And roll the waters o'er his placid breath?

Save him, thou seed of Seth!

Or cursed be with him who made

Thee and thy race, for which we are betray'd!

Japh. Peace! 't is no hour for curses, but for prayer!

Chorus of Mortals.

For prayer!!!
And where

Shall prayer ascend,

When the swoln clouds unto the mountains bend

And burst,

And gushing oceans every barrier rend,
Until the very deserts know no thirst?
Accurst

Be he who made thee and thy sire!

We deem our curses vain; we must expire;

But as we know the worst,

Why should our hymn be raised, our knees be bent Before the implacable Omnipotent,

Since we must fall the same?'

If he hath made earth, let it be his shame,

To make a world for torture.-Lo! they come,
The loathsome waters, in their rage!

And with their roar make wholesome nature dumb!
The forest's trees, (coeval with the hour
When Paradise upsprung,

Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower, Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung,)

So massy, vast, yet green in their old age,
Are overtopt,

Their summer blossoms by the surges lopt,
Which rise, and rise, and rise.

Vainly we look up to the lowering skies

They meet the seas,

And shut our God from our beseeching eyes
Fly, son of Noah, fly! and take thine ease
In thine allotted ocean-tent;

And view, all floating o'er the element,
The corpses of the world of thy young days:
Then to Jehovah raise

Thy song of praise!

A Mortal. Blessed are the dead

Who die in the Lord!

And though the waters be o'er earth outspread, Yet, as his word,

Be the decree adored!

He gave me life-he taketh but

The breath which is his own:

And though these eyes should be for ever shut,

Nor longer this weak voice before his throne
Be heard in supplicating tone,

Still blessed be the Lord,
For what is past,

For that which is:

For all are his,

From first to last

Time-space-eternity-life-death

The vast known and immeasurable unknown. He made, and can unmake;

And shall I, for a little gasp of breath Blaspheme and groan?

No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith, Nor quiver, though the universe may quake. Chorus of Mortals. Where shall we fly?

Not to the mountains high;

For now their torrents rush, with double roar,
To meet the ocean, which, advancing still,
Already grasps each drowning hill,
Nor leaves an unsearch'd cave.

OR

CANTO I.

1.

THE morning watch was come; the vessel lay
Her course and gently made her liquid way;
The cloven billow flash'd from off her prow
In furrows form'd by that majestic plough;
The waters with their world were all before
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore.
The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane,
Dividing darkness from the dawning main;
The dolphins, not unconscious of the day,
Swam high, as eager of the coming ray;
The stars from broader beams began to creep,
And lift their shining eyelids from the deep;
The sail resumed its lately shadow'd white,
And the wind flutter'd with a freshening flight;
The purpling ocean owns the coming sun,
But ere he break--a deed is to be done.

II.

The gallant chief within his cabin slept,
Secure in those by whom the watch was kept:
His dreams were of Old England's welcome shore,
Of toils rewarded, and of danger's o'er ;
His name was added to the glorious roll

Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole.
The worst was over, and the rest seem'd sure,
And why should not his slumber be secure?
Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet,
And wilder hands would hold the vessel's sheet;
Young hearts, which languish'd for some sunny isle,
Where summer years and summer women smile;
Men without country, who, too long estranged,
Had found no native home, or found it changed,
And, half uncivilized, preferr'd the cave
Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave-
The gushing fruits that nature gave untill'd;
The wood without a path but where they will'd;
The field o'er which promiscuous plenty pour'd
Her horn; the equal land without a lord;
The wish-which ages have not yet subdued
In man-to have no master save his mood;
The earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold,
The glowing sun and produce all its gold;
The freedom which can call each grot a home,
The general garden, where all steps may roam,
Where Nature owns a nation as her child,
Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild;

Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know;
Their unexploring navy, the canoe;

Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase;
Their strangest sight, an European face :-
Such was the country which these strangers yearn'd
To see again; a sight they dearly earn'd.

Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate.
Awake! awake!—Alas! it is too late!
Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer
Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear.
Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast:
The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest;
Dragg'd o'er the deck, no more at thy command
The obedient helm shall veer, the sail expand;
That savage spirit, which would lull by wrain
Its desperate escape from duty's path,
Glares round thee, in the scarce believing eyes
Of those who fear the chief they sacrifice:
For ne'er can man his conscience all assuage.
Unless he drain the wine of passion—rage.

IV.

In vain, not silenced by the eye of death,
Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced breath: -
They come not; they are few, and, over-awed,
Must acquiesce, while sterner hearts applaud.
In vain thou dost demand the cause: a curse
Is all the answer, with the threat of worse.
Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade,
Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid.
The levell'd muskets circle round thy breast
In hands as steel'd to do the deadly rest.
Thou darest them to the worst, exclaiming-" Fire !"
But they who pitied not could yet admire;
Some lurking remnant of their former awe
Restrain'd them longer than their broken law;
They would not dip their souls at once in blood,
But left thee to the mercies of the flood.

V.

"Hoist out the boat!" was now the leader's cry;
And who dare answer "No!" to Mutiny,
In the first dawning of the drunken hour,
The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power?
The boat is lower'd with all the haste of hate,
With its slight plank between thee and thy fate
Her only cargo such a scant supply
As promises the death their hands deny;
And just enough of water and of bread
To keep, some days, the dying from the dead :
Some cordage, canvass, sails, and lines, and twine,
But treasures all to hermits of the brine,
Were added after, to the earnest prayer
Of those who saw no hope save sea and air;
And last, that trembling vassal of the Pole
The feeling compass-Navigation's soui.

VI.

And now the self-elected chief finds time
To stun the first sensation of his crime,
And raise it in his followers-"Ho! the bowl;
Lest passion should return to reason's shoai.
"Brandy for heroes!" Burke could once exclaim-
No doubt a liquid path to epic fame :

And such the new-born heroes found it here,
And drain'd the draught with an applauding cheer
"Huzza! for Otaheite!" was the cry.

How strange such shouts from sons of Mutiny

The gentle island, and the genial soil,
The friendly hearts, the feasts without a toil,
The courteous manners but from nature caught,
The wealth unhoarded and the love unbought;
Could these have charms for rudest seaboys, driven
Before the mast by every wind of heaven?
And now, even now prepared with other's woes
To earn mild virtue's vain desire, repose?
Alas! such is our nature! all but aim
At the same end by pathways not the same,
Our means, our birth, our nation, and our name,
Our fortune, temper, even our outward frame,
Are far more potent o'er our yielding clay
Than aught we know beyond our little day.
Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din:
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God.

VII.

The lanch is crowded with the faithful few
Who wait their chief, a melancholy crew:
But some remain'd reluctant on the deck
Of that proud vessel-now a moral wreck-
And view'd their captain's fate with piteous eyes;
While others scoff'd his augur'd miseries
Sneer'd at the prospect of his pigmy sail
And the slight bark so laden and so frail.
The tender nautilus, who steers his prow,
The seaborn sailor of his shell canoe,
The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea,
Seems far less fragile, and, alas! more free.
He, when the lightning-wing'd tornados sweep
The surge, is safe-his port is in the deep-
And triumphs o'er the armadas of mankind,
Which shake the world, yet crumble in the wind.

VIII.

When all was now prepared, the vessel clear
Which hail'd her master in the mutineer-
A seaman, less obdurate than his mates,
Show'd the vain pity which but irritates;
Watch'd his late chieftain with exploring eye,
And told, in signs, repentant sympathy;
Held the moist shaddock to his parched mouth,
Which felt exhaustion's deep and bitter drouth.
But soon observed, this guardian was withdrawn,
Nor further mercy clouds rebellion's dawn.
Then forward stepp'd the bold and froward boy
His chief had cherish'd only to destroy,
And, pointing to the helpless prow beneath,
Exclaim'd, "Depart at once! delay is death!"
Yet then, even then, his feelings ceased not all:
In that last moment could a word recall
Remorse for the black deed as yet half done,
And what he hid from many show'd to one:
When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where
Was now his grateful sense of former care?
Where all his hopes to see his name aspire,
And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher?
His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell,
T is that! 't is that! I am in hell! in hell!"
No more he said; but urging to the bark
His chief, commits him to his fragile ark
These the sole accents from his tongue that fell,
But volumes lurk'd belo v his fierce farewell.

IX.

The arctic sun rose broad above the wave;
The breeze now sank, now whisper'd from his cave;
As on the Eolian harp, his fitful wings
Now swell'd, now flutter'd o'er his ocean strings
With slow, despairing oar, the abandon'd skiff
Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce-seen cliff,
Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main :
That boat and ship shall never meet again!

But 't is not mine to tell their tale of grief,
Their constant peril and their scant relief;
Their days of danger, and their nights of pain;
Their manly courage even when deem'd in vain,
The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son
Known to his mother in the skeleton;
The ills that lessen'd still their little store,
And starved even Hunger till he wrung no more
The varying frowns and favours of the deep,
That now almost ingulfs, then leaves to creep
With crazy oar and shatter'd strength along
The tide that yields reluctant to the strong;
The incessant fever of that arid thirst
Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst
Above their naked bones, and feels delight
In the cold drenching of the stormy night,
And from the outspread canvass gladly wrings
A drop to moisten life's all gasping springs;
The savage foe escaped, to seek again
More hospitable shelter from the main;
The ghastly spectres which were doom'd at last,
To tell as true a tale of dangers past,

As ever the dark annals of the deep
Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep.

X.

We leave them to their fate, but not unknown
Nor unredress'd. Revenge may have her own:
Roused discipline aloud proclaims their cause,
And injured navies urge their broken laws.
Pursue we on his track the mutineer,
Whom distant vengeance had not taught to fear.
Wide o'er the wave-away! away! away!
Once more his eyes shall hail the welcome bay;
Once more the happy shores without a law
Receive the outlaws whom they lately saw;
Nature, and nature's goddess-woman-woos
To lands where, save their conscience, none accuse
Where all partake the earth without dispute,
And bread itself is gather'd as a fruit ;*
Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams :
The goldless age, where gold disturbs no dreams,
Inhabits or inhabited the shore,

Till Europe taught them better than before;
Bestow'd her customs, and amended theirs,
But left her vices also to their heirs.
Away with this! behold them as they were,
Do good with Nature, or with Nature err.
"Huzza! for Otaheite!" was the
cry,
As stately swept the gallant vessel by.
The breeze springs up; the lately flapping sail
Extends its arch before the growing gale;
In swifter ripples stream aside the seas,
Which her bold bow flings off with dashing ease
Thus Argo plough'd the Euxine's virgin foam;
But those she wafted still look back to home-
These spurn their country with their rebel bark,
And fly her as the raven fled the ark;
And yet they seek to nestle with the dove,
And tame their fiery spirits down to love.

The wood-dove from the forest depth shall coo,
Like voices of the gods from Bolotoo;
We'll cull the flowers that grow above the dead,
For these most bloom where rests the warrior's head;
And we will sit in twilight's face, and see
The sweet moon glancing through the tooa tree,
The lofty accents of whose sighing bough
Shall sadly please us as we lean below;
Or climb the steep, and view the surf in vain
Wrestle with rocky giants o'er the main,
Which spurn in columns back the baffled spray.
How beautiful are these! how happy they,
Who, from the toil and tumult of their lives,
Steal to look down where naught but ocean strives.
Even he too loves at time the blue lagoon,
And smoothes his ruffled mane beneath the moon.
II.

Yes-from the sepulchre we 'll gather flowers,
Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers,
Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf,
Then lay our limbs along the tender turf,
And, wet and shining from the sportive toil,
Anoint our bodies with the fragrant oil,
And plait our garlands gather'd from the grave,
And wear the wreaths that sprung from out the brave.
But lo! night comes, the Mooa woes us back,
The sound of mats are heard along our track ;
Anon the torchlight dance shall fling its sheen
In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's green;
And we too will be there; we too recall
The memory bright with many a festival.
Ere Fiji blew the shell of war, when foes
For the first time were wafted in canoes.
Alas! for them the flower of mankind bleeds;
Alas! for them our fields are rank with weeds:
Forgotten is the rapture, or unknown,
Of wandering with the moon and love alone.
But be it so:-they taught us how to wield
The club and rain our arrows o'er the field:
Now let them reap the harvest of their art!
But feast to-night! to-morrow we depart.
Strike up the dance! the cava bowl fill high!
Drain every drop!-to-morrow we may die.
In summer garments be our limbs array'd;
Around our waists the tappa's white display'd
Thick wreaths shall form our coronal, like springs,
And round our necks shall glance the hooni strings;
So shall their brighter hues contrast the glow
Of the dusk bosoms that beat high below.

But now the dance is o'er-yet stay awhile;
Ah, pause! nor yet put out the social smile.
To-morrow for the Mooa we depart,
But to-night-to-night is for the heart.
Again bestow the wreaths we gently woo,
Ye young enchantresses of gay Licoo!
How lovely are your forms! how every sense
Bows to your beauties, soften'd, but intense,
Like to the flowers on Mataloco's steep,

Which fling their fragrance far athwart the deep!-
We too will see 'Licoo; but-oh! my heart!--
What do I say?-to-morrow we depart !

IV.

Thus rose a song-the harmony of times
Before the winds blew Europe o'er these climes.
True, they had vices-such are nature's growth-
But only the barbarian's—we have both:
The sordor of civilization, mix'd

With all the savage which man's fall hath fix'd.
Who hath not seen Dissimulation's reign,
The prayers of Abel link'd to deeds of Cain?
Who such would see may from his lattice view
The Old World more degraded than the New,

Now new no more, save where Columbia rears Twin giants, born by Freedom to her spheres, Were Chimborazo, over air, earth, wave, Glares with his Titan eye, and sees no stave.

Such was this ditty of tradition's days,
Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys
In song, where fame as yet hath left no sign
Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine;
Which leaves no record to the skeptic eye,
But yields young history all to harmony
A boy Achilles, with the centaur's lyre
In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire.
For one long-cherish'd ballad's simple stave,
Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side,
Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide,
Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear,
Then all the columns Conquest's minions rear;
Invites, when hieroglyphics are a theme
For sage's labours or the student's dream;
Attracts, when history's volumes are a toil,-
The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil.
Such was this rude rhyme-rhyme is of the rude-
But such inspired the Norseman's solitude,
Who came and conquer'd; such, wherever rise
Lands where no foes destroy or civilize,
Exist and what can our accomplish'd art

Of verse do more than reach the awaken'd heart?
VI.

And sweetly now those untaught melodies
Broke the luxurious silence of the skies,
The sweet siesta of a summer day,

The tropic afternoon of Toobonai,

When every flower was bloom, and air was balm,
And the first breath began to stir the palm,
The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave
All gently to refresh the thirsty cave,
Where sat the songtress with the stranger boy,
Who taught her passion's desolating joy,
Too powerful over every heart, but most
O'er those who know not how it may be lost;
O'er those who, burning in the new-born fire,
Like martys revel in their funeral pyre,
With such devotion to their ecstasy,
That life knows no such rapture as to die;
And die they do; for earthly life has naught
Match'd with that burst of nature, even in thought,
And all our dreams of better life above
But close in one eternal gush of love.

VII.

There sat the gentle savage of the wild,
In growth a woman, though in years a child,
As childhood dates within our colder clime,
Where naught is ripen'd rapidly save crime;
The infant of an infant world, as pure
From nature-lovely, warm, and premature;
Dusky like night, but night with all her stars;
Or cavern sparkling with its native spars;
With
eyes that were a language and a spell,
A form like Aphrodite's in her shell,
With all her loves around her on the deep,
Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep;
Yet full of life-for through her tropic cheek
The blush would make its way, and all but speak;
The sun-born blood suffused her neck and threw
O'er her clear nutbrown skin a lucid hue,
Like coral reddening through the darken'd wave
Which draws the diver to the crimson cave.
Such was this daughter of the southern seas,
Herself a billow in her energies,
To bear the bark of others' happiness,
Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less;