And by the voice of all its elements

To preach the gen'ral doom*. When were the winds

Let flip with fuch a warrant to destroy?

When did the waves fo 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 forgone her usual rest.
Is it a time to wrangle, when the props
And pillars of our planet feem to fail,
And Nature with a dim and fickly eye
To wait the close of all? But grant her end
More distant, and that prophecy demands
A longer refpite, unaccomplish'd yet;

Alluding to the calamities at Jamaica.

Auguft 18, 1783.

Alluding to the fog that covered both Europe and Afia during the whole fum mer of 1783.

Still they are frowning fignals, and bespeak

Displeasure in his breast who fmites the earth
Or heals it, makes it languish or rejoice.

And 'tis but feemly, that, where all deserve
And ftand expos'd by common peccancy
To what no few have felt, there fhould be peace,
And brethren in calamity should love.

Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now
Lie fcatter'd where the fhapely column ftood.
Her palaces are duft. In all her streets

The voice of finging and the sprightly chord
Are filent. Revelry, and dance, and fhow
Suffer a fyncope and folemn pause;

While God performs upon the trembling stage

Of his own works his dreadful part alone.

How does the earth receive him?-With what figns

Of gratulation and delight, her king?

Pours fhe not all her choiceft fruits abroad,

Her sweetest flow'rs, her aromatic gums,

Difclofing paradife 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.

The hills move lightly, and the mountains smoke,

For he has touch'd them. From th' extremeft point Of elevation down into th' abyfs

His wrath is bufy, and his frown is felt.

The rocks fall headlong, and the vallies rife,

The rivers die into offenfive pools,

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

What folid was, by transformation strange,
Grows fluid; and the fixt and rooted earth,
Tormented into billows, heaves and fwells,
Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl
Sucks down its prey infatiable. Immenfe
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 fylvan scene
Migrates uplifted; and, with all its foil

Alighting in far diftant fields, finds out

A new poffeffor, and furvives 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

Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore
Refiftlefs. Never fuch a fudden flood,

Upridg'd fo high, and fent on fuch a charge,
Poffefs'd an inland fcene. Where now the throng
That prefs'd the beach, and, hafty to depart,
Look'd to the fea for fafety? They are gone,
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep-
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 terrors of the day that fets them free.

Who then, that has thee, would not hold thee faft,
Freedom! whom they that lose thee fo regret,

That ev'n a judgment, making way for thee,
Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy fake.

Such evil fin hath wrought; and fuch a flame Kindled in heaven, that it burns down to earth, And, in the furious inqueft that it makes

On God's behalf, lays waste his faireft works.
The very elements, though each be meant
The minifter of man, to serve his wants,
Confpire against him. With his breath he draws
A plague into his blood; and cannot use
Life's neceffary means, but he must die.

Storms rife t' o'erwhelm him: or, if stormy winds
Rife not, the waters of the deep fhall rise,

And, needing none affiftance of the storm,

Shall roll themselves afhore, and reach him there.