Around his waist are forests braced,

The Avalanche in his hand; But ere it fall, that thundering ball Must pause for my command. The Glacier's cold and restless mass Moves onward day by day; But I am he who bids it pass,

Or with its ice delay.

I am the spirit of the place,

Could make the mountain bow And quiver to his caverned base : And what with me wouldst thou?

VOICE OF THE THIRD SPIRIT. In the blue depth of the waters, Where the wave hath no strife, Where the wind is a stranger,

And the sea-snake hath life, Where the Mermaid is decking Her green hair with shells, Like the storm on the surface Came the sound of thy spells; O'er my calm Hall of Coral

The deep echo rolled

To the Spirit of Ocean

Thy wishes unfold!

FOURTH SPIRIT.

Where the slumbering earthquake Lies pillowed on fire,

And the lakes of bitumen

Rise boilingly higher; Where the roots of the Andes

Strike deep in the earth,
As their summits to heaven
Shoot soaringly forth;

I have quitted my birthplace,
Thy bidding to bide-
Thy spell hath subdued me,
Thy will be my guide!

FIFTH SPIRIT.

I am the Rider of the wind,
The Stirrer of the storm;
The hurricane I left behind

Is yet with lightning warm;
To speed to thee, o'er shore and sea
I swept upon the blast:

The fleet I met sailed well, and yet 'T will sink ere night be past.

SIXTH SPIRIT.

My dwelling is the shadow of the night,

Why doth thy magic torture me with light?

SEVENTH SPIRIT.

The star which rules thy destiny
Was ruled, ere earth began, by me :
It was a world as fresh and fair
As e'er revolved round sun in air;
Its course was free and regular,
Space bosomed not a lovelier star.
The hour arrived-and it became
A wandering mass of shapeless flame,
A pathless comet, and a curse,
The menace of the universe;
Still rolling on with innate force,
Without a sphere, without a course,

A bright deformity on high,

The monster of the upper sky!
And thou! beneath its influence born-
Thou worm! whom I obey and scorn-
Forced by a power (which is not thine,
And lent thee but to make thee mine)
For this brief moment to descend,
Where these weak spirits round thee

bend,

And parley with a thing like thee— What wouldst thou, Child of Clay! with me?