Then, while I marked its progress, came a train, Of dark and doubting thoughts into my mind, And bitterly thus my reflections ran: Strange is the Providence that rules the world, That sets the Medean course of Nature’s laws; Sometimes adapting law to circumstance, But oftener making law fulfilled a curse. Yon brewing storm in verdant summer comes, When vegetation spreads its foliage sails, That, like a full-rigged ship’s, are easier torn; Why comes it not in winter, when the trees, With canvas reefed by Autumn’s furling frosts, Could toss in nude defiance to the blast? The murd’rous wind precedes the gentle shower And ere the suffering grain has quenched its thirst, It bows the heavy head, alone of worth, And from the ripening stalk wrings out the life, While gayly nod the heads of chaff unharmed. The rank miasma floats in summer-time, When man must brave its poisoned breath or starve; It hovers sickliest over richest fields While over sterile lands the air is pure; The tallest oak is by the lightning riven, The hateful bramble on the ground is spared; The crop man needs demands his constant work, The weeds alone spring forth without the plow; The sweetest flowers wear the sharpest thorns, The deadliest reptiles lurk in fairest paths! Wherever Nature shows her brightest smile, ’Tis but a mask to hide her darkest frown. The tropics seem an Eden of luscious fruits And flowers, and groves of loveliest birds, and lakes That mirror their gay plumage flitting o’er; Where man may live in luxury of thought, Without the crime of schemes, or curse of toil-- The tropics seem a Hell, when all with life Are stifled with the foul sirocco’s breath; When from the green-robed mountain’s volcan top, A fire-fountain spouts its blazing jet Far up against the starry dome of Heaven; Returning in its vast umbrella shape, Leaps in red cataracts adown the slope, Shaves clean the mountain of its emerald hair, And leaves it bald with ashes on its head. Below, the valley is a crimson sea, Whose glowing billows break to white-hot foam; And as they surge amid the towering trees, They, tottering, bow forever to the waves; The leaves and branches, crackling into flame, Leave only clotted cinders floating there; The darting birds, their gaudy plumage singed, Fall fluttering in, with little puffs of smoke. The fleeing beasts are lapped in, bellowing, And charred to coal, drift idly with the tide. The red flood, breaking through the vale, rolls on Its devious way towards the sea; the glare Illuminating far its winding track, As if a devil flew with flaming torch, Or when an earthquake gapes its black-lined jaws, And, growling, gulps a city’s busy throng Into its greedy bowels. Or the sea bursts forth