And by the voice of all its elements
To preach the gen'ral doom*. When were the winds Let flip with such a warrant to destroy ;
When did the waves fo haughtily o'erleap
Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry? Fires from beneath, and meteors † from above, Portentous, unexampled, unexplained,
Have kindled beacons in the skies, and th' old And crazy earth has had her shaking fits More frequent, and forgone her ufual rest. Is it a time to wrangle, when the props And pillars of our planet seem to fail, And Nature with a dim and fickly eye To wait the close of all? But grant her end More distant, and that prophecy demands A longer refpite, unaccomplish'd yet;
• Alluding to the calamities at Jamaica.
Alluding to the fog that covered both Europe and Afia during the whole fummer of 1783.
Still they are frowning fignals, and befpeak Displeasure in his breaft who fmites the earth Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice. And 'tis but feemly, that where all deferve And stand exposed by common peccancy To what no few have felt, there fhould be peace, And brethren in calamity fhould love.
Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now Lie scatter'd where the fhapely column stood. Her palaces are duft. In all her ftreets
The voice of finging and the sprightly chord Are filent. Revelry and dance and show Suffer a fyncope and folemn pause,
While God performs upon the trembling stage Of his own works, his dreadful part alone.
How does the earth receive him ?-With what figns Of gratulation and delight, her king?
Pours fhe not all her choiceft fruits abroad,
Her fweeteft flowers, her aromatic gums,
Disclosing paradife where'er he treads?
She quakes at his approach. Her hollow womb Conceiving thunders, through a thousand deeps And fiery caverns roars beneath his foot.
The hills move lightly and the mountains smoke, For he has touch'd them. From th' extremeft point Of elevation down into th' abyss,
His wrath is busy and his frown is felt.
The rocks fall headlong and the vallies rife,
The rivers die into offenfive pools,
And, charged with putrid verdure, breathe a gross
And mortal nuisance into all the air.
What folid was, by transformation strange
Grows fluid, and the fixt and rooted earth Tormented into billows heaves and fwells, Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl Sucks down its prey infatiable. Immense The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs And agonies of human and of brute Multitudes, fugitive on ev'ry fide,
And fugitive in vain. The fylvan scene Migrates uplifted, and with all its foil Alighting in far diftant fields, finds out A new poffeffor, and furvives the change. Ocean has caught the frenzy, and upwrought To an enormous and o'erbearing height, Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice
Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore Refiftlefs. Never such a sudden flood,
Upridged fo high, and fent on fuch a charge, Poffefs'd an inland fcene. Where now the throng That prefs'd the beach, and hafty to depart Look'd to the fea for fafety? They are gone, Gone with the refluent wave into the deep, A prince with half his people. Ancient tow'rs, And roofs embattled high, the gloomy fcenes Where beauty oft and letter'd worth consume Life in the unproductive shades of death, Fall prone; the pale inhabitants come forth, And, happy in their unforeseen release
From all the rigors of restraint, enjoy
The terrors of the day that fets them free.
Who then that has thee, would not hold thee faft Freedom! whom they that lofe thee, fo regret,
That ev'n a judgment making way for thee, Seems in their eyes, a mercy, for thy fake.
Such evil fin hath wrought; and fuch a flame Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth, And in the furious inqueft that it makes
On God's behalf, lays wafte his faireft works. The very elements, though each be meant The minifter of man, to ferve his wants, Confpire against him. With his breath, he draws A plague into his blood. And cannot use Life's neceffary means, but he must die.
Storms rife t' o'erwhelm him: or if ftormy winds
Rife not, the waters of the deep fhall rife,
And needing none affiftance of the storm,
Shall roll themselves afhore, and reach him there.
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