EPISTLE VI.

ADDRESSED TO

TWO LADIES,

AT THEIR RETURN FROM VIEWING THE MINES NEAR

WHITEHAVEN.

BY J. DALTON, D. D.

WELCOME to light, advent'rous Pair!
Thrice welcome to the balmy air
From sulph'rous damps in caverns deep,
Where subterranean thunders sleep,
Or, wak'd with dire Aetnean sound
Bellow the trembling mountain round,
Till to the frighted realms of day

Thro' flaming mouths they force their way;
From bursting streams, and burning rocks,
From nature's fierce intestine shocks;
From the dark mansions of despair,
Welcome once more to light and air!

But why explore that world of night Conceal'd till then from female sight! Such grace and beauty why confine One moment to a dreary mine?

Was it because your curious eye The secrets of the earth would spy, How intervein'd rich minerals glow, How bubbling fountains learn to flow?

Or rather that the sons of day Already own'd your rightful sway, And therefore, like young Ammon, You Another world would fain subdue ?

What tho' sage Prospero attend, While You the cavern'd hill descend, Tho', warn'd by him, with bended head You shun the shelving roof, and tread With cautious foot the rugged way, While tapers strive to mimic day? Tho' he with hundred gates and chains The Daemons of the mine restrains, To whom their parent, jealous Earth, To guard her hidden stores gave birth, At which, while kindred Furies sung, With hideous joy pale Orcus rung; Tho' boiling with vain rage they sit Fix'd to the bottom of the pit, While at his beck the Spirits of air With breath of heaven their taints repair;

Or if they seek superior skies,

Thro' ways assign'd by him they rise,

Troop after troop at day expire

In torments of perpetual fire;

Tho' he with fury-quelling charms
The whole Infernal Host disarms,
And summons to your guarded sides
A squadron of Aetherial Guides,
You still, when we together view
The dreadful enterprize and You,
The public care and wonder go
Of all above and all below,

For at your presence toil is o'er, The restless miner works no more. Nor strikes the flint, nor whirls the steel Of that strange spark-emitting wheel, Which, form'd by Prospero's magic care, Plays harmless in the sulphurous air, Without a flame diffuses light, And makes the grisly cavern bright. His task secure the miner plies, Nor hears Tartarian tempests rise; But quits it now, and hastes away To this great Stygian holiday,

Agape the sooty collier stands,
His axe suspended in his hands,
His Aethiopian teeth the while
"Grin horribly a ghastly smile,"
To see two Goddesses so fair
Descend to him from fields of air.
Not greater wonder seiz'd th' abode
Of gloomy Dis, infernal God,

With pity when th' Orphean lyre

Did every iron heart inspire,

Sooth'd tortur'd ghosts with heavenly strains,

And respited eternal pains.

But on You move thro' ways less steep

To loftier chambers of the deep,

Whose jetty pillars seem to groan

Beneath a ponderous roof of stone.
Then with increasing wonder gaze,

The dark inextricable maze,

Where cavern crossing cavern meets,

(City of subterraneous streets!)

Where in a triple story end

Mines that o'er mines by flights ascend.

But who in order can relate

What terror still your steps await?
How issuing from the sulphurous coal
Thick Acherontic rivers roll?

How in close center of these mines,
Where orient morning never shines,
Nor the wing'd Zephyrs e'er resort,
Infernal darkness holds her court?

How, breathless, with faint pace, and slow,
Thro' her grim sultry realm You go,

Till purer rising gales dispense

Their cordials to the sickening sense?

Your progress next the wondering Muse Thro' narrow galleries pursues ;

Where Earth the miner's way to close,
Did once the massy rock oppose:

In vain, his daring axe he heaves,

Tow'rds the black vein a passage cleaves:
Dissever'd by the nitrous blast,

The stubborn barrier bursts at last.
Thus urg'd by Hunger's clamorous call,
Incessant Labor conquers all.

In spacious rooms once more You tread, Whose roofs with figures quaint o'erspread Wild Nature paints with various dyes, With such as tinge the evening skies.

A different scene to this succeeds: The dreary road abruptly leads Down to the cold and humid caves, Where hissing fall the turbid waves. Resounding deep thro' glimmering shades The clank of chains your ears invades. Thro' pits profound from distant day, Scarce travels down light's languid ray. High on huge axis heav'd, above, See balanc'd beams unweary'd move! While pent within the iron womb Of boiling caldrons pants for room, Expanded steam, and shrinks, or swells, As cold restrains, or heat impells,