As old Enceladus, in durance vile, Spreads his huge length beneath Sicilia's isle, Feels mountains, crush'd by mountains, on him prest, Close not his veins, nor still his laboring breast; His limbs convulse, his heart rebellious rolls, Earth shakes responsive to her utmost poles, While rumbling, bursting, boils his ceaseless ire, Flames to mid heaven, and sets the skies on fire. So the contristed Laurence lays him low, And hills of sleet and continents of snow Rise on his crystal breast; his heaving sides Crash with the weight, and pour their gushing tides, Asouth, whence all his hundred branches bend, Relenting airs with boreal blasts contend; Far in his vast extremes he swells and thaws, And seas foam wide between his ice-bound jaws. Indignant Frost, to hold his captive, plies His hosted fiends that vex the polar skies, Unlocks his magazines of nitric stores, Azotic charms and muriatic powers; Hail, with its glassy globes, and brume congeal'd, Rime's fleecy flakes, and storm that heaps the field Strike thro the sullen Stream with numbing force, Obstruct his sluices and impede his course. In vain he strives; his might interior fails; Nor spring's approach, nor earth's whole heat avails; He calls his hoary Sire; old Ocean roars Responsive echoes thro the Shetland shores. He comes, the Father! from his bleak domains, To break with liquid arms the sounding chains; Clothed in white majesty, he leads from far His tides high foaming to the wintry war. Billows on billows lift the maddening brine, And seas and clouds in battling conflict join, O'erturn the vast gulph glade with rending sweep, And crash the crust that bridged the boiling deep; Till forced aloft, bright bounding thro the air, Moves the blear ice, and sheds a dazzling glare; The torn foundations on the surface ride, And wrecks of winter load the downward tide. The loosen'd ice-isles o'er the main advance, Toss on the surge, and thro the concave dance; Whirl'd high, conjoin'd, in crystal mountains driven, Alp over Alp, they build a midway heaven; Whose million mirrors mock the solar ray, And give condensed the tenfold glare of day. As tow'rd the south the mass enormous glides. And brineless rivers furrow down its sides; The thirsty sailor steals a glad supply, And sultry trade winds quaff the boreal sky.