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And shook in thunders of its own,
While the blaz'd hill in lightnings shone,
Scattering their arrows round.
As down its sides of liquid flame
The devastating cataract came,
With melting rocks, and crackling woods,
And mingled roar of boiling floods,
And roll'd along the ground.
J.M.W. Turner,
The Eruption of the
Souffrier Mountains, in
the Island of St Vincent,
at Midnight, on the 30th
April 1812 from a Sketch
Taken at the Time by
Hugh P. Keane, Esqre
,
1812, oil on canvas.
This poem, probably written before he painted the picture to
raise the intellectual steam he required, was published by Turner
in the catalogue of the 1815 Royal Academy exhibition, and was
intended thus to stand in the mind of viewers when they con-
templated the painting. Interestingly, if one tries to imagine this
painting as a day scene, and in one's mind's eye douses the fire
and removes the lava bombs and exotica, this painting of a West
