As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood (fragment)

As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood,

   That crests its Head with clouds, beneath the flood

   Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank

   Of its wide base controls the fronting bank,

   (By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away

   The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay)

   High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits

   His channel'd Brows; low murmurs stir by fits

   And dark below the horrid Faquir sits;

  An Horror from its broad Head's branchy wreath

  Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath—

NOTES

Form:

couplets

Composition Date:

1807

1.

From Notebook 11.