Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Geology, Vulcanology, Physiology

    Describes some of the effects of the earthquake which shuddered through 'this English land / From South to North' and which caused such domestic effects as waking sleepers, crumbling plasterwork, and stopping clocks. Observes that ''Tis well the human herd has felt / In Mother Earth how frail their trust, / Divided from the molten belt / Of Vulcan by how thin a crust', but points out that human minds 'know / In what yet thinner tubes of veins / And arteries hath man's blood to flow / Throughout the finest nervous tissue: / And giving but a mere drop issue / Life's pipes were burst: all over so!'. Adds that such minds 'Need no admonitory jog / Beneath them from the lava mine'.