On The Ice Islands Seen Floating In The German Ocean.

What portents, from what distant region, ride,     Unseen till now in ours, the astonishd tide?     In ages past, old Proteus, with his droves     Of sea-calves, sought the mountains and the groves.     But now, descending whence of late they stood,     Themselves the mountains seem to rove the flood.     Dire times were they, full charged with human woes;     And these, scarce less calamitous than those.     What view we now? More wondrous still! Behold!     Like burnishd brass they shine, or beaten gold;     And all around the pearls pure splendour show,     And all around the rubys fiery glow.     Come they from India, where the burning earth,     All bounteous, gives her richest treasures birth;     And where the costly gems, that beam around     The brows of mightiest potentates, are found?     No. Never such a countless dazzling store     Had left unseen the Ganges peopled shore.     Rapacious hands, and ever watchful eyes,     Should sooner far have markd and seized the prize.     Whence sprang they then? Ejected have they come     From Vesuvius, or from tnas burning womb?     Thus shine they self-illumed, or but display     The borrowd splendours of a cloudless day?     With borrowd beams they shine. The gales that breathe     Now landward, and the currents force beneath,     Have borne them nearer: and the nearer sight,     Advantaged more, contemplates them aright.     Their lofty summits crested high they show,     With mingled sleet, and long-incumbent snow.     The rest is ice. Far hence, where, most severe,     Bleak winter well nigh saddens all the year,     Their infant growth began. He bade arise     Their uncouth forms, portentous in our eyes.     Oft as dissolved by transient suns, the snow     Left the tall cliff, to join the flood below;     He caught, and curdled with a freezing blast     The current, ere it reachd the boundless waste.     By slow degrees uprose the wondrous pile,     And long successive ages rolld the while;     Till, ceaseless in its growth, it claimd to stand     Tall as its rival mountains on the land.     Thus stood, and, unremovable by skill     Or force of man, had stood the structure still,     But that, though firmly fixd, supplanted yet     By pressure of its own enormous weight,     It left the shelving beachand, with a sound     That shook the bellowing waves and rocks around,     Self-launchd, and swiftly, to the briny wave,     As if instinct with strong desire to lave,     Down went the ponderous mass. So bards of old     How Delos swam the gean deep have told.     But not of ice was Delos. Delos bore     Herb, fruit, and flower. She, crownd with laurel, wore,     Een under wintry skies, a summer smile;     And Delos was Apollos favourite isle.     But, horrid wanderers of the deep, to you     He deems Cimmerian darkness only due.     Your hated birth he deignd not to survey,     But, scornful, turnd his glorious eyes away.     Hence, seek your home, nor longer rashly dare     The darts of Phbus and a softer air;     Lest ye regret, too late, your native coast,     In no congenial gulf for ever lost!