1

Of jealous Abyffinia boldly pierce.
Thou art no ruffian, who beneath the mark
Of social commerce com'ft to rob the r wealth ;
No holy Fury thou, blaspheming Heaven,
With confecrated steel to stab their peace, 745
And thro' the land, yet red from civil wounds,
To spread the purple tyranny of Rome.
Thoui, like the harmless bee, may'ft freely range,
From mead to mead bright with exalted Mowers,
From jasmine grove to grove, may'st wander gay,
Thro' palmy shades and aromatic woods, 751
That grace the plains, invest the peopled hills,
And up the more than Alpine mountains wave.
There on the breezy fummit, spreading fair,
For niany a league; or on stupendous rocks, 755
That from the fun-redoubling valley lift,
Cool to the middle air, their lawny tops ;
Where palaces, and fanes, and villas rise;
And gardens smile around, and cultur'd fields ;
And fountains guth; and careless herds and focks
Securely Atray; a world within itself, 761
Disdaining all assault : there let me draw
Ethereal soul, there drink reviving gales,
Profusely breathing from the spicy groves,
And vales of fragrance; there at distance hear 765
The roaring floods, and cataracts, that sweep
From disembowel'd earth the virgin gold ;
And o'erche varied landskip, restless, rove,
Fervent with life of every fairer kind:
A land of wonders ! which the fun still eyes 770
With ray dired, as of the lovely realm
Inamour'd, and delighting there to dwell.

How chang'd the icene! In blazing height of noon,
The fun, oppress’d, is plung'd in thickest gloom.
Still horror reigns, a dreary twilight round, 775
Of struggling night and day malignant mix'd.
For to the hot equator crouding falt,
Where, highly rarify'd, the yielding air
Admits their stream. incessant vapours roll,
Amazing clouds on clouds continual heap'd; 780
Os whipla tempe Auous by the guffy wind,
Or filent borne along, heavy, and flow,

785

809

With the big stores of Iteaming ocelos chargid,
Meantime, amid these upper seas, condens'd
Around the cold aërial mountain's brow,
And by conflicting winds together dathid,
The Thunder holds his black tremendous throne:
From cloud to cloud the rending Lightnings rage;
Till, in the furious elemental war
Diflolv'd, the whule precipitated mass

750 Unbroken foods and solid torrents pours.

The treasures these, hid from the bounded search
Of ancient knowledge; whence, with annual poinfo
Rich king of floods ! o'erflows the swelling Nile.
From his two Springs, in Gojam's sunny realm, 795
Pure-welling out, he thro' the lueid lake
Of fair Dambea rolls his infant Atream,
There, by the Naiads nurs’d, he sports away
His playful youth, amid the fragrant illes,
That with unfading verdure smile around.
Ambitious, thence the manly river breaks ;
And gathering many a flood, and copious fed
With all the mellowed treasures of ihe sky,
Winds in progressive majesty along:
Thro’ splendid kingdoms now devolves his maze,
Now wanders wild o er solitary tracts

806
Of life-deserted sand; till g'ad to quit
The joyless desart, down the Nubian rocks
From thundering steep to steep, be pours

his

urn, And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave., 810

His brother Niger too, and all the floods
In which the full-formed maids of Afric lave
Their jeity limbs; and all that from the trat
Of woody mountains (tretch'd through gorgeous Ind:
Fall on Cormandel's coast, or Malabar ;

815
From* Menam's orient stream, chat nightly thines
Withi insect-lamps, to where Auror. Theds
On Ihdus' smiling banks the rofy shower:
All, at this bounteous seafon, ope their urns,
And pour untoiling harvest o'er the land. 820

* The river ibat runs tbro' Siam ; on wbose banks a paft multitude of those insects called Fire-flies make a beautiful appearance in tbe nighi.

No

Nor less thy world, Columbus, drinks, Yefreshid,
The lavish moisture of the melting year.
Wide o'er his ifles, the branching Oronoque
Rolls a brown deluge; and the native drives
Te dwell aloft on life-fufficing trees,

825
At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms.
Swell’d by a thousand streams, impetuous hurld
From all the roaring Andes, huge descends
The mighty *Orellana. Scarce the Muse
Dares stretch her wing o'er this enormous mass 830
Of rushing water; scarce the dares attempt
The sea-like Plata; to whose dread expanse,
Continuous depth, and wondrous length of course,
Our floods are rills. With unabated force,
In fileat dignity they sweep along,

835
And traverle reálms unknown, and blooming wilds,
And fruitful desarts, worlds of folitude,
Where the sun smiles and seasons reem in vain,
Unseen, and unenjoyed. Forsaking thựse,
O'er peopled plains they fair diffusive flow, 840
And many a nation feed, and circle safe,
In their fcft bosom, many a happy ille;
The seat of blameless Pan, yet undisturbid
By christian crimes and Europe's cruel fons.
Thus pouring on they proudly seek the deep,
Whose vanquish'd tide, recoiling from the shock,
Yields to this liquid weight of half the globe ;
And ocean trembles for his green domain.
.:But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth?
This gay profufion of luxurious bliss ?
This pomp of Nature ? what their balmy meads,
Their powerful herbs, and Cetes void of pain ?
By vagrant birds dispers’d, and wafting winds,
What their unplanted fruits ? What the cool draughts,
Th' ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health, 855
Their foreits yield ? Their toiling insects what,
Their filky pride, and vegetable robes ?
Ah! what avail their fatal treasures, hid
Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth,
Golconda's gems, and sad Potofi's mines;

860

845

850

The river of tbe Amazons,

To

Wherc

875

880

Where dwelt the gentlest children of the fun ?
What all that Afric's golden rivers roll,
Her odorous woods, and thining ivory stores ?
Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace,
Whate'er the humanizing iMuscs teach; 865
The godlike wisdom of the temper'd breast;
Progreflive truth, the patient force of thought;
Investigacion calm, whose filent powers
Command the world; the light that leads to Heaven;
Kind equal rule, the government of laws, 870
And, all-protecting freedom, which alone
Sustains the name and dignity of Man :
These are not theirs. The parent-sun himself
Seems o'er this world of flaves to tyranı ize;
And, with oppressive ray, the roscat bloom
Of beauty blasting, gives the gloomy hue,
And feature gross: or worse, to ruthless seeds,
Mad jealousy, blind rage, and fell revenge,
Their fervid spirit fires. Love dwells Aot there,
The soft regards, the tenderness of life,
The heart-thed tear, th' ineffable delight
Of fweet humanity: these court the beam
Of milder climes; in selfish fierce defire,
And the wild fury of voluptuous fenfe,
There lost. Tre very brute creation there
This rage partakes, and burns with horrid fire.

Lo! the green serpent, from his dark abode,
Which when imagination fears to trcard,
At noon forth-issuing, gathers up his train
In orbs immenfe, then, darting out anew, 890
Seeks the refreshing fount; by which diffus'd,
He throws his folds: and while, with threatning
And deathful jaws erect, the monster curls [tongue,
His faming crest, all other thirst appal'a,
Or thivering flies, or check'd at distance Itands, 895
Nor dares approach. But still more direful he,
The small close lurking minister of fate,
Whose high-concoted venom chro' the veins
A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift
The vital current. Form'd to humble Man,

900
This child of vengeful Nature! There, sublimi
To fearless luft of blood, che lavage race

Roam,

885

C 5

here

Roam, licens'd by the fhading hour of guilt,
And foul misdeed, when the pure day has thut
His sacred eye. The tyger darting fierce, go5
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom'd :
The lively thining leopard, Speckled o'er
With many a spot, the beauty of the waste;
And, scorning all the taming arts of Man,
The keen hyena, fellest of the fell.

910
Thesc, rushing from th' in hospitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted ifles,
That verdant rise amid the Lybian wild,
Ionumerous glare around their thaggy king,
Majestic, ftalking o'er the printed land: 915
And, with imperious and repeated roars,
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks
Croud near the warjian swain; the nobler herds,
Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease,
They ruminating lie, with horror hear 920
The coming rage. Th’ awaken'd village starts;
And to her flattering breast the mother Itrains
Her thoughtless infant. From the pyrate's den,
Or stern Morocco's tyrant fang escap'd,
The wretch half wishes for his bonds again: 925
While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds,
From Allas eastward to the frighted Nile.

Unhappy hel who from the first of joys,
Societs, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day, 930
Sad on the jutting eminence he fits,
And views the main that ever coils below;
Still fondir forming in the fart lieft verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim difcover'd, dropping from the clouds ;
Ar evening, to the setting fun he turns 936
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinlys helpfefs; while the wonted roar is up,
And hiss contiitual thro' the tedious night.
Yet hert, even here, into chefe black abodes
Of monsters, unagpald, from stooping Rome,
And guilty Cæsar, Liberty retir’d,
Her Cato following thro' Numidian wilds:
Dildainful of Campania's gentle plains,

And

946