THE PACIFIC OCKAN. 2G3 



By which a Hand invisible was rearing 



A new creation in the secret deej). 



Omnipotence wrought in tbeiu, with them, by them; 



Henco what Omnipotence alone could do 



Worms did. * * * * * • 



"Atom by atom thus the burthen grew, 

 Even like an infant in the womb, till Time 

 Deliver'd Ocean of that monstrous birth, 

 A Coral Island, stretching east and west. 

 In God's own language to its parent saying, 

 ' Thus far, no farther, shalt thou go ; and here 

 Shall thy proud waves be stayed : ' — A point at fir.si 

 It peer'd above those waves ; a point so small, 

 I just perceived it, fix'd where all was floating; 

 And when a bubble cross'd it, the blue film 

 Expanded like a sky above the speck ; 

 That speck became a hand-breailth ; day and uiglit 

 It spread, accumulate.!, and ere long 

 Presented to my view a dazzling plain, 

 White as the moon amid the sapphire sea; 

 Bare at low water, and as still r.s death ; 

 Bui when the tide came gurgling o'er the surface, 

 'Twas like a resurrection of the dead ; 

 ^^m graves innumerable, punctures fine 

 In the close coral, capillary swarms 

 Of reptiles, horrent as Meilusa's snakes. 

 Cover'd the bald-pate reef; then all was life, 

 And indefatigable industrj' ; 

 The artizans were twisting to and fro, 

 In idle-seeming convolutions; yet 

 They ever vanish'd with the ebbing surge, 

 Till pellicle on pellicle, and layer 

 On layer, was added to the growing mass. 

 Ju-e long the reef o'ertopp'd the spring-flood's height. 

 And mock'd the billows when they leap'd upon it, 

 Unable to maintain tlieir slippery hold. 

 And falling down in foam-wreaths round its verge. 

 Steep were the flanks, with precipices siiar[), 

 Descending to their base in ocean-gloom ; 

 Chasms few, and narrow, ana irii'gular. 



