From disembowel'd earth the virgin gold;
And o'er the vary'd landskip, restless, rove,
Fervent with life of every fairer kind:775
A land of wonders! which the sun still eyes
With ray direct, as of the lovely realm
Inamour'd, and delighting there to dwell.
How chang'd the scene! In blazing height of noon,
The sun, oppress'd, is plung'd in thickest gloom.780
Still Horror reigns, a dreary twilight round,
Of struggling night and day malignant mix'd.
For to the hot equator crouding fast,
Where, highly rarefy'd, the yielding air
Admits their stream, incessant vapours roll,785
Amazing clouds on clouds continual heap'd;
Or whirl'd tempestuous by the gusty wind,
Or silent borne along, heavy, and slow,
With the big stores of streaming oceans charg'd.
Meantime, amid these upper seas, condens'd790
Around the cold aërial mountain's brow,
And by conflicting winds together dash'd,
The thunder holds his black tremendous throne,
From cloud to cloud the rending Lightnings rage;
Till, in the furious elemental war795
Dissolv'd, the whole precipitated mass
Unbroken floods and solid torrents pours.
The treasures these, hid from the bounded search
Of ancient knowledge; whence, with annual pomp,
Rich king of floods! o'erflows the swelling Nile.800
From his two springs, in Gojam's sunny realm,
Pure-welling out, he thro' the lucid lake
Of fair Dambea rolls his infant-stream.
There, by the Naiads nurs'd, he sports away
His playful youth, amid the fragrant isles805
That
