On The Peak Of Teneriffe

1804

No mean, no human artist laid The base of this prodigious pile, The towering peak--but nature said Let this adorn Tenaria's isle; And be my work for ages found The polar star to islands round.

The conic-point that meets the skies Indebted to volcanic fire, First from the ocean bid to rise, To heaven was suffer'd to aspire; But man, ambitious, did not dare To plant one habitation there:

For torrents from the mountain came; What molten floods were seen to glow! Expanded sheets of vivid flame, To inundate the world below! These, older than the historian's page Once bellow'd forth vext nature's rage.

In ages past, as may again, Such lavas from those ridges run. And hastening to the astonish'd main Exposed earth's entrails to the sun; These, barren, once, neglected, dead, Are now with groves and pastures spread.

Upon the verdant, scented lawn The flowers a thousand sweets disperse, And pictures, there, by nature drawn, Inspire some island poet's verse, While streams through every valley rove To bless the garden, grace the grove.

To blast a scene above all praise Should fate, at last, be so severe, May this not hap' in Julia's[A] days,-- While Barrey[A] dwells all honor'd, here: While Little[A] lives, of generous mind, Or Armstrong,[A] social as refined.--

[A] A lady, and gentlemen of the first respectability, then residing at Santa Cruz, san Christoval de Laguna, and Port Oratava in the island of Teneriffe.--Freneau's note.

From the edition of 1815.