Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
”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 quant.i.ty 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 Derbys.h.i.+re 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 pa.s.sage 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 blus.h.i.+ng 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 l.u.s.tres 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 sh.e.l.ls; Mould with retractile glue their spongy beds, And stretch and strengthen all their fibre-threads.-- Late when the ma.s.s 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.
[_Mould with retractile glue_. l. 567. The const.i.tuent parts of animal fibres are believed to be earth and gluten. These do not seperate except by long putrefaction or by fire. The earth then effervesces with acids, and can only be converted into gla.s.s by the greatest force of fire. The gluten has continued united with the earth of the bones above 2000 years in Egyptian mummies; but by long exposure to air or moisture it diffolves and leaves only the earth. Hence bones long buried, when exposed to the air, absorb moisture and crumble into powder. Phil.
Trans. No. 475. The retractibility or elasticity of the animal fibre depends on the gluten; and of these fibres are composed the membranes muscles and bones. Haller. Physiol. Tom. I, p. 2.
For the chemical decomposition of animal and vegetable bodies see the ingenious work of Lavoisier, Traite de Chimie, Tom. I. p. 132. who resolves all their component parts into oxygene, hydrogene, carbone, and azote, the three former of which belong princ.i.p.ally to vegetable and the last to animal matter.]
[_The transmigrating Ens_. l. 574, The perpetual circulation of matter in the growth and dissolution of vegetable and animal bodies seems to have given Pythagoras his idea of the metempsycosis or transmigration of spirit; which was afterwards dressed out or ridiculed in variety of amusing fables. Other philosophers have supposed, that there are two different materials or essences, which fill the universe. One of these, which has the power of commencing or producing motion, is called spirit; the other, which has the power of receiving and of communicating motion, but not of beginning it, is called matter. The former of these is supposed to be diffused through all s.p.a.ce, filling up the interstices of the suns and planets, and const.i.tuting the gravitations of the sidereal bodies, the attractions of chemistry, with the spirit of vegetation, and of animation. The latter occupies comparatively but small s.p.a.ce, const.i.tuting the solid parts of the suns and planets, and their atmospheres. Hence these philosophers have supposed, that both matter and spirit are equally immortal and unperishable; and that on the dissolution of vegetable or animal organization, the matter returns to the general ma.s.s of matter; and the spirit to the general ma.s.s of spirit, to enter again into new combinations, according to the original idea of Pythagoras.
The small apparent quant.i.ty of matter that exists in the universe compared to that of spirit, and the short time in which the recrements of animal or vegetable bodies become again vivified in the forms of vegetable mucor or microscopic insects, seems to have given rise to another curious fable of antiquity. That Jupiter threw down a large handful of souls upon the earth, and left them to scramble for the few bodies which were to be had.]
575 ”So when on Lebanon's sequester'd hight The fair ADONIS left the realms of light, Bow'd his bright locks, and, fated from his birth To change eternal, mingled with the earth;-- With darker horror shook the conscious wood, 580 Groan'd the sad gales, and rivers blush'd with blood; On cypress-boughs the Loves their quivers hung, Their arrows scatter'd, and their bows unstrung; And BEAUTY'S G.o.dDESS, bending o'er his bier, Breathed the soft sigh, and pour'd the tender tear.-- 585 Admiring PROSERPINE through dusky glades Led the fair phantom to Elysian shades, Clad with new form, with finer sense combined, And lit with purer flame the ethereal mind.
--Erewhile, emerging from infernal night, 590 The bright a.s.surgent rises into light, Leaves the drear chambers of the insatiate tomb, And s.h.i.+nes and charms with renovated bloom.-- While wondering Loves the bursting grave surround, And edge with meeting wings the yawning ground, 595 Stretch their fair necks, and leaning o'er the brink View the pale regions of the dead, and shrink; Long with broad eyes ecstatic BEAUTY stands, Heaves her white bosom, spreads her waxen hands; Then with loud shriek the panting Youth alarms, 600 ”My Life! my Love!” and springs into his arms.”
[_Adonis_. l. 576. The very antient story of the beautiful Adonis pa.s.sing one half of the year with Venus, and the other with Proserpine alternately, has had variety of interpretations. Some have supposed that it allegorized the summer and winter solstice; but this seems too obvious a fact to have needed an hieroglyphic emblem. Others have believed it to represent the corn, which was supposed to sleep in the earth during the winter months, and to rise out of it in summer. This does not accord with the climate of Egypt, where the harvest soon follows the seed-time.
It seems more probably to have been a story explaining some hieroglyphic figures representing the decomposition and resuscitation of animal matter; a sublime and interesting subject, and which seems to have given origin to the doctrine of the transmigration, which had probably its birth also from the hieroglyphic treasures of Egypt. It is remarkable that the cypress groves in the ancient greek writers, as in Theocritus, were dedicated to Venus; and afterwards became funereal emblems. Which was probably occasioned by the Cypress being an accompaniment of Venus in the annual processions, in which she was supposed to lament over the funeral of Adonis; a ceremony which obtained over all the eastern world from great antiquity, and is supposed to be referred to by Ezekiel, who accuses the idolatrous woman of weeping for Thammus.]
The G.o.dDESS ceased,--the delegated throng O'er the wide plains delighted rush along; In dusky squadrons, and in s.h.i.+ning groups, Hosts follow hosts, and troops succeed to troops; 605 Scarce bears the bending gra.s.s the moving freight, And nodding florets bow beneath their weight.
So when light clouds on airy pinions sail, Flit the soft shadows o'er the waving vale; Shade follows shade, as laughing Zephyrs drive, 610 And all the chequer'd landscape seems alive.
[_Zephyrs drive_. l. 609. These lines were originally written thus,
Shade follows shade by laughing Zephyrs drove, And all the chequer'd landscape seems to move.