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(From The Battle of the Summer Islands)
BERMUDA, walled with rocks, who does not know? | |
| That happy island where huge lemons grow, | |
| And orange-trees, which golden fruit do bear, | |
| The Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair; | |
| Where shining pearl, coral, and many a pound, | 5 |
| On the rich shore, of ambergris is found. | |
| The lofty cedar, which to heaven aspires, | |
| The prince of trees! is fuel to their fires; | |
| The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn, | |
| For incense might on sacred altars burn; | 10 |
| Their private roofs on odorous timber borne, | |
| Such as might palaces for kings adorn. | |
| The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield, | |
| With leaves as ample as the broadest shield, | |
| Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs | 15 |
| They sit, carousing where their liquor grows. | |
| Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow, | |
| Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show, | |
| With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil | |
| Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil. | 20 |
| The naked rocks are not unfruitful there, | |
| But, at some constant seasons, every year, | |
| Their barren tops with luscious food abound, | |
| And with the eggs of various fowls are crowned. | |
| Tobacco is the worst of things, which they | 25 |
| To English landlords, as their tribute, pay. | |
| Such is the mould, that the blessed tenant feeds | |
| On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds. | |
| With candied plantains, and the juicy pine, | |
| On choicest melons, and sweet grapes, they dine, | 30 |
| And with potatoes fat their wanton swine. | |
| Nature these cates, with such a lavish hand, | |
| Pours out among them, that our coarser land | |
| Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return, | |
| Which not for warmth, but ornament, is worn; | 35 |
| For the kind spring, which but salutes us here, | |
| Inhabits there, and courts them all the year. | |
| Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live; | |
| At once they promise what at once they give. | |
| So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, | 40 |
| None sickly lives, or dies before his time. | |
| Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursed, | |
| To show how all things were created first. | |
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