Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire:
Round the terrific loins he siez'd the panting struggling womb:
It joy'd: she put asider her clouds & smiled her first-born smile:
As when a black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep.
Soon as she saw the terrible boy then burst the virgin cry.
I know thee, I have found thee, & I will not let thee go:
Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa:
And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Endur'd by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep:
I see a serpent in Canada, who courts me to his love
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru:
I see a Whale in the South-sea, drinking my soul away.
O what limb rendering pains I feel, thy fire & my frost
Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by the ligtnings rent:
This is eternal death: and this the torment long foretold.
