The crocodile, the dragon of the waters,
In iron panoply, fell as the plague,
And merciless as famine, cranch'd his prey,
While, from his jaws, with dreadful fangs all serried,
The life-blood dyed the waves with deadly streams.
The seal and the sea-lion, from the gulf
Came forth, and couching with their little ones.
Slept on the shelving rocks that girt the shores,
Securing prompt retreat from sudden danger;
The pregnant turtle, stealing out at eve,
With anxious eye, and trembling heart, explored
The loneliest coves, and in the loose warm sand
Deposited her eggs, which the sun hatch'd:
Hence the young brood, that never knew a parent,
Unburrow'd and by instinct sought the sea;
Nature herself, with her own gentle hand,
Dropping them one by one into the flood,
And laughing to behold their antic joy,
When launch'd in their maternal element.
The vision of that brooding world went on;
Millions of beings yet more admirable
Than all that went before them now appear'd;
Flocking from every point of heaven, and filling
Eye, ear, and mind, with objects, sounds, emotions
Akin to livelier sympathy and love
Than reptiles, fishes, insects, could inspire;
--Birds, the free tenants of land, air, and ocean,
Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace;
In plumage delicate and beautiful,
Thick without burthen, close as fishes' scales,
Or loose as full-blown poppies to the breeze;
With wings that might have had a soul within them,
They bore their owners by such sweet enchantment;
--Birds, small and great, of endless shapes and colours,
Here flew and perch'd, there swam and dived at pleasure;
Watchful and agile, uttering voices wild
And harsh, yet in accordance with the waves
Upon the beech, the winds in caverns moaning,
Or winds and waves abroad upon the water.
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