn
Casts cold a cheerless light. Lo, hills of snow,

Hangs the light foam, and sparkles through the Hill behind hill, and Alp on Alp, ascend,
gloom.

Behind me rises huge a reverend pile
Sole on his blasted heath, a place of tombs,
Waste, desolate, where Ruin dreary dwells.
Brooding o'er sightless sculls, and crumbling bones,
Ghastful he sits, and eyes with stedfast glare.
(Sad trophies of his power, where ivy twines
Its fatal green aroad) the falling roof,
The time-shook arch, the column grey with moss,
The leaning wall, the sculptur'd stone defac'd,
Whole monumental flattery, mix'd with dust,
Now hides the name it vainly meant to raise.
All is dread silence here, and undisturb'd,
Save what the wind sighs, and the wailing owl
Screams solitary to the mournful Moon,
Glimmering her western ray through yonder isle,
Where the sad spirit walks with shadowy foot
His wonted round, or lingers o'er his grave.

Hail, midnight-shades! hail, venerable dome!
By age more venerable; sacred shore,
Beyond Time's troubled sea, where never wave,
Where never wind of passion, or of guilt,
Of suffering or of orrow, shall invade
The calm sound night of those who rest below.
The weary are at peace: the small and great,
Life's voyage ended, meet and mingle here.
Here sleeps the prisoner safe, nor feels his chain,
Nor hears th' oppressor's voice. The poor and old,
With all the sons of mourning, fearless now
Of want or woe, find unalarm'd repose.
Proud greatness, too, the tyranny of power,
The grace of beauty, and the force of youth,
And name and place, are here--for ever lost!
But, at near distance, on the mouldering wall
Behold a monument, with emblem grac'd,
And fair inscription: where with head declin'd,
And folded arms, the Virtues weeping round
Lean o'er a beauteous youth who dies below.
Thyrsis-'tis he! the wisest and the best!
Lamented shade! whom every gift of Heaven
Profusely blest: all learning was his own.
Pleasing his speech, by Nature taught to flow,
Persuasive sense and strong, sincere and clear.
His manners greatly plain; a noble grace,
Self-taught, beyond the reach of mimic Art,
Adorn'd him: his calm temper winning mild;
Nor Pity softer, nor was Truth more bright.
Constant in doing well, he neither sought
Nor shunn'd applause. No bashful merit sigh'd
Near him neglected: sympathizing he
Wip'd off the tear from Sorrow's clouded eye
With kindly hand, and taught her heart to smile.
'Tis morning: and the Sun, bis welcome light,
Swift, from beyond dark Ocean's orient stream,
Casts through the air, renewing Nature's face
With heaven-born beauty. O'er her ample breast,
O'er sea and shore, light Fancy speeds along,
Quick as the darted beam, from pole to pole,
Excursive traveller. Now beneath the north,
Alone with Winter in his inmost realm,
Region of horrours! Here, amid the roar
Of winds and waves, the drifted turbulence
Of hail-mix'd snows, resides th' ungenial power,
For ever silent, shivering, and forlorn!
From Zembla's cliffs on to the straits surmis'd
Of Anian eastward, where both worlds oppose

Pil'd up from eldest age, and to the Sun
Impenetrable; rising from afar

In misty prospect dim, as if on air
Each floating hill, an azure range of clouds.
Yet here, ev'n here, in this disastrous clime,
Horrid and harbourless, where all life dies,
Adventurous mortals, urg'd by thirst of gain,
Through floating isles of ice and fighting storms,
Roam the wild waves, in search of doubtful shores,
By west or east; a path yet unexplor'd.

Hence eastward to the Tartar's cruel coast,
By utmost ocean wash'd, on whose last wave
The blue Sky leans her breast, diffus'd immense
In solitary length the Desert lies,
Where Desolation keeps his empty court.
No bloom of spring, o'er all the thirsty vast,
Nor spiry grass is found; but sands instead
In steril hills, and rough rocks rising grey.

A land of fears! where visionary forms,
Of griesly spectres from air, flood, and fire,
Swarm: and before them speechiess Horrour stalks!
Here, night by night, beneath the starless dusk,
The secret hag and sorcerer unblest
Their sabbath hold, and potent spells compose,
Spoils of the violated grave: and now,
Late, at the hour that severs night from morn,
When sleep has silenc'd every thought of man,
They to their revels fall, infernal throng:
And as they mix in circling dance, or turn
To the four winds of Heaven with haggard gaze;
Shot streaming from the bosom of the north,
Opening the hollow gloom, red meteors blaze,
To lend them light, and distant thunders roll,
Heard in low murmurs through the lowering sky.

From these sad scenes, the waste abodes of Death,
With devious wing, to fairer climes remote
Southward I stray; where Caucasus in view,
Bulwark of nations, in broad eminence
Upheaves from realm to realm a hundred hills,
On from the Caspian to the Euxine stretch'd,
Pale-glittering with eternal snows to Heaven.
From this chill steep, which midnight's highest
shades
[woods,
Scarce climb to darken, rough with murmuring
Imagination travels with quick eye

Unbounded o'er the globe, and wondering views
Her rolling seas and intermingled isles;
Her mighty continents out-stretch'd immense,
Where Europe, Asia, Afric, of old fame,
Their regions numberless extend: and where
To furthest point of west, Columbus late,
Through untry'd oceans borne to shores unknown,
Moor'd his first keel adventurous, and beheld
A new, a fair, a fertile world arise!
But nearer scenes of happy rural view,
Green dale, and level down, and bloomy hill,
The Muse's walk, on which the Sun's bright eye
Propitious looks, invite her willing step.
Here see, around me smiling, myrtle groves,
And mountains crown'd with aromatic woods
Of vegetable gold, with vales amidst,
Lavish of flowers and fragrance; where soft Spring,
Lord of the year, indulges to each field
The fanning breeze, live spring, and sheltering grove.
In these blest plains, a spacious city spreads
Its round extent magnificent, and seems

The seat of empire. Dazzling in the sky,
With far-seen blaze her towery structures shine,
Elaborate works of art! each opening gate
Sends forth its thousands: Peace and Plenty round
Environ her. In each frequented school
Learning exalts his head: and Commerce pours
Into her arms a thousand foreign realms.
How fair and fortunate! how worthy all
Of lasting bliss secure! Yet all must fail,

Of this fair city, down her buildings sink!
Sinks the full pride her ample walls enclos'd,
In one wild havoc crash'd, with burst beyond
Heaven's loudest thunder! Uproar unconceiv'd!
Image of Nature's general frame destroy'd!

How greatly terrible, how dark and deep
The purposes of Heaven! At once o'erthrown,
White age and youth, the guilty and the just,
O, seemingly severe ! promiscuous fall.

O'erturn'd and lost-nor shall their place be found. Reason, whose daring eye in vain explores

A sullen calm unusual, dark and dead,
Arises inauspicious o'er the heavens.

The beamless Sun looks wan; a sighing cold
Winters the shadow'd air; the birds on high,
Shrieking, give sign of fearful change at hand:
And now, within the bosom of the globe,
Where sulphur stor'd, and nitre peaceful slept,
For ages, in their subterranean bed, [streams,
Ferments th' approaching tempest. Vapoury
Inflammable, perhaps by winds sublim'd,
Their deadly breath apply. Th' enkindled mass,
Mine fir'd by mine in train, with boundless rage,
With horrour unconceiv'd, disploded bursts
Its central prison-Shook from shore to shore,
Reels the broad continent with all its load,
Hills, forests, cities. The lone desert quakes:
Her savage sons howl to the thunder's groan,
And lightning's ruddy glare: while from beneath,
Deaf distant roarings, through the wide profound,
Rueful are heard, as when Despair complains.

Gather'd in air, o'er that proud capital,
Frowns an involving cloud of gloomy depth,
Casting dun night and terrour o'er the heads
Of her inhabitants. Aghast they stand,
Sad-gazing on the mournful skies around;
A moment's dreadful silence! Then loud screams
And eager supplications rend the skies.

Lo, crowds on crowds, in hurry'd stream along,
From street to street, from gate to gate roll'd on,
This, that way burst in waves, by horrour wing'd
To distant hill or cave: while half the globe,
Her frame convulsive rocking to and fro,
Trembles with second agony. Upheav'd
In surges, her vext surface rolls a sea.
Ruin ensues: towers, temples, palaces,
Flung from their deep foundations, roof on roof
Crush'd horrible, and pile on pile o'erturn'd,
Fall total-In that universal groan,
Sounding to Heaven, expir'd a thousand lives,
O'erwhelm'd at once, one undistinguish'd wreck!
Sight full of fate! up from the centre torn,
The ground yawns horrible a hundred mouths,
Flashing pale flames-down through the gulfs pro-
found,

Screaming, whole crowds of every age and rank,
With hands to Heaven rais'd high imploring aid,
Prone to th' abyss descend; and o'er their heads
Earth shuts her ponderous jaws. Part lost in night
Return no more: part on the wafting wave,
Borne through the darkness of th' infernal world,
Far distant rise, emerging with the flood;
Pale as ascending ghosts cast back to day,
A shuddering band! Distraction in each eye
Stares wildly motionless: they pant, they catch
A gulp of air, and grasp with dying aim
The wreck that drives along, to gain from Fate,
Short interval! a moment's doubtful life.
For now Earth's solid sphere asunder rent
With final dissolution, the huge mass
Fails undermin'd-down, down th' extensive seat

The fearful providence, confus'd, subdued
To silence and amazement, wit due praise
Acknowledges th' Almighty, and adores
His will unerring, wisest, justest, best!

The country mourns around with alter'd look.
Fields, where but late the many-colour'd Spring
Sat gaily drest, amid the vernal breath
Of roses, and the song of nightingales,
Soft-warbled, silent languish now and die.
Rivers ingulf'd their ample channels leave
A sandy tract; and goodly mountains, hurl'd.
In whirlwind from their seat, obstruct the plain
With rough encumbrance; or through depths of earth
Fall ruinous, with all their woods immers'd.

Sulphureous damps of dark and deadly power,
Steam'd from th' abyss, fly secret over-head,
Wounding the healthful air; whence foul disease,
Murrain and rot, in tainted herds and flocks:
In man sore sickness, and the lamp of life
Dimm'd and diminish'd; or more fatal ill
Of mind, unsettling reason overturn'd.
Here into madness work'd, and boiling o'er
Outrageous fancies, like the troubled sea
Foaming out mud and filth: here downward sunk
To folly, and in idle musing wrapt;
Now chasing with fond aim the flying cloud;
Now numbering up the drops of falling rain.
A while the fiery spirit in its cell
Insidious slumbers, till some chance unknown,
Perhaps some rocky fragment from the roof
Detach'd, and roll'd with rough collusion down
Its echoing vault, strikes out the fatal spark
That blows it into rage. Shakes Earth again,
Wide through her eptrails torn. To all sides flash'd,
The flames bear downward on the central deep,
Immeasurable source, whence Ocean fills

His numerous seas, and pours them round the globe.
The liquid orb, through all its dark expanse,
In dire commotion boils, and, bursting way
Up through th' unsounded bottoms of the main,
Where never tempest ruffled, lifts the deeps,
At once, in billowy mountains to the sky,
With raving violence. And now their shores,
Rebellowing to the surge, they swallow fierce,
O'erswelling mound and cliff: now swift and strange,
With refluent wave retreating, leave the beach
A naked waste of sands-Meantime, behold!

Yon neighbouring Mountain, rising bleak and bare,
Its double top in steril ashes hid,
But green around its base with oil and wine,
Gives sign of storm and desolation near:
Storehouse of fate! from whose infernal womb,
With fiery minerals and metallic ore
Pernicious fraught, ascends eternal smoke:
Now wavering loose in air; now borne on high,
A dusky column heightening to the Sun!
Imagination's eye looks down dismay'd
The steepy gulf, pale-flaming and profound,
With hourly tumult vext, but now incens'd
To sevenfold fury. First, discordant sounds,

That radiance beyond measure, on the Sun
Pour'd out transcendent! those keen-flashing rays
Thrown round his state, and to yon worlds afar
Supplying days and seasons, life and joy!
Such virtue he, the Majesty of Heaven,
Brightness original, all-bounteous king,

Hath to his creature lent, and crown'd his sphere
With matchless glory. Yet not all alike
Resplendent in these liquid regions pure,
Thick mists, condensing, darken into spots,
And dim the day. Whence that malignant light,
When Cæsar bled, which sadden'd all the year
With long eclipse. Some at the centre rise
In shady circles, like the Moon beheld
From Earth, when she her unenlighten'd face
Turns thitherward opaque: a space they brood
In congregated clouds; then breaking float
To all sides round. Dilated some and dense,
Broad as Earth's surface each, by slow degrees
Spread from the confines of the light along,
Usurping half the sphere, and swim obscure
On to its adverse coast; till there they set,
Or vanish scatter'd: measuring thus the time,
That round its axle whirls the radiant orb.

[charms,

Fairest of beings! first-created light!
Prime cause of beauty! for from thee alone,
The sparkling gem, the vegetable race,
The nobler worlds that live and breathe, their
The lovely hues peculiar to each tribe,
From thy unfailing source of splendour draw!
In thy pure shine, with transport I survey
This firmament, and these her rolling worlds,
Their magnitudes, and motions: those how vast!
How rapid these! with swiftness unconceiv'd,
From west to east in solemn pomp revolv'd,
Unerring, undisturb'd; the Sun's bright train,
Progressive through the sky's light fluent borne
Around their centre. Mercury the first,
Near bordering on the day, with speedy wheel
Flies swiftest on, inflaming where he comes,
With sevenfold splendour, all his azure road.
Next Venus to the westward of the Sun,
Full orb'd her face, a golden plain of light,
Circles her larger round. Fair morning-star!
That leads on dawning day to yonder world,
The seat of man, hung in the heavens remote,
Whose northern hemisphere, descending, sees
The Sun arise; as through the zodiac roll'd,
Full in the middle path oblique she winds
Her annual orb: and by her side the Moon,
Companion of her flight, whose solemn beams,
Nocturnal, to her darken'd globe supply
A softer day-light; whose attractive power
Swells all her seas and oceans into tides,
From the mid-deeps o'erflowing to their shores.
Beyond the sphere of Mars, in distant skies,
Revolves the mighty magnitude of Jove,
With kingly state, the rival of the Sun.
About him round, four planetary moons,
On Earth with wonder all night long beheld,
Moon above moon, his fair attendants, dance.
These, in th' horizon, slow-ascending climb
The steep of Heaven, and, mingling in soft flow
Their silver radiance, brighten as they rise.
Those opposite roll downward from their noon
To where the shade of Jove, outstretch'd in length
A dusky cone immense, darkens the sky
Through many a region. To these bounds arriv'd,
A gradual pale creeps dim o'er each sad orb,
Fading their lustre; till they sink involv'd

In total night, and disappear eclips❜d.
By this, the sage, who, studious of the skies,
Heedful explores these late-discover'd worlds,
By this observ'd, the rapid progress finds
Of light itself: how swift the headlong ray
Shoots from the Sun's height through unbounded
space,

At once enlightening air, and Earth and Heaven.
Last, outmost Saturn walks his frontier-round,
The boundary of worlds; with his pale moons,
Faint-glimmering through the darkness night has
thrown,

Deep-dy'd and dead, o'er this chill globe forlorn:
An endless desert, where extreme of cold
Eternal sits, as in his native seat,

On wintry hills of never-thawing ice!

Such Saturn's earth; and yet ev'n here the sight,
Amid these doleful scenes, new matter finds
Of wonder and delight! a mighty ring,
On each side rising from th' horizon's verge,
Self-pois'd in air, with its bright circle round
Encompasseth his orb. As night comes on,
Saturn's broad shade, cast on its eastern arch,
Climbs slowly to its height: and at th' approach
Of morn returning, with like stealthy pace
Draws westward off; till through the lucid round,
In distant view th' illumin'd skies are seen.

Beauteous appearance! by th' Almighty's hand
Peculiar fashion'd.-Thine these noble works,
Great, universal Ruler! Earth and Heaven
Are thine, spontaneous offspring of thy will,
Seen with transcendent ravishment sublime,
That lifts the soul to thee! a holy joy,
By reason prompted, and by reason swell'd
Beyond all height-for thou art infinite!
Thy virtual energy the frame of things
Pervading actuates: as at first thy hand
Diffus'd through endless space this limpid sky,
Vast ocean without storm, where these huge globes
Sail undisturb'd, a rounding voyage each;
Observant all of one unchanging law.
Simplicity divine! by this sole rule,
The Maker's great establishment, these worlds
Revolve harmonious, world attracting world
With mutual love, and to their central Sun
All gravitating: now with quicken'd pace
Descending tow'rd the primal orb, and now
Receding slow, excursive from his bounds.

This spring of motion, this hid power infus'd
Through universal nature, first was known
To thee, great Newton! Britain's justest pride,
The boast of human race; whose towering thought,
In her amazing progress unconfin'd,
From truth to truth ascending, gain'd the height
Of science, whither mankind from afar
Gaze up astonish'd. Now beyond that height,
By death from frail mortality set free,

A pure intelligence he wings his way
Through wondrous scenes, new-open'd in the world
Invisible, amid the general quire

Of saints and angels, rapt with joy divine,
Which fills, o'erflows, and ravishes the soul!
His mind's clear vision from all darkness purg'd,
For God himself shines forth immediate there,
Through those eternal climes, the frame of things,
In its ideal harmony, to him
Stands all reveal'd.-

But how shall mortal wing
Attempt this blue profundity of Heaven,
Unfathomable, endless of extent !

Where unknown suns to unknown systems rise,
Whose numbers who shail tell? stupendous host!
In flaming millions through the vacant hung,
Sun beyond sun, and world to world unseen,
Measureless distance, unconceiv'd by thought!
Awful their order; each the central fire

Of his surrounding stars, whose whirling speed,
Solemn and silent, through the pathless void,
Nor change, nor errour knows. But, their ways,
By reason, bold adventurer, unexplor'd,
Instructed can declare! What search shall find
Their times and seasons! their appointed laws,
Peculiar! their inhabitants of life,

And of intelligence, from scale to scale
Harmonious rising and in fix'd degree;
Numberless orders, each resembling each,

Yet all diverse!-Tremendous depth and height
Of wisdom and of power, that this great whole
Fram'd inexpressible, and still preserves,
An infinite of wonders!-Thou, supreme,
First, Independent Cause, whose presence fills
Nature's vast circle, and whose pleasure moves,
Father of human kind! the Muse's wing
Sustaining guide, while to the heights of Heaven,
Roaming th' interminable vast of space,
She rises, tracing thy almighty hand
In its dread operations. Where is now

The seat of mankind, Earth? where her great scenes
Of wars and triumphs? empires fam'd of old,
Assyrian, Roman? or of later name,

Peruvian, Mexican, in that new world,
Beyond the wide Atlantic, late disclos'd?

Incredible to tell! thick, vapoury mists,
From every shore exhaling, mix obscure
Innumerable clouds, dispreading slow,

And deepening shade on shade; till the faint globe,
Mournful of aspect, calls in all his beams.
Millions of lives, that live but in his light,
With horrour see, from distant spheres around,
The source of day expire, and all his worlds
At once involv'd in everlasting night!

Such this dread revolution: Heaven itself,
Subject to change, so feels the waste of years.
So this cerulian round, the work divine

Of God's own hand, shall fade; and empty night
Reign solitary, where these stars now roll
From west to east their periods: where the train
Of comets wander their eccentric ways,
With infinite excursion, through th' immense
Of ether, traversing from sky to sky
Ten thousand regions in their winding road,
Whose length to trace imagination fails!
Various their paths; without resistance all
Through these free spaces borne: of various face;
Enkindled this with beams of angry light,
Shot circling from its orb in sanguine showers:
That, through the shade of night, projecting huge,
In horrid trail, a spire of dusky. flame,
Embody'd mists and vapours, whose fir'd mass
Keen vibrates, streaming a red length of air.
While distant orbs, with wonder and amaze,
Mark its approach, and night by night alarm'd
Its dreaded progress watch, as of a foe
Whose march is ever fatal; in whose train

Where is their place?-Let proud Ambition pause, Famine, and War, and desolating Plague,

And sicken at the vanity that prompts

His little deeds-With Earth, those nearer orbs,
Surrounding planets, late so glorious seen,
And each a world, are now for sight too small;
Are almost lost to thought. The Sun himself,
Ocean of flame, but twinkles from afar,
A glimmering star amid the train of night!
While in these deep abysses of the sky,
Spaces incomprehensible, new suns,

Crown'd with unborrow'd beams, illustrious shine;
Arcturus here, and here the Pleiades,
Amid the northern host: nor with less state,
At sumless distance, huge Orion's orbs,
Each in his sphere refulgent, and the noon
Of Syrius, burning through the south of Heaven.
Myriads beyond, with blended rays, inflame
The milky way, whose stream of vivid light,
Pour'd from innumerable fountains round,
Flows trembling, wave on wave, from sun to sun,
And whitens the long path to Heaven's extreme:
Distinguish'd tract! But as with upward flight,
Soaring, I gain th' immensurable steep,
Contiguous stars, in bright profusion sown
Through these wide fields, all broaden into suns,
Amazing, sever'd each by gulfs of air,
In circuit ample as the solar heavens.

From this dread eminence, where endless day,
Day without cloud abides, alone and fill'd
With holy horrour, trembling I survey
Now downward through the universal sphere
Already past; now up to the heights untry'd,
And of th' enlarging prospect find no bound!
About me on each hand new wonders rise
In long succession; here pure scenes of light,
Dazzling the view; here nameless worlds afar,
Yet undiscover'd there a dying Sun,

Grown dim with age, whose orb of flame extinct,

Each on his pale horse rides; the ministers
Of angry Heaven, to scourge offending worlds!

But lo! where one, from some far world return'd,
Shines out with sudden glare through yonder sky,
Region of darkness, where a Sun's lost globe,
Deep overwhelm'd with night, extinguish'd lies.
By some hid power attracted from his path,
Fearful commotion! into that dusk tract,
The devious comet, steep descending, falls
With all his flames, rekindling into life
Th' exhausted orb: and swift a flood of light
Breaks forth diffusive through the gloom, and spreads
In orient streams to his fair train afar
Of moving fires, from night's dominion won,
And wondering at the morn's unhop'd return.
In still amazement lost, th' awaken'd mind
Contemplates this great view, a Sun restor'd
With all his worlds! while thus at large her flight
Ranges these untrac'd scenes, progressive borne
Far through ethereal ground, the boundless walk
Of spirits, daily travellers from Heaven;
Who pass the mystic gulf to journey here,
Searching th' Almighty Maker in his works
From worlds to worlds, and, in triumphant quire
Of voice and harp, extolling his high praise.

Immortal natures! cloth'd with brightness round,
Empyreal, from the source of light effus'd,
More orient than the noon-day's stainless beam.
Their will unerring; their affections pure,
And glowing fervent warmth of love divine,
Whose object God alone: for all things else,
Created beauty, and created good,
Illusive all, can charm the soul no more.
Sublime their intellect, and without spot,
Enlarg❜d to draw Truth's endless prospect in,
Ineffable, eternity and time;

The train of beings, all by gradual scale