§ 31. MONTGOMERY OX CORAL ISLANDS. 633 



■* Raised by the feeblest creatures in existence,*' 



unscathed by the raging billows, and smiling with perpetual 

 verdure — the oases of that vast wilderness of waters ! 



31. Montgomery on Coral Islands. — The formation 

 of islands and continents by the vital energies of countless 

 myriads of minute beings, the unconscious riving instruments 

 of stupendous physical changes, is invested with so much of 

 the sublime and the marvellous, as to form a subject alike 

 calculated to engage the attention of the philosopher, and to 

 excite the imagination of the poet ; and I am tempted to 

 relieve this detail with the following beautiful lines by 

 James Montgomery :* — 



" I saw the living pile ascend, 

 The mausoleum of its architects. 

 Still dying upwards as their labours closed ; 

 Slime the materials, but the slime was turned 

 To adamant by their petrific touch. 

 Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, 

 Their masonry imperishable. All 

 Life's needful functions, food, exertion, rest, 

 By nice economy of Providence, 

 Were overruled to carry on the process, 

 Which out of water brought forth solid rock. 

 Atom by atom, thus the mountain grew 

 A Coral Island, stretching east and west ; 

 Steep were the flanks, with precipices sharp. 

 Descending to their base in ocean gloom. 

 Chasms few, and narrow, and irregular, 

 Form'd harbours, safe at once and perilous — 

 Safe for defence, but perilous to enter. 

 A sea-lake shone amidst the fossil Isle, 

 Reflecting in a ring its cliffs and caverns, 

 With heaven itself seen like a lake below. — 

 Compared with this amazing edifice, 

 Eaised by the feeblest creatures in existence. 



From " The Pelican Island," by James Montgomery. 



