Drives the still snow, or showers the silver rime;
335 As the lone shepherd o’er the dazzling rocks
        Prints his steep step, and guides his vagrant flocks;
        Views the green holly veil’d in network nice,
        Her vermil clusters twinkling in the ice;
        Admires the lucid vales, and slumbering floods,
340 Fantastic cataracts, and crystal woods,
        Transparent towns, with seas of milk between,
        And eyes with transport the refulgent scene:—­
        If breaks the sunshine o’er the spangled trees,
        Or flits on tepid wing the western breeze,
345 In liquid dews descends the transient glare,
        And all the glittering pageant melts in air. 
        Where Andes hides his cloud-wreath’d crest in snow,
        And roots his base on burning sands below;
        Cinchona, fairest of Peruvian maids
350 To Health’s bright Goddess in the breezy glades
        On Quito’s temperate plain an altar rear’d,
        Trill’d the loud hymn, the solemn prayer preferr’d: 
        Each balmy bud she cull’d, and honey’d flower,
        And hung with fragrant wreaths the sacred bower;
355 Each pearly sea she search’d, and sparkling mine,
        And piled their treasures on the gorgeous shrine;
        Her suppliant voice for sickening Loxa raised,
        Sweet breath’d the gale, and bright the censor blazed.

        —­“Divine HYGEIA! on thy votaries bend
360 Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend! 
        While streaming o’er the night with baleful glare
        The star of Autumn rays his misty hair;
        Fierce from his fens the Giant AGUE springs,
        And wrapp’d in fogs descends on vampire wings;

[Cinchona. l. 349.  Peruvian bark-tree.  Five males, and one female.  Several of these trees were felled for other purposes into a lake, when an epidemic fever of a very mortal kind prevailed at Loxa in Peru, and the woodmen, accidentally drinking the water, were cured; and thus were discovered the virtues of this famous drug.]

365 “Before, with shuddering limbs cold Tremor reels,
        And Fever’s burning nostril dogs his heels;
        Loud claps the grinning Fiend his iron hands,
        Stamps with his marble feet, and shouts along the lands;
        Withers the damask cheek, unnerves the strong,
370 And drives with scorpion-lash the shrieking throng. 
        Oh, Goddess! on thy kneeling votaries bend
        Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!”
        —­HYGEIA, leaning from the blest abodes,
        The crystal mansions of the immortal gods,
375 Saw the sad Nymph uplift her dewy eyes,
        Spread her white arms, and breathe her fervid sighs;
        Call’d to her fair associates, Youth, and Joy,
        And shot all-radiant through the glittering sky;
        Loose waved behind her golden train of hair,