Each on his pale horse rides; the minifters
Of angry heaven, to scourge offending worlds!
But lo! where one, from fome far world re-
turn'd,

Shines out with fudden glare through yonder sky,
Region of darkness, where a fun's loft globe,
Deep overwhelm'd with night, extinguish'd lies.
By fome hid power attracted from his path,
Fearful commotion! into that dusk tract,
The devious comet, fteep defcending, falls
With all his flames, rekindling into life
Th' exhausted orb: and swift a flood of light
Breaks forth diffufive through the gloom, and
fpreads

In orient streams to his fair train afar

Of moving fires, from night's dominion won,
And wondering at the morn's unhop'd return.
In still amazement loft, th' awaken'd mind
Contemplates this great view, a fun restor’d
With all his worlds! while thus at large her flight
Ranges these untrac'd scenes, progreflive borne
Far through ethereal ground, the boundless walk
Of spirits, daily travellers from heaven;
Who país the mystic gulf to journey here,
Searching th' Almighty maker in his works
From worlds to worlds, and, in triumphant quire
Of voice and harp, extolling his high praife.
Immortal natures! cloth'd with brightnefs
round,

Empyreal, from the fource of light effus'd,
More orient than the noon-day's stainless beam.
Their will unerring; their affections pure,
And glowing fervent warmth of love divine,
Whole object God alone: for all things elfe,
Created beauty, and created good,
Illufive all, can charm the foul no more.
Sublime their intellect, and without spot,
Enlarg'd to draw truth's endless prospect in,
Ineffable, eternity and time;

The train of beings, all by gradual scale
Defcending, fumlets orders and degrees;

Th' unfounded depth, which mortals dare not try,

Of God's perfections; how these heavens firft fprung

From unprolific night; how mov'd and rul'd
In number, weight and measure; what hid laws
Inexplicable, guide the moral world.

Active as flame, with prompt obedience all The will of heaven fulfil: fome his fierce wrath Bear through the nations, peftilence, and war: His copious goodness fome, life, light, and bliss, To thoufands. Some the fate of empires rule, Commiffion'd, fheltering with their guardian wings The pious monarch, and the legal throne.

Nor is the fovereign nor th' illuftrious great, Alone their care. To every leffening rank Of worth propitious, these bleft minds embrace With univerfal love, the juft and good, Wherever found; unpriz'd, perhaps unknown, Depreft by fortune, and with hate pursued, Or infult from the proud oppreffor's brow. Yet dear to heaven, and meriting the watch Of angels o'er his unambitious walk, At morn or eve, when nature's fairest face, Calmly magnificent, infpires the foul With virtuous raptures, prompting to forfake The fin-born vanities, and low purfuits, That bufy human kind; to view their ways With pity; to repay, for numerous wrongs, Meeknefs and charity. Or, rais'd aloft, Fir'd with ethereal ardour, to survey The circuit of creation, all these funs With all their worlds: and ftill from height to height,

By things created rifing, laft afcend

To that first caufe, who made, who governs all,
Fountain of being, felf-exiftent power,
All-wife, all-good, who from eternal age
Endures, and fills th' immenfity of space;
That infinite diffufion, where the mind
Conceives no limits; undistinguish'd void
Invariable, where no land-marks are,
No paths to guide imagination's flight.

CANTO I.

FAR in the watery wafte, where his broad wave
From world to world the valt Atlantic rolls,
On from the piny fhores of Labrador
To frozen Thule east, her airy height
Aloft to heaven remoteft Kilda lifts;
Laft of the fea-girt Hebrides, that guard,
In filial train, Britannia's parent-coalt.

Thrice happy land! though freezing on the verge
Of arctic fkies; yet, blameless still of arts
That polish to deprave, each fofter clime,
With fimple nature, fimple virtue bleft!
Beyond Ambition's walk: where never War
Uprear'd his fanguine #tandard; nor unheath'd,
For wealth or power, the defolating word.
Where luxury, loft fyren, who around
To thousand nations deals her nectar'd cup
Of pleafing bane, that foothes at once and kills,
Is yet a name unknown. But calm content
That lives to reafon; ancient faith that binds
The plain community of guileless hearts
In love and union; innocence of ill
Their guardian genius: theie, the powers that rule
This little world, to all its fous fecure
Man's happiett life; the foul terene and found
From paflion's rage, the body from difeafe.
Red on each cheek behold the rose of health;
Firm in each finew vigour's pliant spring,
By temperance brac'd to peril and to pain,
Amid the floods they ftem, or on the steep
Of upright rocks their ftraining steps furmount,
For food or paftime. Thele light up their morn,
And close their eve in flumbers iweetly deep,
Beneath the north, within the circling fwell
Of ocean's raging found.
But lait and beft,
What avarice, what ambition fhall not know,
True liberty is theirs, the heaven-fent gueft,
Who in the cave, or on th' uncultur'd wild,
With independence dwells; and peace of mind,
In youth, in age, their fun that never fets.

Daughter of heaven and nature, deign thy aid, Spontaneous mufe! O whether from the depth Of evening forest, brown with broadeft fhade; Or from the brow fublime of vernal Alp As morning dawns; or from the vale at noon, By fome loft ftream that flides with Liquid foot; Through bowery groves, where infpiration fits And listens to thy lore, aufpicious come! O'er thefe wild waves, o'er this unharbour'd shore, Thy wing high-hovering spread; and to the gale, The boreal tpirit breathing liberal round From echoing hill to hill, the lyre attune With anfwering cadence free, as beft befeems The tragic theme my plaintive verfe unfolds.

Here, good Aurelius---and a fcene more wild The world around, or deeper folitude, Affliction could not find---Aurelius here, By tate unequal and the crime of war Expell'd his native home, the facred vale That faw him bieft, now wretched and unknown, Wore out the flow remains of letting life In bitterness of thought: and with the furge, And with the founding ftorm, his murmurid Would often mix---Oit as remembrance fad Th' unhappy paft recall'd; a faithful wife,

moan,

Whom love first chofe, whom reafon long endear'd;
His foul's companion and his fofter friend;
With one fair daughter, in her roly prime,
Her dawn of opening charms, defencelets left
Within a tyrant's grafp! his foe profefs'd,
By civil madness, by intemperate zeal
For differing rites, embitter'd into hate,
And cruelty remorfelefs!--Thus he liv'd:
If this was life, to load the blast with fighs;
Hung o'er its edge, to fwell the flood with tears!.
At midnight hour; for midnight frequent heard
The lonely mourner, defolate of heart,
Pour all the husband, all the father forth
In unavailing anguish; stretch'd along
The naked beach; or fhivering on the clift,
Smote with the wintery pole in bitter storm,
Hail, fnow, and fhower, dark-drifting round his
[friend,

head.

Such were his hours; till time, the wretch's
Life's great phyfician, skill'd alone to clofe,
Where forrow long has wak'd, the weeping eye,
And from the brain, with baleful vapours black,
Each fullen fpectre chase, his balm at length,
Lenient of pain, through every fever'd pulie
With gentleft hand intus'd. A penfive calm
Arofe, but unaffur'd: as, after winds

Of ruffling wing, the fea fubfiding flow
Still trembles from the ftorm. Now Reafon first,
Her throne refuming, bid Devotion raise
To heaven his eye; and through the turbid mift,
By fenfe dark-drawn between, adoring own,
Sole arbiter of fate, one cause supreme,
All-juft, all-wife, who bids what still is beft,
In cloud or funshine; whofe fevereft hand
Wounds but to heal, and chaftens to amend.

Thus, in his botom, every weak excets,
The rage of grief, the fellness of revenge,
To healthful measure temper'd and reduc'd
By Virtue's hand; and in her brightening beam
Each error clear'd away, as fen-born fogs
Before th' afcending fun; through faith he lives
Beyond Time's bounded continent, the walks
Of Sin and Death. Anticipating heaven
In pious hope, he seems already there,
Sate on her facred fhore; and fees beyond,
In radiant view, the world of light and love,
Where Peace delights to dwell; where one fair

morn

Still orient fmiles, and one diffufive (pring,
That fears no ftorm and fhall no winter know,
Th' immortal year empurples. If a figh
Yet murmurs from his breaft; 'tis for the pangs
Those dearest names, a wife, a child must feel,
Still fuffering in his fate: 'tis for a toe,
Who, deaf himself to mercy, may of heaven
That mercy, when most wanted, aík in vain.
The fun now itation'd with the lucid Twins,
O'er every fouthern clime had pour'd profufe
The roly year; and in each pleafing hue,
That greens the leaf, or through the bloffom glows
With florid light, his fairest month array'd:
While Zephyre, while the filver-footed dews,
Her foft attendants, wide o'er field and grove
Fresh fpirit breathe, and shed perfuming balm,
Nor here, in this chill region, on the brow
Of winter's wafte dominion, is untelt
The ray ethereal, or unhail'd the rife,

Of her mild reign. From warbling vale and hill,
With wild-thyme flowering, betony, and balm,
Blue lavender and carmel's fpicy root,
Song, fragrance, health, ambroliate every breeze.
But, high above, the season full exerts
Its vernal force in yonder peopled rocks,
To whofe wild folitude, from worlds unknown,
The birds of paffage tranfmigrating come,
Unnumber'd colonies of foreign wing,
At Nature's fummons their aereal ftate
Annual to found; and in bold voyage steer,
O'er this wide ocean, through yon pathless sky,
One certain flight to one appointed shore :
By heaven's directive spirit, here to raise
Their temporary realm; and form fecure,
Where food awaits them copious from the wave,
And shelter from the rock, their nuptial leagues:
Each tribe apart, and all on tasks of love,
To hatch the pregnant egg, to rear and guard
Their helpless infants, piously intent.

Led by the day abroad, with lonely step,
And ruminating (weet and bitter thought,
Aurelius, from the western bay, his eye
Now rais'd to this amufive fcene in air,
With wonder mark'd; now caft with level ray
Wide o'er the moving wilderness of waves,
From pole to pole through boundless space diffus'd,
Magnificently dreadful! where, at large,
Leviathan, with each inferior name

Of fea-born kinds, ten thousand thousand tribes,
Finds endless range for pasture and for sport,
Amaz'd he gazes, and adoring owns
The hand Almighty, who its channell'd bed
Immeasurable funk, and pour'd abroad,
Fenc'd with eternal mounds, the fluid fphere;
With every wind to waft large commerce on,
Join pole to pole, confociate fever'd worlds,
And link in bonds of intercourfe and love
Earth's univerfal family. Now rofe
Sweet evening's folemn hour. The fun declin'd
Hung golden o'er this nether firmament:
Whofe broad cerulean mirror, calmly bright,
Gave back his beamy vifage to the sky
With fplendour undiminish'd; and each cloud,
White, azure, purple, glowing round his throne
In fair aërial landfcape. Here, alone
On earth's remotest verge, Aurelius breath'd
The healthful gale, and felt the smiling scene
With awe-mix'd pleafure, mufing as he hung
In filence o'er the billows hufl'd beneath.
Wheu lo! a found, amid the wave-worn rocks,
Deaf-murmuring rofe, and plaintive roll'd along
From cliff to cavern: as the breath of winds,
At twilight hour, remote and hollow heard
Through wintery pines, high-waving o'er the steep
Of fky-crown'd Apenine. The fea-pye ceas'd
At once to warble. Screaming from his neft
The fulmar foar'd, and fhot a westward flight
From fhore to fea. On came, before her hour,
Invading night, and hung the troubled sky
With fearful blackness round †. Sad ocean's face

A curling undulation shivery swept

From wave to wave: and now impetuous rofe,
Thick cloud and storm and ruin on his wing,
The raging fouth, and headlong o'er the deep
Fell horrible, with broad-defcending blaft.
Aloft, and fafe beneath a sheltering cliff,
Whofe mofs-grown fummit on the distant flood
Projected frowns, Aurelius stood appail'd:
His tunn'd ear fmote with all the thundering main!
His eye with mountains furging to the stars!
Commotion infinite. Where yon laft wave
Blends with the fky its foam, a fhip in view
Shoots fudden forth, steep-falling from the clouds:
Yet diftant feen and dim, till onward borne
Before the blast, each growing fail expands,
Each maft alpires, and all th' advancing frame
Bounds on his eye distinct. With sharpen'd ken
Its course he watches, and in awful thought
That power invokes, whofe voice the wild wind's
hear,

Whofe nod the furge reveres, to look from heaven,
And fave, who elfe must perish, wretched men,
In this dark hour, amid the dread abyss,
With fears amaz'd, by horrors compafs'd round.
But O, ill-omen'd, death-devoted heads!
For death bettrides the billow, nor your own,
Nor others' offer'd vows can stay the flight
Of inftant fate. And, lo! his fecret feat,
Where never fun-beam glimmer'd, deep amičk
A cavern's jaws voraginous and vast,
The ftormy genius of the deep forsakes:
And o'er the waves, that roar beneath his frowe,
Afcending baleful, bids the tempest spread,
Turbid and terrible with hail and rain,
Its blackeft pinion, pour its loudening blasts
In whirlwind forth, and from their lowest depth
Upturn the world of waters. Round and round
The tortur'd fhip, at his imperions call,
Is wheel'd in dizzy whirl: her guiding helm
Breaks fhort; her mafts in crashing ruin fall;
And each rent fail flies loose in diftant air.
Now, fearful moment! o'er the foundering hull,
Half ocean heav'd, in one broad billowy curve,
Steep from the clouds with horrid fhade impends---
Ah! fave them, heaven! it burfts in deluge down
With boundless undulation. Shore and iky
Rebellow to the roar. At once engulf'd,
Veflel and crew beneath its torrent sweep
Are funk, to rife no more. Aurelius wept:
The tear unbidden dew'd his hoary cheek.
He turn'd his step; he fled the fatal fcene,
And brooding, in fad filence, o'er the fight
To him alone difclos'd, his wounded heart
Pour'd out to heaven in fighs: Thy will be done.
Not mine, fupreme disposer of events!
But death demands a tear, and man muft feel
For human woes: the reft fubmiffion checks.

Not distant far, where this receding bay
Looks northward on the pole, a rocky arch
Expands its felf-pois'd concave; as the gate,
Ample, and broad, and pillar'd maffy-proof,
Of fome unfolding temple. On its height
Is heard the tread of daily-climbing flocks, food
That, o'er the green roof ipread, their fragrant
Untended crop. As through this cavern'd path,

• See Martin's voyage to St. Kilda, p. 20.

Involv'd in pensive thought Aurelius past,
Struck with fad echoes from the founding vault
Remurmur'd fhrill, he ftopt, he rais'd his head;
And faw th' affembled natives in a ring,
With wonder and with pity bending o'er
A shipwreck'd man. All motionless on earth
He lay. The living luftre from his eye,
The vermal hue extinguishd from his cheek:
And in their place, on each chill feature spread,
The fhadowy cloud and ghaftlinefs of death
With pale fuffufion fat. So looks the moon,
So faintly wan, through hovering mists at eve,
Grey autumn's train. Fast from his hairs diftill'd
The briny wave: and clofe within his grafp
Was clench'd a broken oar, as one who long
Had ftemm'd the flood with agonizing breaft,
And ftruggled ftrong for life. Of youthful prime
He feem'd, and built by nature's noblest hand;
Where bold proportion, and where foftening grace,
Mix'd in each limb, and harmonis'd his frame.

[fum'd

Yon whirling west of tempeft, led thee fafe;
That hand divine with grateful awe confefs,
With proftrate thanks adore. When thou, alas !
Waft number'd with the dead, and clos'd within
Th' unfathom'd gulf; when human hope was
fled,

Aurelius, from the breathless clay, his eye To heaven imploring rais'd: then, for he knew That life, within her central cell retir'd, May lurk unfeer, diminish'd but not quench'd, He bid transport it speedy through the vale, To his poor cell that lonely ftood and low, Safe from the north beneath a floping hill; An antique frame, orbicular, and rais'd On columns rude; its roof with reverend mofs Light-fhaded o'er; its front in ivy hid, That mantling crept aloft. With pious hand They turn'd, they chaf'd his frozen limbs, and The vapoury air with aromatic fmells: Then, drops of fovereign efficacy, drawn From mountain plants, within his lips infus'd. Slow, from the mortal trance, as men from dreams Of direful vifion, thuddering he awakes: While life, to fcarce-felt motion, faintly lifts His fluttering pulfe, and gradual o'er his cheek The rofy current wins its refluent way. Recovering to new pain, his eyes he turn'd Severe on heaven, on the surrounding hills With twilight dim, and on the crowd unknown Diffolv'd in tears around: then clos'd again, As loathing light and life. At length in founds Broken and eager, from his heaving breast Diftraction fpoke-down, down, with every fail. Mercy, fweet heaven!-Ha! now while ocean fweeps

And human help in vain---th' Almighty voice,
Then bade destruction spare, and bade the deep
Yield up its prey: that, by his mercy fav'd,
That mercy, thy fair life's remaining race,
A monument of wonder as of love,
May justify; to all the fons of men,
Thy brethren, ever prefent in their need.
Such praise delights him moft---
He hears me not.
Some secret anguish, some transcendent woe,
Sits heavy on his heart, and from his eyes,
Through the clos'd lids, now rolls in better stream!

In tempeft o'er our heads-My foul's last hope!
We will not part-help, help! yon wave, behold!
That fwells betwixt, has borne her from my fight.
O, for a fun to light this black abyss!
Gone-loft-for ever loft! He ceas'd. Amaze
And trembling on the pale affiftants fell:
Whom now, with greeting and the words of peace,
Aurelius bid depart. A pause enfued,
Mute, mournful, folemn. On the stranger's face
Obfervant, anxious, hung his fix'd regard:
Watchful his ear, each murmur, every breath,
Attentive feiz'd; now eager to begin
Confoling fpeech; now doubtful to invade
The facred filence due to grief fupreme.
Then thus at laft: 0 from devouring feas,
By miracle efcap'd if, with thy life,
Thy fenfe return'd, can yet difcern the hand
All-wonderful, that through yon raging fea,

Yet, fpeak thy foul, afflicted as thou art! For know, by mournful privilege 'tis mine, Myfelf moft wretched and in forrow's ways Severely train'd, to share in every pang The wretched feel; to footh the fad of heart; To number tear for tear, and groan for groan, With every fon and daughter of diftrefs. Speak then, and give thy labouring bosom vent: My pity is, my friendship fhall be thine; To ealm thy pain, and guide thy virtue back, Through reafon's paths, to happiness and heaven. The hermit thus: and, after some ad paufe Of mufing wonder, thus the man unknown.

What have I heard?---On this untravell'd fhore,
Nature's laft limit, hemm'd with oceans round
Howling and harbourlefs, beyond all faith
A comforter to find! whofe language wears
The garb of civil life; a friend, whose breast
The gracious meltings of fweet pity move!
Amazement all! my grief to filence charm'd
Is loft in wonder---but, thou good unknown,
If woes, for ever wedded to defpair,

That with no cure, are thine, behold in me
A meet companion; one whom earth and heaven
Combine to curfe; whom never future morn
Shall light to joy, nor evening with repofe
Defcending fhade---O, fon of this wild world!
From focial converse though for ever barr'd,
Though chill'd with endless winter from the pole,
Yet warm'd by goodness, form'd to tender fenfe
Of human woes, beyond what milder climes,
By fairer funs attemper'd, courtly boast;
O fay, did e'er thy breaft, in youthful life,
Touch'd by a beam from beauty all-divine,
Did e'er thy bofom her sweet influence own,
In pleafing tumult pour'd through every vein,
And panting at the heart, when first our eye
Receives impreffion! Then, as paffion grew,
Did heaven confenting to thy with indulge
That blifs no wealth can bribe, no power beftow,
That blifs of angels, love by love repaid?
Heart ftreaming full to heart and mutual flow
Of faith and friendship, tenderness and truth---
If thefe thy fate distinguish'd, thou wilt then,
My joys conceiving, image my defpair,
How total! how extreme! For this, all this,
Late my fair fortune, wreck'd on yonder flood,
Lies loft and bury'd there---O, awful heaven!
Who to the wind and to the whelming wave