Mine fir'd by mine in train, with boundless rage,
With horror unconceiv'd, disploded bursts
Its central prison-Shook from shore to shore,
Reels the broad continent with all its load,
Hills, forests, cities. The lone defert quakes:
Her favage fons howl to the thunder's groan,
And lightning's ruddy glare: while from beneath,
Deaf diftant roarings, through the wide profound,
Rueful are heard, as when Despair complains.
Gather'd in air, o'er that proud Capital,
Frowns an involving cloud of gloomy depth,
Cafting dun night and terror o'er the heads
Of her inhabitants. Aghaft they ftand,
Sad-gazing on the mournful skies around;
A monent's dreadful filence! Then loud fcreams
And
eager fupplications rend the skies.

Lo, crouds on crouds, in hurry'd ftream along,
From street to street, from gate to gate roll'd on,
This, that way burft in waves, by horror wing'd
To diftant hill or cave: while half the globe,
Her frame convulfive rocking to and fro,
Trembles with fecond agony. Upheav'd
In furges, her vext furface rolls a fea.
Ruin enfues: towers, temples, palaces,
Flung from their deep foundations, roof on roof
Crush'd horrible, and pile on pile o'erturn'd,
Fail total-In that universal groan,

Sounding to heaven, expir'd a thousand lives,
O'erwhelm'd at once, one undiftinguish'd wreck!

Sight full of fate! up from the centre torn,
The ground yawns horrible a hundred mouths,
Flashing pale flames-down through the gulphs profound,
Screaming, whole crouds of every age and rank,
With hands to heaven rais'd high imploring aid,
Prone to th' abyfs defcend; and o'er their heads
Earth shuts her ponderous jaws. Part loft in night
Return no more: part on the wafting wave,
Borne through the darkness of th' infernal world,
Far diftant rife, emerging with the flood;
Pale as afcending ghosts cast back to day,
A shuddering band! Distraction in each eye
Stares wildly motionlefs: they pant, they catch
A gulph of air, and grafp with dying aim
The wreck that drives along, to gain from fate,
Short interval a moment's doubtful life.
For now earth's folid sphere afunder rent
With final diffolution, the huge mafs

Fails undermin'd-down, down th' extenfive feat
Of this fair city, down her buildings fink!
Sinks the full pride her ample walls enclos'd,
In one wild havock crash'd, with burst beyond
Heaven's loudest thunder! Uproar unconceiv'd!
Image of Nature's general frame destroy'd!

How greatly terrible, how dark and deep
The purposes of heaven! At once o'erthrown,
White age and youth, the guilty and the just,
O, feemingly fevere! promifcuous fall.
Reason, whofe daring eye in vain explores
The fearful providence, confus'd, fubdued

T.

To filence and amazement, with due praise
Acknowledges th' Almighty, and adores
His will unerring, wifeft, justest, best!

The country mourns around with alter'd look.
Fields, where but late the many-colour'd Spring
Sat gaily dreft, amid the vernal breath
Of rofes, and the fong of nightingales,
| Soft-warbled, filent languish now and die.
Rivers engulph'd their ample channels leave
A fandy tract; and goodly mountains, hurl'd
In whirlwind from their feat, obftruct the plain.
With rough incumbrance; or through depths of earth
Fall ruinous, with all their woods immers'd.

Sulphureous damps of dark and deadly power,
Steam'd from th' abyss, fly secret over-head,
Wounding the healthful air; whence foul disease,
Murrain and rot, in tainted herds and flocks:
In man fore fickness, and the lamp of life
Dim'd and diminish'd; or more fatal ill
Of mind, unfettling reafon overturn'd.
Here into madnefs work'd, and boiling o'er
Outrageous fancies, like the troubled fea
Foaming out mud and filth: here downward funk
To folly, and in idle mufing wrapt;

Now chacing with fond aim the flying cloud;
Now numbering up the drops of falling rain.
A while the fiery Spirit in its cell
Infidious flumbers, till fome chance unknown,
Perhaps fome rocky fragment from the roof
Detach'd, and roll'd with rough collufion down

Its echoing vault, ftrikes out the fatal spark

That blows it into rage. Shakes earth again,
Wide through her entrails torn. To all fides flaf'd,
The flames bear downward on the central deep,
Immeasurable fource, whence ocean fills

His numerous feas, and pours them round the globe.
The liquid orb, through all its dark expanse,
In dire commotion boils; and bursting way
Up through th' unfounded bottoms of the main,
Where never tempeft ruffled, lifts the deeps,
At once, in billowy mountains to the sky,
With raving violence. And now their fhores,
Rebellowing to the furge, they swallow fierce,
O'erfwelling mound and cliff: now swift and strange,
With refluent wave retreating, leave the beach
A naked of fands wafte-Mean time, behold!

Yon neighbouring Mountain rifing bleak and bare, Its double top in fteril afhes hid,

But green around its base with ail and wine,
Gives fign of storm and desolation near:
Store-house of fate! from whofe infernal womb,
With fiery minerals and metallic ore
Pernicious fraught, afcends eternal smoke:
Now wavering loose in air; now borne on high,
A dusky column heightening to the fun!
Imagination's eye looks down difmay'd
The fteepy gulph, pale-flaming and profound,
With hourly tumult vext, but now incens'd
To fevenfold fury. First, difcordant founds,
As of a clamouring multitude enrag'd,

The dash of floods, and hollow howl of winds
Through wintery woods or cavern'd ruins heard,
Rife from the diftant depth where uproar reigns.
Anon, with black eruption, from its jaws,
A night of fmoke, thick-driving, wave on wave,
In ftormy flow, and cloud involving cloud,
Rolls furging forth, extinguishing the day;
With vollied fparkles mix'd, and whirling drifts
Of ftones and cinders rattling up the air.
Inftant, in one broad burst, a stream of fire,
Red-iffuing, floods the liemifphere around.
Nor paufe, nor reft: again the mountain groans,
Amazing, from its inmoft caverns shook :
Again, with loudening rage, intenfely fierce,
Difgorges pyramids of quivering flame,
Spire after fpire enormous, and torn rocks,
Flung out in thundering ruins to the sky.

But fee, in fecond pangs, the roaring hill
From forth its depth a cloudy pillar fhoots,
Gradual and vaft, in one afcending trunk
Of length immenfe, heav'd by the force of fire,
On its own bafe direct, aloft in air,

Beyond the foaring eagle's funward flight.
Still as it fwells, through all the dark extent,
With wonder feen! ten thousand lightnings play
In flash'd vibrations; and from height to height
Inceffant thunders roar. No longer now
Protruded by th' explofive breath below,
At once the fhadowy fummit breaks away
To all fides round, in billows broad and black,