ON THE PEAK OF TENERIFFE

No mean, no human artist laid

The base of this prodigious pile,

The towering peak — but nature said

Let this adorn Tenaria's isle;

And be my work for ages found

The polar star to islands round.

The conic-point that meets the skies

Indebted to volcanic fire,

First from the ocean bid to rise,

To heaven was suffer'd to aspire;

But man, ambitious, did not dare

To plant one habitation there:

For torrents from the mountain came;

What molten floods were seen to glow!

Expanded sheets of vivid flame,

To inundate the world below!

These, older than the historian's page

Once bellow'd forth vext nature's rage.

In ages past, as may again,

Such lavas from those ridges run.

And hastening to the astonish'd main

Exposed earth's entrails to the sun;

These, barren, once, neglected, dead,

Are now with groves and pastures spread.

Upon the verdant, scented lawn

The flowers a thousand sweets disperse,

And pictures, there, by nature drawn,

Inspire some island poet's verse,

While streams through every valley rove

To bless the garden, grace the grove.

To blast a scene above all praise

Should fate, at last, be so severe,

May this not hap’ in Julia's days,—

While Barrey dwells all honor'd, here:

While Little lives, of generous mind,

Or Armstrong, social as refined.—