MOUNT ETNA.

Written many Years back, after having read Mr. Brydoné Tour thro' Sicily.

BY ANNA SEWARD.

IMAGINATION, while thy kindling eyes
Bend o'er the Climes these faithful pages trace,
Oh, may'st thou paint them, as sublime they rise,
In novel beauty, and horrific grace!

Swell the rich treasures of poetic Fanes
With all the pomp that mighty ETNA boasts,
As glaring o'er th' affrighted Deep she reigns,
The pride and terror of Ausonian Coasts!

With thy keen glance the veils of Distance pierce!
With thy firm step conduct my venturous way,
And on the texture of my proudest Verse
The changeful glories of her heights display!

Now the proud Steep climbing with toilsome tread,
We mark the wonders of its * triple zone,
Round the broad base see sultry SUMMER lead
The stores luxuriant of his glowing throne.

* Mr. Brydone tells us that the three distinct Seasons, Summer, Spring, and Winter, in inverted order, form the torrid, the tem-perate, and the frigid zone round the ascending heights of Mount Etna.

While on the rising edges of his clime
Emergent Spring her leafy mantle spreads,
Woods waving wide in hues of vernal prime,
Blue trickling streams, and flower-embroider'd meads;
Till WINTER o'er each blooming plain and grove
Draws the chill circle of his pallid line,
Dim fields of ice and gelid rocks above,
And sleety gales, and dreary lakes combine.
Then, while amaz'd we lift exploring eyes
To the vast CONE, high in the lurid air,
We mark, in one eternal union, rise
The Elements that wage eternal war.

Deep in the snows it has no power to melt
View the dread GULPH, in all its boiling ire,
Where sleet and ice and billowy floods have felt
How weak their force to quench its raging fire.

TERRIFIC PINNACLE! thy sides inclose
Th' unfathom'd GULPH, coeval with the WORLD,
And by thy flames, that burst 'mid circling snows,
Up sightless heights the blazing rocks are hurl'd.

Their dire explosion rends the frozen mound,
Shakes the firm Earth and thunders o'er the Deep,
While issuing deathful from the fierce Profound;
Rolls the red Lava down the icy Steep!

But we, in hours less terrible, prepare
Adventurous to pursue our faithless way,
And, tho' the drifted snows our steps ensnare,
Reach the extremest point ere dawns the Day.

Now long, pale gleams shoot thro' the sky, and warn
Retreating Darkness of the Solar Glance,

And hills, rocks, plains, and seas, and night, and morn, Blend, undivided, thro' the vast Expanse.

But Morning, by degrees, asserts her power,
The stars are quench'd, the shadows melt away;
Forests, that late seem'd like black Gulphs to four,
Rise in faint green beneath the glimmering ray.

Wide spread the skirts of strength'ning light around,
And from the orient waves, that stretch serene,
And with their silver line th' horizon bound,
While States, and Nations dimly intervene,

On plains, rocks, mountains, rivers, seas, and isles
Bursts the gay SUN!-his plastic beams are hurl'd,
And to our strain'd and startled senses smiles,
New to our gaze, a whole illumin'd WORLD!

While high exalted in the trackless air,
Alarm'd and doubting if on earth we stand,
Scarce knows our sight to separate and compare
The countless objects of its wide command.

As on a map, o'er Sicily we look ;

Trace all her rivers thro' their mazy sweep,
From their first source, a little gurgling brook,
Till breadthening, soon they mingle with the Deep!

But, rising, at its spring, a current wide,

*

Devoted AcIs hurries thro' the plain;
Speeds from the GIANT'S voice with frighted tide,
And throws his icy waters in the Main.

* Acis. Mr. Brydone mentions the peculiar coldness of this River; henes often called in Sicily, il fiume Freddo;—also, that it rises out of the earth at once a large Stream. It is the River celebrated by the Poets, into which the Nymph GALATEA transformed the Shepherd Acis, her Lover, after he had been killed by the Giant, POLYPHEME. Mr. Brydone ingeniously observes that the extreme velocity of the current seems, from our recollee tion of the Fable, to be inspired by terror

Here vine-clad LIPARI, with her lucid streams,
Gay ALICUDI, and PANARI there,

While STROMBOLA, a lesser ETNA, gleams,
And wreaths with spiral smoke the fields of air.

These, as, by magic, in the visual rays,

Close drawn around the Mountain skirts are shown; Seeming as lifted up to meet our gaze,

Like medals in a watry bason thrown *.

Then o'er the space immense weak vision strains,
And feels its aching powers confus'd and lost,
Else that might view hot BARCA's sandy plains,
And verdant Thessaly's remoter coast.

Now turn we, sighing, from the boundless Scene,
Mocking the feeble sight's eluded ray,
While wonder mellows into thought serene,
As sinks in evening shades the garish day.

Here; while we rove beneath thy wayward skies,
Lov'd Albion, zon'd by Ocean's azure wave,
To NATURE let our hearts thanksgivings rise,
For all she banish'd as for all she gave!

That not on our cold mountain heights reside,
On Snowdon, or Helvellyn's peak sublime,

This is Mr. Brydone's simile, and beyond any other which could have been chosen, brings to the Mind's eye these peculiar effects of vision. Poets and Orators often find themselves obliged to accommodate great things to our perception by comparing them to small ones. These comparisons are often happy and sometimessubline. "Thou spreadest out the Heavens like a curtain.”

Milton compares the fallen Angels in Pandemonium to Bees→→ and Homer, Menelaus guarding the dead Patroclus, to a Fly Instances of this sort in the noblest Writers are innumerable, but carping Critics, ignorant of poetic usages, call existing Poets to account for them,

Th' ETNEAN GRACES ;-in their ardent pride,
And baleful charms, eril'd this happier clime.

Faithful if here their lineaments shall flow,
O BRYDONE, may the praise be thine alone!
Since in thy traits arise, thy colours glow
The BRIGHT DESTROYERS, on their burning Throne !

TO MISS CATHERINE MALLETT*,

BY ANNA SEWARD.

YET two short days, my CATHERINE !—then no more
Beneath our long lov'd SPIRES, thy graceful Form
Shall lightly glide, to cheer my languid hours,
With emanations sparkling, soft, and warm,

Shed from the MIND's rich stores; and with the charm
Of language accurate, by habit taught

Th' ideal Train with happiest powers to arm,

That rise in swift subservience to each thought,

Whether with Reason's strength, or Fancy's radiance fraught.

Now damp November's desolating gale

Covers the brooks with shrunk and yellow leaves;
His iron skies scowl on our favorite Vale,

Nor ought from sway more stern the Scene teprieves.

* This young Lady is of Brianston-Street, London.