(As the bright orb of breezy midnight pours
200 Long threads of silver through her gaping towers,
        O’er mouldering tombs, and tottering columns gleams,
        And frosts her deserts with diffusive beams),
        Sad o’er the mighty wreck in silence bends,
        Lifts her wet eyes, her tremulous hands extends.—­
205 If from lone cliffs a bursting rill expands
        Its transient course, and sinks into the sands;
        O’er the moist rock the fell Hyaena prowls,
        The Leopard hisses, and the Panther growls;
        On quivering wing the famish’d Vulture screams,
210 Dips his dry beak, and sweeps the gushing streams;
        With foamy jaws, beneath, and sanguine tongue,
        Laps the lean Wolf, and pants, and runs along;
        Stern stalks the Lion, on the rustling brinks
        Hears the dread Snake, and trembles as he drinks;
215 Quick darts the scaly Monster o’er the plain,
        Fold after fold, his undulating train;
        And, bending o’er the lake his crested brow,
        Starts at the Crocodile, that gapes below.

        Where seas of glass with gay reflections smile
220 Round the green coasts of Java’s palmy isle;
        A spacious plain extends its upland scene,
        Rocks rise on rocks, and fountains gush between;
        Soft zephyrs blow, eternal summers reign,
        And showers prolific bless the soil,—­in vain!
225 —­No spicy nutmeg scents the vernal gales,
        Nor towering plaintain shades the mid-day vales;
        No grassy mantle hides the sable hills,
        No flowery chaplet crowns the trickling rills;
        Nor tufted moss, nor leathery lichen creeps
230 In russet tapestry o’er the crumbling steeps. 
        —­No step retreating, on the sand impress’d,
        Invites the visit of a second guest;
        No refluent fin the unpeopled stream divides,
        No revolant pinion cleaves the airy tides;

235 Nor handed moles, nor beaked worms return,
        That mining pass the irremeable bourn.—­
        Fierce in dread silence on the blasted heath
        Fell UPAS sits, the HYDRA-TREE of death. 
        Lo! from one root, the envenom’d soil below,
240 A thousand vegetative serpents grow;
        In shining rays the scaly monster spreads
        O’er ten square leagues his far-diverging heads;
        Or in one trunk entwists his tangled form,
        Looks o’er the clouds, and hisses in the storm.

[Upas. l. 238.  There is a poison-tree in the island of Java, which is said by its effluvia to have depopulated the country for 12 or 14 miles round the place of its growth.  It is called, in the Malayan language, Bohon-Upas; with the juice of it the most poisonous arrows are prepared; and, to gain this, the condemned criminals are sent to the tree with proper direction both to get the juice and