It was a land of death.-Between those nests,
The quiet earth was feather'd with the spoils
Of aged Pelicans, that hither came
To die in peace, where they had spent in love
The sweetest periods of their long existence.
Where they were wont to build, and breed their
There they lay down to rise no more for ever,
And close their eyes upon the dearest sight
On which their living eyes had loved to dwell,
-The nest where every joy to them was centred.
There rife corruption tainted them so lightly,
The moisture seem'd to vanish from their relics,
As dew from gossamer, that leaves the net-work
Spread on the ground, and glistening in the sun;
Thus when a breeze the ruffled plumage stirr'd,
That lay like drifted snow upon the soil,
Their slender skeletons were seen beneath,
So delicately framed, and half transparent,
That I have marvell'd how a bird so noble,
When in his full magnificent attire,
With pinions wider than the king of vultures',
And down elastic, thicker than the swan's,
Should leave so small a cage of ribs to mark
Where vigorous life had dwelt a hundred years.
Such was that scene; the dying and the dead, Next neighbours to the living and the unborn. O how much happiness was here enjoy'd! How little misery had been suffer'd here! Those humble Pelicans had each fulfill'd
The utmost purpose of its span
And done its duty in its narrow circle,
As surely as the sun, in his career,
Accomplishes the glorious end of his.
"AND thus," methought, "ten thousand suns may lead
The stars to glory in their annual courses;
Moons without number thus may wax and wane,
And winds alternate blow in cross-monsoons,
While here-through self-beginning rounds, self-
ending,
Then self-renew'd, without advance or failure, —
Existence fluctuates only like the tide,
Whose everlasting changes bring no change,
But billow follows billow to the shore,
Recoils, and billow out of billow swells;
An endless whirl of ebbing, flowing foam,
Where every bubble is like every other,
And Ocean's face immutable as Heaven's.
Here is no progress to sublimer life;
Nature stands still,-stands at the very point,
Whence from a vantage-ground her bolder steps
Might rise resplendent on the scale of being;
Rank over rank, awakening with her tread,
Inquisitive, intelligent; aspiring,
Each above other, all above themselves,
Till every generation should transcend
The former, as the former all the past.
"Such, such alone were meet inhabitants For these fair isles, so wonderfully form'd Amidst the solitude of sea and sky,
On which my wandering spirit first was cast,
And still beyond whose girdle, eye nor wing
Can carry me to undiscover'd climes,
Where many a nobler race may
whose waifs
And exiles, toss'd by tempests on the flood,
Hither might drift upon their native trees;
Or, like their own free birds, on fearless pinions,
Make voyages amidst the pathless heaven,
And, lighting, colonise these fertile tracts,
Recover'd from the barrenness of ocean,
Whose wealth might well repay the brave adventure. -Hath Nature spent her strength? Why stopp'd she here?
Why stopp'd not lower, if to rise no higher?
Can she not summon from more ancient regions,
Beyond the rising or the setting sun,
Creatures, as far above the mightiest here
As yonder eagle, flaming at high noon,
Outsoars the bat that flutters through the twilight?
Or as the tender Pelican excels
The anomalous abortion of the rock,
In which plant, fossil, animal unite?
"But changes here may happen-changes must! What hinders that new shores should yet ascend Out of the bosom of the deep, and spread Till all converge, from one circumference, Into a solid breadth of table-land,
Bound by the horizon, canopied with heaven,
And ocean in his own abyss absorb'd?"
While these imaginations cross'd the mind,
My thoughts fulfill'd themselves before mine eyes;
The islands moved like circles upon water,
Expanding till they touch'd each other, closed
The interjacent straits, and thus became
A spacious continent which fill'd the sea.
That change was total, like a birth, a death;
Birth, that from native darkness brings to light
The young inhabitant of this gay world;
Death, that from seen to unseen things removes,
And swallows time up in eternity.
That which had been, for ever ceased to be,
And that which follow'd was a new creation
Wrought from the disappearance of the old.
So fled that pageant universe away,
With all its isles and waters. So I found
Myself translated to that other world,
By sleight of fancy, like the unconscious act
Of waking from a pleasant dream, with sweet
Relapse into a more transporting vision.
The nursery of brooding Pelicans,
The dormitory of their dead, had vanish'd,
And all the minor spots of rock and verdure,
The abodes of happy millions, were no more;
But in their place a shadowy landscape lay,
On whose extremest western verge, a gleam
Of living silver, to the downward sun
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