LITMIR.BIZ

      Of struggling night and day malignant mix'd.

      For to the hot equator crowding fast,

      Where, highly rarefied, the yielding air

      Admits their stream, incessant vapors roll,

      Amazing clouds on clouds continual heap'd;

      Or whirl'd tempestuous by the gusty wind,

      Or silent borne along, heavy and slow,

      With the big stores of steaming oceans charg'd.

      Meantime, amid these upper seas, condens'd

      Around the cold aerial mountain's brow,

      And by conflicting winds together dash'd,

      The thunder holds his black tremendous throne;

      From cloud to cloud the rending lightnings rage;

      Till, in the furious elemental war

      Dissolv'd, the whole precipitated mass

      Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours.

      The treasures these, hid from the bounded search

      Of ancient knowledge; whence, with annual pomp,

      Rich king of floods! o'erflows the swelling Nile.

      From his two springs, in Gojam's sunny realm,

      Pure-welling out, he through the lucid lake

      Of fair Dembia rolls his infant stream.

      There, by the naiads nurs'd, he sports away

      His playful youth, amid the fragrant isles

      That with unfading verdure smile around.

      Ambitious, thence the manly river breaks;

      And gathering many a flood, and copious fed

      With all the mellow'd treasures of the sky,

      Winds in progressive majesty along:

      Through splendid kingdoms now devolves his maze;

      Now wanders wild o'er solitary tracts

      Of life-deserted sand: till glad to quit

      The joyless desert, down the Nubian rocks,

      From thundering steep to steep, he pours his urn.

      And Egypt joys beneath the spreading wave.

      His brother Niger too, and all the floods

      In which the full-form'd maids of Afric lave

      Their jetty limbs; and all that from the tract

      Of woody mountains stretch'd through gorgeous Ind

      Fall on Cormandel's coast, or Malabar;

      From Menam's orient stream, that nightly shines

      With insect lamps, to where aurora sheds

      On Indus' smiling banks the rosy shower;

      All, at this bounteous season, ope their urns,

      And pour untoiling harvest o'er the land.

      Nor less thy world, Columbus, drinks, refresh'd

      The lavish moisture of the melting year.

      Wide e'er his isles, the branching Orinoque

      Rolls a brown deluge; and the native drives

      To dwell aloft on life-sufficing trees —

      At once his dome, his robe, his food, and arms.

      Swell'd by a thousand streams, impetuous hurl'd

      From all the roaring Andes, huge descends

      The mighty Orellana. Scarce the muse

      Dares stretch her wing o'er this enormous mass

      Of rushing water; scarces she dares attempt

      The sea-like Plata; to whose dread expanse,

      Continuous depth, and wondrous length of course,

      Our floods are rills. With unabated force,

      In silent dignity they sweep along;

      And traverse realms unknown, and blooming wilds,

      And fruitful deserts – worlds of solitude,

      Where the sun smiles and Seasons teem in vain,

      Unseen and unenjoyed. Forsaking these,

      O'er peopled plains they fair-diffusive flow,

      And many a nation feed, and circle safe,

      In their soft bosom, many a happy isle;

      The seat of blameless Pan, yet undisturbed

      By Christian crimes and Europe's cruel sons.

      Thus pouring on they proudly seek the deep,

      Whose vanquish'd tide, recoiling from the shock,

      Yields to this liquid weight of half the globe;

      And ocean trembles for his green domain.

      But what avails this wondrous waste of wealth,

      This gay profusion of luxurious bliss,

      This pomp of Nature? what their balmy meads.

      Their powerful herbs, and Ceres void of pain?

      By vagrant birds dispers'd, and wafting winds.

      What their unplanted fruits? what the cool draughts,

      The ambrosial food, rich gums, and spicy health,

      Their forests yield? their toiling insects what,

      Their silky pride, and vegetable robes?

      Ah! what avail their fatal treasures, hid

      Deep in the bowels of the pitying earth,

      Golconda's gems, and sad Potosi's mines?

      Where dwelt the gentlest children of the sun!

      What all that Afric's golden rivers roll,

      Her odorous woods, and shining ivory stores?

      Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace,

      Whate'er the humanizing muses teach;

      The godlike wisdom of the tempered breast;

      Progressive truth, the patient force of thought;

      Investigation

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