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;[C]
When desolation raged below
She stood secure, and scorn'd it all,
Where Gordon,[D] for retirement, chose
His groves, his gardens, and the muse.
[C] Nossa Senyora da Montana, a fine church on a high eminence in the mountains.—Freneau's note.
[D] A respectable gentleman of the island.—Ibid.
Who on this valley's drowning bed
Would plan a street, or build again,
Unthinking as the Brazen head[E]
For wretches builds a source of pain,
A church, a street, that soon or late
May share the same, or a worse fate.
[E] A rocky promontory a few miles eastward of the capital.—Ibid.
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[F] 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.