Dashed in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.
Nor can the tortured wave here find repose:
But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks,
Now flashes o'er the scattered fragments, now
Aslant the hollow channel rapid darts;
And falling fast from gradual slope to slope,
With wild infracted course and lessened 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-ascending eagle soars,
With upward pinions, through the flood of day;
And, giving full his bosom to the blaze,
Gains on the sun; while all the tuneful race,
Smit by afflictive noon, disordered droop,
Deep in the thicket; or, from bower to bower
Responsive, force an interrupted strain.
The stock-dove only through the forest cooes,
Mournfully hoarse; oft ceasing from his plaint,
Short interval of weary woe! again
The sad idea of his murdered mate,
Struck from his side by savage fowler's guile,
Across his fancy comes: and then resouuds
A louder song of sorrow through the grove.
Beside the dewy border let me sit,
All in the freshness of the humid air:
There on that hollowed rock, grotesque and wild,
An ample chair moss-lined, and overhead
By flowering umbrage shaded; where the bee
Strays diligent, and with the extracted balm
Of fragrant woodbine loads his little thigh.
Now, while I taste the sweetness of the shade, While Nature lies around deep-lulled in noon, Now come, bold fancy, spread a daring flight, And view the wonders of the Torrid Zone: Climbs unrelenting! with whose rage compared, Yon blaze is feeble, and yon skies are cool.
See, how at once the bright effulgent sun, Rising direct, swift chases from the sky The short-lived twilight; and with ardent blaze Looks gayly fierce o'er all the dazzling air. He mounts his throne; but kind before him
Issuing 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 crowned
And barbarous wealth, that see, each circling
Returning suns and double seasons pass : Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines,
That on the high equator, ridgy, rise,
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-diffused,
A boundless deep immensity of shade.
Here lofty trees, to ancient song unknown,
The noble sons of potent heat and floods
Prone-rushing from the clouds, rear high to
heaven
Their thorny stems, and broad around them throw
Meridian gloom. Here, in eternal prime,
Unnumbered fruits of keen delicious taste
And vital spirit, drink, amid the cliffs
And burning sands that bank the shrubby vales,
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 reclined Beneath the spreading tamarind, that shakes, Fanned by the breeze, its fever-cooling fruit. Deep in the night the massy locust sheds, Quench my hot limbs; or lead me through the
Embowering endless, of the Indian fig;
Or thrown at gayer ease, on some fair brow,
Let me behold, by breezy murmurs cooled,
Broad o'er my head the verdant cedar wave,
And high palmettoes lift their graceful shade.
O, stretched amid these orchards of the sun,
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 slender
Low-bending, be the full pomegranate scorned;
Nor, creeping through the woods, the gelid race
Of berries. Oft in humble station dwells
Unboastful worth, above fastidious pomp.
Witness, thou best Auana, 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 ambrosial stores, and feast with
Jove!
From these the prospect varies. Plains im
Lie stretched below, interminable meads,
And vast savannas, where the wandering eye,
Unfixed, 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 embroidered robe to fiery brown,
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