STANZAS WRITTEN AT THE ISLAND OF MADEIRA

The rude attack, if none will tell,

On Bacchus, in his favorite isle;

If none in verse describe it well,

If none assume a poet's style

These devastations to display;—

Attend me, and perhaps I may.

To those who own the feeling heart

This tragic scene I would present,

No fiction, or the work of art,

Nor merely for the fancy meant:

Twas all a shade, a darken'd scene,

Old Noah's deluge come again!

From hills beyond the clouds that soar,

The vaults of heaven, the torrents run,

And rushing with resistless power,

Assail'd the island of the sun:

Fond nature saw the blasted vine,

And seem'd to sicken and repine.

As skyward stream'd the electric fire

The heavens emblazed, or wrapt in gloom;

The clouds appear, the clouds retire

And terror said, “the time is come

When all the groves, and hill, and plain

Will sink to ocean's bed again.”

The cheery god, who loves to smile

And gladness to the heart bestows,

Almost resolved to quit his isle,

And in unwonted passion rose;

He sought his caves in wild dismay

And left the heavens to have their way.

The whistling winds had ceased to blow;

Not one, of all the aerial train —

No gale to aid that night of wo

Disturb'd the slumbers of the main;

In distant woods they silent slept;

Or, in the clouds, the tempest kept.

The bursting rains in seas descend,

Machico heard the distant roar,

And lightnings, while the heavens they rend,

Show'd ruin marching to the shore:

Egyptian darkness brought her gloom

And fear foreboded nature's doom.

The heavens on fire, an ocean's force

Seized forests, vineyards, herds, and men,

And swelling streams from every source

Bade ancient chaos come again:

Through Fonchal's road their courses held

And ocean saw his waves repell'd.

Ill fated town!— what works of pride

In one short hour were swept away!

Huge piles that time had long defy'd,

In ruthless ruin scatter'd lay:

Some buried in the opening deep —

With crowds dismiss'd to endless sleep,

From her fond arms the daughter torn,

The mother saw destruction near;

Both on the whirling surge were borne,

Forgetful of the farewell tear:

At distance torn, with feeble cries,

Far from her arms the infant dies.

Her dear delight, her darling boy

In morn of days and dawning bloom,

This opening bud of promised joy

Too early found a watery tomb,

Or floated on the briny waste;

No more beloved, no more embraced.

From heights immense, with force unknown,

Enormous rocks and mangled trees

Were headlong hurl'd and hurrying down,

Fix'd their foundation in the seas!

Or, rushing with a mountain's weight,

Hurl'd to the deeps their domes of state.

On heaven intent the affrighted priest

Where church was left, to churches ran,

With suppliant voice the skies addrest,

And wail'd the wickedness of man:

For which he thought, this scourge was meant,

And, weeping, said, repent, repent!

But Santa Clara's lofty walls,

Where pines through life the pious nun,

Whose prison to the mind recalls

What superstition's power has done:

No conquest there the floods essay'd,

Religion guarded man and maid.

What seem'd beyond the cannon's power,

The walls of rock, were torn away;

To ruin sunk the church and tower,

And no respect the flood would pay

To silver saints, or saints of wood,

The bishop's cap, the friar's hood.

Hard was their fate! more happy thou

The lady of the mountain tall;

When desolation raged below

She stood secure, and scorn'd it all,

Where Gordon, for retirement, chose

His groves, his gardens, and the muse.

Who on this valley's drowning bed

Would plan a street, or build again,

Unthinking as the Brazen head

For wretches builds a source of pain,

A church, a street, that soon or late

May share the same, or a worse fate.

Let some vast bridge assume their place

Like those the romans raised of old,

With arches, firm as nature's base,

Of architecture grand and bold;

So will the existing race engage

The thanks of a succeeding age.

Pontinia long must wear the marks

Of this wide-wasting scene of wo,

Where near the Loo, the tar embarks

When prosperous winds, to waft him, blow:

These ravages may time repair,

But he and I will not be there.