Classic Poem

Where sacred Ganges pours along the plain,
And Indus rolls to swell the eastern main,
What awful scenes the curious mind delight,
What wonders burst upon the dazzled sight!
There grant palms lift high their tufted heads,
The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads;
Wild in the woods the active monkey springs,
The chattering parrot claps his painted wings;
'Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly snake,
The tiger couches in the tangled brake;
The spotted axis bounds in fear away,
The leopard darts on his defenceless prey.
Mid reedy pools and antient forests rude,
Cool, peaceful haunts of awful solitude!
The huge rhinoceros rends the crashing boughs,
And stately elephants untroubled browse.
Two tyrant seasons rule the wide domain,
Scorch with dry heat, or drench with floods of rain:
Now feverish herds rush madding o'er the plains,
And cool in shady streams their throbbing veins,
The birds drop lifeless from the silent spray,
And nature faints beneath the fiery day;
Then bursts the deluge on the sinking shore,
And teeming Plenty empties all her store.