From this account it would appear, that the eddies of wind were owing to the long range of broken rocks, which bounded one side of the sandy desert, and bent the currents of air, which struck against their sides; and were thus like the eddies in a stream of water, which falls against oblique obstacles. This explanation is probably the true one, as these whirl-winds were not attended with rain or lightening like the tornadoes of the West-Indies.]
IX. "GNOMES! whose fine forms, impassive as the air,
500 Shrink with soft sympathy for human care;
Who glide unseen, on printless slippers borne,
Beneath the waving grass, and nodding corn;
Or lay your tiny limbs, when noon-tide warms,
Where shadowy cowslips stretch their golden arms,—
505 So mark'd on orreries in lucid signs,
Star'd with bright points the mimic zodiac shines;
Borne on fine wires amid the pictured skies
With ivory orbs the planets set and rise;
Round the dwarf earth the pearly moon is roll'd,
510 And the sun twinkling whirls his rays of gold.—
Call your bright myriads, march your mailed hosts,
With spears and helmets glittering round the coasts;
Thick as the hairs, which rear the Lion's mane,
Or fringe the Boar, that bays the hunter-train;
515 Watch, where proud Surges break their treacherous mounds,
And sweep resistless o'er the cultured grounds;
Such as erewhile, impell'd o'er Belgia's plain,
Roll'd her rich ruins to the insatiate main;
With piles and piers the ruffian waves engage,
520 And bid indignant Ocean stay his rage.
[So mark'd on orreries. l. 505. The first orrery was constructed by a Mr. Rowley, a mathematician born at Lichfield; and so named from his patron the Earl of Orrery. Johnson's Dictionary.]
"Where, girt with clouds, the rifted mountain yawns,
And chills with length of shade the gelid lawns,
Climb the rude steeps, the granite-cliffs surround,
Pierce with steel points, with wooden wedges wound;
525 Break into clays the soft volcanic slaggs,
Or melt with acid airs the marble craggs;
Crown the green summits with adventurous flocks,
And charm with novel flowers the wondering rocks.
—So when proud Rome the Afric Warrior braved,
530 And high on Alps his crimson banner waved;
While rocks on rocks their beetling brows oppose
With piny forests, and unfathomed snows;
Onward he march'd, to Latium's velvet ground
With fires and acids burst the obdurate bound,
535 Wide o'er her weeping vales destruction hurl'd,
And shook the rising empire of the world.
[The granite-cliffs. l. 523. On long exposure to air the granites or porphories of this country exhibit a ferrugenous crust, the iron being calcined by the air first becomes visible, and is then washed away from the external surface, which becomes white or grey, and thus in time seems to decompose. The marbles seem to decompose by loosing their carbonic acid, as the outside, which has been long exposed to the air, does not seem to effervesce so hastily with acids as the parts more recently broken. The immense quantity of carbonic acid, which exists in the many provinces of lime-stone, if it was extricated and decomposed would afford charcoal enough for fuel for ages, or for the production of new vegetable or animal bodies. The volcanic slaggs on Mount Vesuvius are said by M. Ferber to be changed into clay by means of the sulphur- acid, and even pots made of clay and burnt or vitrified are said by him to be again reducible to ductile clay by the volcanic steams. Ferber's Travels through Italy, p. 166.]
[Wooden wedges wound. l. 524. It is usual in seperating large mill- stones from the siliceous sand-rocks in some parts of Derbyshire to bore horizontal holes under them in a circle, and fill these with pegs made of dry wood, which gradually swell by the moisture of the earth, and in a day or two lift up the mill-stone without breaking it.]
[With fires and acids. l. 534. Hannibal was said to erode his way over the Alps by fire and vinegar. The latter is supposed to allude to the vinegar and water which was the beverage of his army. In respect to the former it is not improbable, but where wood was to be had in great abundance, that fires made round limestone precipices would calcine them to a considerable depth, the night-dews or mountain-mists would penetrate these calcined parts and pulverize them by the force of the steam which the generated heat would produce, the winds would disperse this lime-powder, and thus by repeated fires a precipice of lime-stone might be destroyed and a passage opened. It should be added, that according to Ferber's observations, these Alps consist of lime-stone. Letters from Italy.]
X. "Go, gentle GNOMES! resume your vernal toil,
Seek my chill tribes, which sleep beneath the soil;
On grey-moss banks, green meads, or furrow'd lands
540 Spread the dark mould, white lime, and crumbling sands;
Each bursting bud with healthier juices feed,
Emerging scion, or awaken'd seed.
So, in descending streams, the silver Chyle
Streaks with white clouds the golden floods of bile;
545 Through each nice valve the mingling currents glide,
Join their fine rills, and swell the sanguine tide;
Each countless cell, and viewless fibre seek,
Nerve the strong arm, and tinge the blushing cheek.
"Oh, watch, where bosom'd in the teeming earth,
550 Green swells the germ, impatient for its birth;
Guard from rapacious worms its tender shoots,
And drive the mining beetle from its roots;
With ceaseless efforts rend the obdurate clay,
And give my vegetable babes to day!
555 —Thus when an Angel-form, in light array'd,
Like HOWARD pierced the prison's noisome shade;
Where chain'd to earth, with eyes to heaven upturn'd,
The kneeling Saint in holy anguish mourn'd;—
Ray'd from his lucid vest, and halo'd brow
560 O'er the dark roof celestial lustres glow,
"PETER, arise!" with cheering voice He calls,
And sounds seraphic echo round the walls;
Locks, bolts, and chains his potent touch obey,
And pleased he leads the dazzled Sage to day.
565 XI. "YOU! whose fine fingers fill the organic cells,
With virgin earth, of woods and bones and shells;
Mould with retractile glue their spongy beds,
And stretch and strengthen all their fibre-threads.—
Late when the mass obeys its changeful doom,
570 And sinks to earth, its cradle and its tomb,
GNOMES! with nice eye the slow solution watch,
With fostering hand the parting atoms catch,
Join in new forms, combine with life and sense,
And guide and guard the transmigrating Ens.