Note 190 — PART THE SECOND. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Cowper has selected this awful catastrophe for the exercise of his poetic powers. His mind seems to have been impregnated with the grandeur of the theme, which he has presented to the imagination of the reader with all the accuracy of historic detail. We quote the following extracts.
"Alas for Sicily! rude fragments now Lie scatter'd, where the shapely column stood. Her palaces are dust. In all her streets The voice of singing and the sprightly chord Are silent.... The rocks fall headlong, and the valleys rise— ... The sylvan scene Migrates uplifted; and with all its soil Alighting in far distant fields, finds out A new possessor, and survives the change. Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upwrought To an enormous and o'erbearing height, Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore Resistless. Never such a sudden flood, Upridg'd so high, and sent on such a charge, Possessed an inland scene. Where now the throng That press'd the beach, and, hasty to depart, Look'd to the sea for safety?—They are gone, Gone with the refluent wave into the deep— A prince with half his people!"
Task, book ii.