THERE was a time when Ætna's filent fire
Slept unperceived, the mountain yet entire;
When, confcious of no danger from below,
She towered a cloud-capt pyramid of snow.
No thunders shook with deep intestine sound
The blooming groves, that girdled her around.
Her unctuous olives, and her purple vines
(Unfelt the fury of those bursting mines)
The peasant's hopes, and not in vain, assured,
In peace upon her floping fides matured.
When on a day, like that of the last doom,
A conflagration labouring in her womb,
She teemed and heaved with an infernal birth,
That shook the circling feas and folid earth.
Dark and voluminous the vapours rise,
And hang their horrors in the neighbouring skies,
While through the ftygian veil, that blots the day,
In dazzling ftreaks the vivid lightnings play.
But oh! what muse, and in what powers of fong,
Can trace the torrent as it burns along?
Havoc and devaftation in the van,
It marches o'er the proftrate works of man.
Vines, olives, herbage, forefts disappear,
And all the charms of a Sicilian year.
Revolving seasons, fruitless as they pass,
See it an uninformed and idle mass;
Without a foil to invite the tiller's care,
Or blade, that might redeem it from despair.
Yet time at length (what will not time achieve?)
Clothes it with earth, and bids the produce live.
Once more the spiry myrtle crowns the glade,
And ruminating flocks enjoy the shade.
Oh blifs precarious, and unfafe retreats,
Oh charming paradise of thort-lived sweets!
The felf-fame gale, that wafts the fragrance round,
Brings to the diftant ear a fullen found:
Again the mountain feels the imprisoned foe,
Again pours ruin on the vale below.
Ten thousand fwains the wafted fcene deplore,
That only future ages can reftore.
Ye monarchs, whom the lure of honour draws, Who write in blood the merits of your cause, Who strike the blow, then plead your own defence, Glory your aim, but juftice your pretence,
Behold in Ætna's emblematic fires
The mischiefs your ambitious pride inspires!
Faft by the ftream, that bounds your juft domain,
And tells you were ye have a right to reign,
A nation dwells, not envious of your throne,
Studious of peace, their neighbours', and their own.
Ill-fated race! how deeply muft they rue
Their only crime, vicinity to you!
The trumpet founds, your legions swarm abroad,
Through the ripe harvest lies their deftined road;
At every flep beneath their feet they tread
The life of multitudes, a nation's bread!
Earth feems a garden in its loveliest dress
Before them, and behind a wilderness.
Famine, and peftilence, her firft-born son,
Attend to finish what the sword begun;
And echoing praises, such as fiends might earn,
And folly pays, resound at your return.
A calm fucceeds-but plenty, with her train
Of heart felt joys, fucceeds not foon again,
And years of pining indigence must show
What fcourges are the gods that rule below.
Yet man, laborious man by flow degrees,
(Such is his thirft of opulence and ease)
Plies all the finews of induftrious toil,
Gleans up the refufe of the general spoil,
Rebuilds the towers, that smoked upon the plain, And the fun gilds the fhining fpires again.
Increafing commerce and reviving art Renew the quarrel on the conquerors part; And the fad leffon must be learned once more, That wealth within is ruin at the door. What are ye, monarchs, laurelled heroes, fay, But Ætnas of the suffering world ye sway? Sweet nature, ftripped of her embroidered robe, Deplores the wafted regions of her globe; And ftands a witness at truth's awful bar, To prove you there, deftroyers as ye are.
Oh place me in some heaven-protected isle,
Where peace, and equity, and freedom fmile;
Where no volcano pours his fiery flood,
No crefted warrior dips his plume in blood;
Where power fecures what industry has won;
Where to fucceed is not to be undone;
A land that diftant tyrants hate in vain,
In Britain's ifle, beneath a George's reign!
THE GIFT OF MY COUSIN ANN BODHAM.
OH that those lips had language! Life has paffed
With me but roughly fince I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine-thy own sweet smiles I see,
The fame, that oft in childhood folaced me;
Voice only fails, elfe, how diftin&t they fay,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Bleft be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me ftill the fame.
Faithful remembrancer of one fo dear,
Oh welcome guest, though unexpected here!
Who biddeft me honour with an artless fong,
Affectionate, a mother loft fo long.
I will obey, not willingly alone,
But gladly, as the precept were her own:
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