As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood (fragment)

As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood,

That crests its Head with clouds, beneath the flood

Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank

Of its wide base controls the fronting bank,

(By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away

The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay)

High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits

His channel'd Brows; low murmurs stir by fits

And dark below the horrid Faquir sits;

An Horror from its broad Head's branchy wreath

Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath--