THE EARTH
  I am the Earth,
  Thy mother; she within whose stony veins,
  To the last fibre of the loftiest tree
  Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air,
  Joy ran, as blood within a living frame,
  When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud
  Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy!
  And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted
  Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust,
  And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread
  Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here.
  Then--see those million worlds which burn and roll
  Around us--their inhabitants beheld
  My spherèd light wane in wide Heaven; the sea
  Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire
  From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow
  Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown;
  Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains;
  Blue thistles bloomed in cities; foodless toads
  Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled.
  When Plague had fallen on man and beast and worm,
  And Famine; and black blight on herb and tree;
  And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass,
  Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds
  Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry