To preach the gen'ral doom. When were the

winds

Let slip with such a warrant to destroy?
When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap

Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry?
Fires from beneath, and meteors' from above,
Portentous, unexampled, unexplain'd,

Have kindled beacons in the skies; and th' old

And crazy Earth has had her shaking fits
More frequent, and foregone her usual rest.
Is it a time to wrangle, when the props
And pillars of our planet seem to fail,
And Nature with a dim and sickly eye
To wait the close of all? But grant her end
More distant, and that prophecy demands
A longer respite, unaccomplish'd yet;

Still they are frowning signals, and bespeak

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6 Alluding to the fog, that covered both Europe and Asia during the whole summer of 1783.

Displeasure in His breast, who smites the Earth

Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.

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And 'tis but seemly, that, where all deserve

And stand expos'd by common peccancy

To what no few have felt, there should be peace,
And brethren in calamity should love.

Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now

Lie scatter'd, where the shapely column stood.
Her palaces are dust. In all her streets
The voice of singing and the sprightly chord
Are silent. Revelry, and dance, and show
Suffer a syncope and solemn pause;

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While God performs upon the trembling stage
Of his own works his dreadful part alone.
How does the Earth receive him?-with what signs
Of gratulation and delight her king?

Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad,
Her sweetest flow'rs, her aromatic gums,

Disclosing Paradise 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.

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The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke,

For he has touch'd them. From th' extremest point

Of elevation down into the abyss

His wrath is busy, and his frown is felt.

The rocks fall headlong, and the vallies rise,

The rivers die into offensive pools,

And, charg'd with putrid verdure, breathe a gross And mortal nuisance into all the air.

What solid was, by transformation strange,

Grows fluid; and the fix'd and rooted earth,
Tormented into billows, heaves and swells,
Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl
Sucks down it's prey insatiable. Immense
The tumult and the overthrow, the pangs

And agonies of human and of brute
Multitudes, fugitive on ev'ry side,

And fugitive in vain. The sylvan scene

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Migrates uplifted; and, with all it's soil

Alighting in far distant fields, finds out
A new possessor, and survives 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,

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Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore
Resistless. Never such a sudden flood,

Upridg'd so high, and sent on such a charge,
Possess'd an inland scene. Where now the throng,
That press'd the beach, and, hasty to depart,
Look'd to the sea for safety? They are gone,
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep- 120
A prince with half his people! Ancient tow'rs,
And roofs embattled high, the gloomy scenes,
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 rigours of restraint, enjoy

The terrours of the day, that sets them free.

Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee fast,
Freedom! whom they that lose thee so regret, 130

That e'en a judgment, making way for thee,
Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy sake.

Such evil Sin hath wrought; and such a flame Kindled in Heav'n, that it burns down to Earth, And in the furious inquest, that it makes

On God's behalf, lays waste his fairest works.
The very elements, though each be meant
The minister of man, to serve his wants,

Conspire against him. With his breath he draws

A plague into his blood; and cannot use
Life's necessary means, but he must die.

Storms rise t'o'erwhelm him; or, if

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stormy winds Rise not, the waters of the deep shall rise,

And, needing none assistance of the storm,

Shall roll themselves ashore, and reach him there.

The earth shall shake him out of all his holds,