Their ample shade o'er Niger's yellow stream, And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave; Or mid the central depth of blackening woods, High-raised in solemn theatre around, Leans the huge elephant: wisest of brutes! O truly wise! with gentle might endowed, Tho' powerful, not destructive! Here he sees Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth, And empires rise and fall; regardless he Of what the never-resting race of Men Project thrice-happy! could he 'scape their guile, Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps;
Or with his towery grandeur swell their state, The pride of kings! or else his strength pervert, And bid him rage amid the mortal fray, Astonished at the madness of mankind.
Wide o'er the winding umbrage of the floods,
Like vivid blossoms glowing from afar,
Thick-swarm the brighter birds. For Nature's hand, 735 That with a sportive vanity has decked
The plumy nations, there her gayest hues Profusely pours.
* But, if she bids them shine,
Arrayed in all the beauteous beams of day, Yet frugal still, she humbles them in song. Nor envy we the gaudy robes they lent Proud Montezuma's realm, whose legions cast A boundless radiance waving on the sun, While Philomel is ours; while in our shades, Thro' the soft silence of the listening night,
* In all the regions of the torrid zone, the birds, though more beautiful in their plumage, are observed to be less melodious than ours.
The sober-suited songstress trills her lay. But come, my Muse, the desert-barrier burst, A wild expanse of lifeless sand and sky : And, swifter than the toiling caravan, Shoot o'er the vale of Sennar; ardent climb
The Nubian mountains, and the secret bounds Of jealous Abyssinia boldly pierce.
Thou art no ruffian, who beneath the mask
Of social commerce comest to rob their wealth;
No holy Fury thou, blaspheming HEAVEN,
With consecrated steel to stab their peace, And thro' the land, yet red from civil wounds, To spread the purple tyranny of Rome. Thou, like the harmless bee, may'st freely range, From mead to mead, bright with exalted flowers, From jasmine grove to grove, mayʼst wander gay, Thro' palmy shades and aromatic woods, That grace the plains, invest the peopled hills, And up the more than Alpine mountains wave. There on the breezy summit, spreading fair For many a league; or on stupendous rocks, That from the sun-redoubling valley lift, Cool to the middle air, their lawny tops; Where palaces, and fanes, and villas rise;
And gardens smile around, and cultured fields;
And fountains gush; and careless herds and flocks
Securely stray; a world within itself,
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 The roaring floods, and cataracts, that sweep
From disembowelled earth the virgin gold; And o'er the varied landscape, restless, rove, Fervent with life of every fairer kind : A land of wonders! which the sun still eyes With ray direct, as of the lovely realm Enamoured, and delighting there to dwell.
How changed the scene! In blazing height of noon,
The sun, oppressed, is plunged in thickest gloom. Still Horror reigns, a dreary twilight round, Of struggling night and day malignant mixt. For to the hot equator crowding fast, Where, highly rarefied, the yielding air Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll, Amazing clouds on clouds continual heaped; Or whirled tempestuous by the gusty wind, Or silent borne along, heavy, and slow,
With the big stores of steaming oceans charged. Meantime, amid these upper seas, condensed Around the cold aërial mountain's brow,
And by conflicting winds together dashed,
The thunder holds his black tremendous throne : From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage; Till, in the furious elemental war
Dissolved, the whole precipitated mass
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours.
The treasures these, hid from the bounded search Of ancient knowledge; whence, with annual pomp, Rich king of floods! o'erflows the swelling Nile. From his two springs, in Gojam's sunny realm, Pure-swelling out, he thro' the lucid lake Of fair Dambea rolls his infant-stream. There, by the Naiads nursed, he sports away His playful youth, amid the fragrant isles,
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 the sky,
Winds in progressive majesty along :
Thro' splendid kingdoms now devolves his maze, Now wanders wild o'er solitary tracts
Of life-deserted sand; till, glad to quit
The joyless desert, down the Nubian rocks, From thundering steep to steep, he pours his urn, And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave.
His brother Niger too, and all the floods In which the full-formed maids of Afric lave Their jetty limbs; and all that from the tract Of woody mountains stretched thro' gorgeous Ind Fall on Coromandel's coast, or Malabar;
From * Menam's orient stream, that nightly shines With insect-lamps, to where Aurora sheds
On Indus' smiling banks the rosy shower.
All, at this bounteous season, ope their urns,
And-pour untoiling harvest o'er the land.
Nor less thy world, COLUMBUS, drinks, refreshed
The lavish moisture of the melting year.
Wide o'er his isles, the branching Oronoque
Rolls a brown deluge; and the native drives
To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees,
At once his dome, his robe, his food and arms. Swelled by a thousand streams, impetuous hurled From all the roaring Andes, huge descends
* The river that runs thro' Siam ; on whose banks a vast multitude of those insects called Fire-flies make a beautiful appearance in the night.
The mighty Orellana. Scarce the Muse Dares stretch her wing o'er this enormous mass Of Rushing water; scarce she dares attempt. The Sea-like Plata; to whose dread expanse, Continuous depth, and wonderous length of course, Our floods are rills. With unabated force, In silent dignity they sweep along,
And traverse realmas unknown, and blooming wilds, And fruitful desarts, worlds of solitude,
Where the sun smiles, and seasons teem in vain, Unseen and unenjoyed. Forsaking these. O'er peopled plains they far-diffusive flow, And many a nation feed, and circle safe, In their soft bosom, many a happy isle ;- The seat of blameless PAN, yet undisturbed By christian crimes, and Europe's cruel sons. Thus pouring on they proudly seek the deep, Whose vanquished 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 profusion of luxurious bliss ?
of nature? what their balmy meads
Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain? By vagrant birds dispersed, and wafting winds,
What their unplanted fruits? What the cool draughts, The ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health,
Their forests yield? Their toiling insects what, Their silky pride, and vegetable robes ? Ah! what avail their fatal treasures, hid Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth,
* The river of the Amazons.
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