Where dwelt the gentleft children of the fun?
What all that Afric's golden rivers roll,
Her odorous woods, and thining ivory ftores?
Ill-fated race! the foftening arts of peace,
Whate'er the humanizing Mufes teach;
The godlike wisdom of the temper'd breast;
Progreffive truth, the patient force of thought;
Investigation calm, whofe filent powers
Command the world; the light that leads to Heaven;
Kind equal rule, the government of laws,
And, all-protecting freedom, which alone
Suftains the name and dignity of Man :
These are not theirs. The parent-fun himself
Seems o'er this world of flaves to tyrannize;
And, with oppreffive ray, the rofeat bloom
Of beauty blafting, gives the gloomy hue,
And feature grofs: or worse, to ruthlefs deeds,
Mad jealoufy, blind rage, and fell revenge,
Their fervid fpirit fires. Love dwells not there,
The foft regards, the tenderness of life,
The heart-fhed tear, th' ineffable delight
Of fweet humanity: thefe court the beam
Of milder climes; in felfith fierce defire,
And the wild fury of voluptuous fenfe,
There loft. The very brute creation there
This rage partakes, and burns with horrid fire.
Lo! the green ferpent, from his dark abode,
Which when imagination fears to tread,
At noon forth-iffuing, gathers up his train
In orbs immenfe, then, darting out anew,
Seeks the refreshing fount; by which diffus'd,
He throws his folds: and while, with threatning
And deathful jaws erect, the monfter curls [tongue,
His flaming creft, all other thirst appal'd,
Or fhivering flies, or check'd at distance ftands, 895
Nor dares approach. But ftill more direful he,
The fmall clofe lurking minifter of fate,
Whofe high-concocted venom thro' the veins
A rapid lightning darts, arresting swift
The vital current. Form'd to humble Man,
This child of vengeful Nature! There, fublim'd
To fearless luft of blood, the favage race
Roam, licens'd by the fhading hour of guilt,
And foul misdeed, when the pure day has thut
His facred eye. The tyger darting fierce,
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom'd:
The lively thining leopard, fpeckled o'er
With many a fpot, the beauty of the wafte;
And, fcorning all the taming arts of Man,
The keen hyena, felleft of the fell.
Thefe, rufhing from th' inhofpitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted ifles,
That verdant rife amid the Lybian wild,
Innumerous glare around their fhaggy king,
Majestic, ftalking o'er the printed fand :
And, with imperious and repeated roars,
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks
Croud near the uardian fwain; the nobler herds,
Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease,
They ruminating lie, with horror hear
The coming rage. Th' awaken'd village starts;
And to her flattering breaft the mother strains
Her thoughtless infant. From the pyrate's den,
Or ftern Morocco's tyrant fang efcap'd,
The wretch half withes for his bonds again:
While, uproar all, the wilderness refounds,
From Atlas eaftward to the frighted Nile.
Unhappy he who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he fits,
And views the main that ever toils below;
Still fondly forming in the fartheft verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim difcover'd, dropping from the clouds;
At evening, to the fetting fun he turns
Her Cato following thro' Numidian wilds:
Difdainful of Campania's gentle plains,
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helplefs; while the wonted roar is up,
And hifs continual thro' the tedious night.
Yet here, even here, into thefe black abodes
Of monsters, unappal'd, from ftooping Rome,
And guilty Cæfar, Liberty retir'd,
And all the green delights Aufonia pours;
When for them the must bend the fervile knee,
Aud fawning take the fplendid robber's boon.
Nor ftop the terrors of those regions here. Commiffion'd demons oft, angels of wrath, Let loofe the raging elements. Breath'd hot From all the boundless furnace of the sky, And the wide glittering waste of burning fand, A fuffocating wind the pilgrim fmites With inftant death. Patient of thirst and toil, Son of the defart ! even the camel feels, Shot thro' his wither'd heart, the fiery blaft. Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad, Sallies the fudden whirlwind. Strait the fands, Commov'd around, in gathering eddies play: Nearer and nearer ftill they darkening come; Till with the general all-involving ftorm Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arife: And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown, Or funk at night in f.d disastrous fleep Beneath defcending hills, the caravan Is buried deep. In Cairo's crouded freets, Th' impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca faddens at the long delay.
But chief at fea, whofe every flexile wave Obeys the blast, the aerial tumults fwells. In the dread ocean, undulating wide, Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,
The circling Typhon, whirl'd from point to point Exhaufting all the rage of all the fky,
And dire Ecnephia reign. Amid the heavens, 975
Falfely ferene, deep in a cloudy † speck
Comprefs'd, the mighty tempeft brooding dwells:
Of no regard, fave to the skilful eye,
Fiery and foul, the fmall prognoftic hangs
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Mufters its force. A faint deceitful calm,
* Typhon and Ecnephia, names of particular forms or burricanes known only between the tropics.
+ Called by failors the Ox-Eye, being in appearance at firft no bigger. A fluttering
A fluttering gale, the demon fends before,
To tempt the fpreading fail. Then down at once,
Precipitant, defcends a mingled mass
Of roaring winds, and flame, and ruthing floods,
In wild amazement fix'd the failor ftands.
Art is too flow by rapid fate opprefs'd,
His broad-wing'd veffel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bofom of the black abyfs.
With fuch mad feas the daring || Gama fought,
For many a day, and many a dreadful night, 991
Inceffant lab'ring round the ftormy Cape;
By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst
Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerg'd
The rifing world of trade: the Genius, then,
Of Navigation, that, in hopeless floth,
Had flumber'd on the vast Atlantic deep,
For idle ages, ftarting, heard at last
The Lufitanian prince; who, Heav'n-infpir'd,
To love of ufeful glory rous'd mankind,
And in unbounded Commerce mix'd the world.
Increasing ftill the terrors of thefe ftorms,
His jaws horrific arm'd with three-fold fate,
Here dwells the direful fhark. Lur'd by the fcent
Of steaming crouds, of rank difeafe and death,
Behold! he tufhing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the fhip along;
And, from the partners of that cruel trade,
Which fpoils unhappy Guinea of her fons,
Demands his fhare of prey; demands themfelves.
'The ftormy, fates defcend: one death involves 1011
Tyrants and flaves; when straight, theirmangled limbs
Crufhing at once, he dyes the purple feas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.
When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains 1015
Flooded immenfe, looks out the joyless fun,
Vafco de Gama, the firft who failed round Africa, by the Cape of Good Hope; to the Eaft-Indies.
* Don Henry, third fon to John the firft, king of Portugal. His ftrong genius to the difcovery of new countries was the chief fource of all the modern improvements in navigation.
And draws the copious fteam; from swampy fens,
Where putrefaction into life ferments,
And breathes deftructive myriads; or from woods,
Impenetrable fhades, receffes foul,
In vapours rank, and blue corruption wrapt,
Whofe gloomy horrors yet no defperate foot
Has ever dar'd to pierce; then, wafteful, forth
Walks the dire Power of peftilent disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend, 1025
Sick Nature blafting, and to heartless woe,
And feeble defolation, cafting down
The towering hopes and all the pride of Man.
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd,
The British fire. You, gallant Vernon, faw 1030
The miferable scene; you, pitying, faw,
To infant-weakness funk the warrior's arm;
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghaftly form,
The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye
No more with ardour bright: you heard the groans
Of agonizing fhips, from thore to fhore; 1036
Heard, nightly plung'd amid the fullen waves,
The frequent corfe; while on each other fix'd,
In fad prefage, the blank affiftants feem'd,
Silent, to afk, whom Fate would next demand, 1040
What need I mention those inclement skies,
Where, frequent o'er the fickening city, Plague,
"The fierceft child of Nemefis divine,
Defcends? From Ethiopia's poifon'd woods,
From ftifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields
With locuft armies putrefying heap'd,
5 This great deftroyer fprung. Her awful rage.
The brutes efcape: Man is her deftin'd prey,
Intemperate Man! and, o'er his guilty domes,
She draws a clofe incumbent cloud of death; 1050
Uninterrupted by the living winds,
Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze; and ftain'd
With many a mixture by the fun, fuffus'd
Of angry afpect. Princely wifdom then,
Thefe are the caufes fuppofed to be the first origin of the Plague, in Dr. Mead's elegant book on that Jubje
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