325 When stretch'd in dust her gasping panthers lie,
And writh'd in foamy folds her serpents die;
Indignant Atlas mourns his leafless woods,
And Gambia trembles for his sinking floods;
Contagion stalks along the briny sand,
330 And Ocean rolls his sickening shoals to land.
[His sickening shoals. 330. Mr. Marsden relates, that in the island of Sumatra, during the November of 1775, the dry monsoons, or S.E. winds, continued so much longer than usual, that the large rivers became dry; and prodigious quantities of sea-fish, dead and dying, were seen floating for leagues on the sea, and driven on the beach by the tides. This was supposed to have been caused by the great evaporation, and the deficiency of fresh water rivers having rendered the sea too fast for its inhabitants. The season then became so sickly as to destroy great numbers of people, both foreigners and natives. Phil. Trans. V. LXXI. p. 384.]
—Fair CHUNDA smiles amid the burning waste,
Her brow unturban'd, and her zone unbrac'd;
Ten brother-youths with light umbrella's shade,
Or fan with busy hands the panting maid;
335 Loose wave her locks, disclosing, as they break,
The rising bosom and averted cheek;
[Chunda. l. 331. Chundali Borrum is the name which the natives give to this plant; it is the Hedylarum gyrans, or moving plant; its class is two brotherhoods, ten males. Its leaves are continually in spontaneous motion; some rising and others falling; and others whirling circularly by twisting their stems; this spontaneous movement of the leaves, when the air is quite still and very warm, seems to be necessary to the plant, at perpetual respiration is to animal life. A more particular account, with a good print of the Hedyfarum gyrans is given by M. Brouffonet in a paper on vegetable motions in the Histoire de l'Academie des Sciences. Ann. 1784, p. 609.
There are many other instances of spontaneous movements of the parts of vegetables. In the Marchantia polymorpha some yellow wool proceeds from the flower-bearing anthers, which moves spontaneously in the anther, while it drops its dust like atoms. Murray, Syst. Veg. See note on Collinfonia for other instances of vegetable spontaneity. Add to this, that as the sleep of animals consists in a suspension of voluntary motion, and as vegetables are likewise subject to sleep, there is reason to conclude, that the various actions of opening and closing their petals and foliage may be justly ascribed to a voluntary power: for without the faculty of volition, sleep would not have been, necessary to them.]
[Illustration: Hedysarum gyrans.]
Clasp'd round her ivory neck with studs of gold
Flows her thin vest in many a gauzy fold;
O'er her light limbs the dim transparence plays,
340 And the fair form, it seems to hide, betrays.
Where leads the northern Star his lucid train
High o'er the snow-clad earth, and icy main,
With milky light the white horizon streams,
And to the moon each sparkling mountain gleams.—
345 Slow o'er the printed snows with silent walk
Huge shaggy forms across the twilight stalk;
And ever and anon with hideous sound
Burst the thick ribs of ice, and thunder round.—
There, as old Winter slaps his hoary wing,
350 And lingering leaves his empire to the Spring,
Pierced with quick shafts of silver-shooting light
Fly in dark troops the dazzled imps of night—
[Burst the thick rib of ice. l. 348. The violent cracks of ice heard from the Glaciers seem to be caused by some of the snow being melted in the middle of the day; and the water thus produced running down into vallies of ice, and congealing again in a few hours, forces off by its expansion large precipices from the ice-mountains.]
"Awake, my Love!" enamour'd MUSCHUS cries,
"Stretch thy fair limbs, resulgent Maid! arise;
355 Ope thy sweet eye-lids to the rising ray,
And hail with ruby lips returning day.
Down the white hills dissolving torrents pour,
Green springs the turf, and purple blows the flower;
His torpid wing the Rail exulting tries,
360 Mounts the soft gale, and wantons in the skies;
Rise, let us mark how bloom the awaken'd groves,
And 'mid the banks of roses hide our loves."