Oh! see him meekly clasp his hands and bow
To every stroke: no lurid deathful scene
In Battle's rage, so racks the feeling heart;
Not all the thunders of infuriate War,
Disploding mines, and crafting, bursting bombs,
Are half so horrid as the sounding lash
That echoes through the Carribean groves.
Incessant is the War of Human Wit,
Oppos'd to bestial strength; and variously
Successful: in these happy fertile climes,
Man still maintains his surreptitious power;
Reigns o'er the Brutes, and, with the voice of Fate,
Says "This to-day, and that to-morrow dies."
Though here our Shambles blazon the Renown,
The Victory, and Rule, of lordly Man;
Far wider tracts within the Torrid Zone
Own no such Lord: where Sol's intenser rays
Create in bestial hearts more fervid fires,
And deadlier poisons arm the Serpent's tooth;
In gloomy shades, impassable to Man,
Where matted foliage exclude the Sun,
The torpid Birds that crawl from bough to bough
Utter their notes of terror: while beneath
Fury and Venom, couch'd in murky dens,
Hissing and yelling, guard the hideous gloom.
O'er dreary wastes, untrod by human feet,
Without controul the lordly Lion reigns;
And every creature trembles at his voice:
When risen from his den, he prances forth,
Extends his talons, shakes his flaky mane,