But a spirit there is in the order of things,
To me it is perfectly plain,
That will strike at the scepters of despots and kings,
And only king Bacchus remain."
[181] From edition of 1815.
STANZAS WRITTEN AT THE ISLAND OF MADEIRA[182]
On the fatal and unprecedented torrents of water which collected from the mountains on the
ninth of October, 1803, and destroyed a considerable part of the city of Funchal,
drowned a vast number of people, and damaged, to a great amount,
several plantations and villages in that neighborhood.
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."