Overtopping all these giant-sons of earth,
Let the dire Andes, from the radiant Line
Stretch'd to the stormy seas that thunder round
The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold! 795
Amazing scene! Behold! the glooms disclose.
I see the rivers in their infant beds!
Deep, deep I hear them, lab'ring to get free!
I see the leaning strata, artful rang'd;
The gaping fissures to receive the rains, 800
The melting snows, and ever-dripping fogs.
Strow'd bibulous above I see the sands,
The pebbly gravel next, the layers then
Of mingled moulds, of more retentive earths.
The gutter'd rocks and mazy-running clefts; 805
That, while the stealing moisture they transmit,
Retard its motion, and forbid its waste.
Beneath th' incessant weeping of these drains,
I see the rocky siphons stretch'd immense,
The mighty reservoirs, of harden'd chalk, 810
Or stiff compacted clay, capacious form'd.
O'erflowing thence, the congregated stores,
The crystal treasures of the liquid world,
Thro' the stirr'd sends a bubbling passage burst;
And welling out, the middle steep, 815
Or from the bottoms of the bosom'd hills,
In pure effusion flow. United, thus,
Th' exhaling sun, the vapour-burden'd air,
The gelid mountains, that to rain condens'd
These vapours in continual current draw, 820
And send them, o'er the fair-divided earth,
In bounteous rivers to the deep again,
A social commerce hold, and firm support
The full-adjusted harmony of things.
When
