The landscape such, inspiring perfect ease, Where Indolence (for so the wizard hight) Close hid his castle 'mid embowering trees, That half shut out the beams of Phoebus bright, And made a kind of chequered day and night; Meanwhile, unceasing at the massy gate, Beneath a spacious palm, the wicked wight Was placed; and, to his lute, of cruel fate
And labour harsh complained, lamenting man's estate.
The doors, that knew no shrill alarming bell, Ne cursed knocker, plied by villain's hand, Self-opened into halls, where, who can tell What elegance and grandeur wide expand; The pride of Turkey and of Persia land? Soft quilts on quilts, carpets on carpets spread, And couches stretched around in seemly band And endless pillows rise to prop the head;
So that each spacious room was one full swelling bed.
Each sound too here to languishment inclined, Lulled the weak bosom, and induced ease: Aërial music in the warbling wind,
At distance rising oft, by small degrees, Nearer and nearer came, till oe'r the trees It hung, and breathed such soul-dissolving airs, As did, alas! with soft perdition please: Entangled deep in its enchanting snares, The listening heart forgot all duties and all cares.
A certain music, never known before, Here lulled the pensive, melancholy mind Full easily obtained. Behoves no more, But sidelong, to the gentle waving wind, To lay the well tuned instrument reclined; From which, with airy flying fingers light, Beyond each mortal touch the most refined, The god of winds drew sounds of deep delight: Whence, with just cause, the harp of olus it hight
Near the pavilions where we slept, still ran Soft tinkling streams, and dashing waters fell, And sobbing breezes sighed, and oft began (So worked the wizard) wintry storms to swell, As heaven and earth they would together mell, At doors and windows, threatening, seemed to call The demons of the tempest growling fell,
Yet the least entrance found they none at all; Whence sweeter grew our sleep, secure in massy pall.
And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams, Raising a world of gayer tinct and grace; O'er which were shadowy cast elysian gleams, That played, in waving lights, from place to place, And shed a roseate smile on nature's face, Not Titian's pencil e'er could so array, So fleece with clouds the pure ethereal space; Ne could it e'er such melting forms display, As loose on flowery beds all languishingly lay.
SUMMER IN THE TORRID ZONE.
To fearless lust of blood, the savage race Roam, licensed by the shading hour of guilt And foul misdeed, when the pure day has shut His sacred eye. The tiger darting fierce Impetuous on the prey his glance has doomed: The lively-shining leopard, speckled oe'r With many a spot, the beauty of the waste; And, scorning all the taming arts of man, The keen hyena, fellest of the fell. These, rushing from the inhospitable woods Of Mauritania, or the tufted isles,
That verdant rise amid the Lybian wild, Innumerous glare around their shaggy king, Majestic, stalking o'er the printed sand; And, with imperious and repeated roars, Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks Crowd near the guardian swain; the nobler herds, Where round their lordly bull, in rural ease, They ruminating lie, with horror hear
The coming rage. The awakened village starts; And to her fluttering breast the mother strains Her thoughtless infant. From the pirate's den, Or stern Morocco's tyrant fang escaped, The wretch half wishes for his bonds again. While, uproar all, the wilderness resounds, From Atlas eastward, to the frighted Nile.
Unhappy he! who, from the first of joys, Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day, Sad, on the jutting eminence he sits,
And views the main that ever toils below; Still fondly forming in the farthest verge, Where the round ether mixes with the wave, Ships, dim-discovered, dropping from the clouds: At evening, to the setting sun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart Sinks helpless.
Nor stop the terrors of these regions here. Commissioned demons oft, angels of wrath, Let loose the raging elements. Breathed hot From all the boundless furnace of the sky, And the wide glittering waste of burning sand, A suffocating wind the piglrim smites
With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil, Son of the desert! even the camel feels, Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blast. Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad, Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands, Conmoved around, in gathering eddies play. Nearer and nearer still they darkening come; Till, with the general all-involving storm Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise, And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown, Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep, Beneath ascending hills, the caravan Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain, And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
The stag too, singled from the herd, where long He ranged, the branching monarch of the shade, Before the tempest drives. At first, in speed He, sprightly, puts his faith; and, roused by fear, Gives all his swift aërial soul to flight;
Against the breeze he darts, that way the more To leave the lessening murderous cry behind: He bursts the thickets, glances through the glades, And plunges deep into the wildest wood: If slow, yet sure, adhesive to the track, Hot-steaming, up behind him come again The inhuman rout, and from the shady depth Expel him, circling through his every shift. He sweeps the forest oft, and sobbing sees The glades, mild opening to the golden day; Where, in kind contest, with his butting friends He wont to struggle, or his loves enjoy. Oft in the full-descending flood he tries To lose the scent, and lave his burning sides: Oft seeks the herd; the watchful herd, alarmed, With selfish care avoid a brother's wo. What shall he do? His once so vivid nerves, So full of buoyant spirits, now no more Inspire the course; but fainting breathless toil, Sick, seizes on his heart: he stands at bay; And puts his last weak refuge in despair. The big round tears run down his dappled face; He groans in anguish; while the growling pack, Blood-happy, hang at his fair jutting chest,
And mark his beauteous chequered sides with gore,
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