Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide 1090
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world.
But when half-blotted from the sky her light,
Fainting, permits the starry fires to burn,
With keener luster thro' the depth of heaven;
Or near extinct her deadened orb appears, 1095
And scarce appears, of sickly beamless white;
Oft in this season, silent from the north
A blaze of meteors shoots: ensweeping first
The lower skies, they all at once converge
High to the crown of heaven, and all at once 1100
Relapsing quick as quickly reascend,
And mix, and thwart, extinguish, and renew,
All ether coursing in a maze of light.
From look to look, contagious thro' the croud,
The panic runs, and into wondrous shapes 1105
Th' appearance throws: armies in meet array,
Throng'd with aërial spears, and steeds of fire;
Till the long lines of full-extended war
In bleeding sight commixt, the sanguine flood
Rolls a broad slaughter o'er the plains of heaven. 1110
As thus they scan the visionary scene,
On all sides swells the superstitious din,
Incontinent; and busy frenzy talks
Of blood and battle; cities over-turn'd,
And late at night in swallowing earthquake sunk, 1115
Or hideous wrapt in fierce ascending flame;
Of fallow famine, inundation, storm;
Of pestilence, and every great distress;
Empires
