صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

955

960

Her Cato following thro' Numidian wilds, Disdainful of Campania's gentle plains, And all the green delights Aufonia pours, When for them she must bend the servile knee, And fawning take the splendid robber's boon. Nor stop the terrors of these regions here. Commission'd demons oft', angels of wrath, Let loose the raging elements. Breath'd hot From all the boundless furnace of the sky, And the wide-glittering waste of burning sand, A fuffocating wind the pilgrim smites With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil, 965 Son of the defert! even the camel feels, Shot thro' his withered heart, the fiery blast: Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad, Sallies the fudden wirl wind. Straight the sands, Commov'd around, in gathering eddies play: 970 Nearer and nearer still they darkening come, Till with the general all-involving storm Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arife, And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown, Or funk at night in fad disastrous fleep, Beneath descending hills the caravan Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets Th' impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain, And Mecca faddens at the long delay.

But chief at sea, whose every flexile wave

Obeys the blaft, the aërial tumult swells.

975

980

!

L

In the dread ocean, undulating wide,

Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,

The circling Typhon*, whirl'd from point to point,

Exhausting all the rage of all the sky,

985

And dire Ecnephia * reign. Amid the heavens,
Falsely ferene, deep in a cloudy speck + "

Compress'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells,

:

990

Of no regard save to the skilful eye:
Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Musters its force: a faint deceitful calm,
A fluttering gale, the demon sends before,
To tempt the spreading fail; then down at once,
Precipitant, descends a mingled mass
Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fix'd the failor stands.

995

1000

Art is too flow: by rapid Fate oppress'd,
His broad-wing'd vessel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.
With such mad seas the daring Gama † fought
For many a day and many a dreadful night,
Incessant lab'ring round the stormy Cape,
By bold Ambition led, and bolder thirst

Of gold: for then from ancient gloom emerged 1005

* Typhon and Ecnephia, names of particular storms or hurricanes, known only between the tropics.

+ Called by failors the Ox-eye, being in appearance, at first, ne bigger.

Vasco de Gama, the first who failed round Africa, by the Cape of Good Hope, to the East-Indies.

The rifing world of Trade; the Genius then

Of Navigation, that in hopeless sloth
Had slumber'd on the vast Atlantic deep

For idle ages, starting, heard, at last,
The Lufitanian Prince*, who, Heaven-inspir'd,
To love of useful glory rous'd mankind,
And in unbounded Commerce mix'd the world.

1011

Increasing still the terrors of these storms, His jaws horrific arm'd with threefold fate Here dwells the direful shark. Lur'd by the scent 1015. Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, and death,

Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,

[ocr errors]

1020

Swift as the gale can bear the ship along,
And from the partners of that cruel trade,
Which spoils unhappy Guinea of her fons,
Demands his share of prey; demands themselves.
The stormy Fates descend: one death involves
Tyrants and slaves; when straight their mangled limbs
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple seas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.
When q'er this world, by equinoctial rains
Flooded immenfe, looks out the joyless sun,
And draws the copious steam from swampy fens,
Where putrefaction into life ferments,

1025

And breathes destructive myriads; or from woods,

Impenetrable shades, recesses foul,

1031

** Don Henry, third son to John I. king of Portugal. His trong genius to the discovery of new countries was the chief fource of all the modern improvements in navigation,

In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,
Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot
Has ever dar'd to pierce, then, wasteful, forth
Walks the dire Power of pestilent disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,
Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless woe,

1035

And feeble desolation casting down

The towering hopes and all the pride of Man:

Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd
The British fire. You, gallant Vernon! saw

1040

The miferable scene; you, pitying, saw

To infant-weakness funk the warrior's arm;

Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form,
The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye, 1045
No more with ardour bright: you heard the groans-
Of agonizing ships from shore to shore:
Heard nightly plung'd amid the fullen waves
The frequent corse, while on each other fix'd,
In sad presage, the blank assistants seem'd,
Silent, to ask whom Fate would next demand.
What need I mention those inclement skies,
Where, frequent o'er the fickening city Plague,
The fierceft child of Nemesis divine,

1050

Descends? From Ethiopia's poisoned woods*, 1055
From stifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields
With locuft-armies putrefying heap'd,

* These are the causes supposed to be the firft origin of the plague, in Dr. Mead's elegant book on that fubject,

i

This great deftroyer sprung. Her awful rage
The brutes escape: man is her destin'd prey,
Intemperate man! and o'er his guilty domes 1060
She draws a close incumbent cloud of death,
Uninterrupted by the living winds,

1065

Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze, and stain'd
With many a mixture by the fun, fuffus'd,
Of angry aspect. Princely Wisdom, then,
Dejects his watchful eye, and from the hand
Of feeble Justice, ineffectual, drop
The sword and balance: mute the voice of Joy,
And hush'd the clamour of the busy world:

Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad: 1070
Into the worst of deferts fudden turn'd
The cheerful haunt of men; unless escap'd

Fromthedoom'dhousewhere matchless Horror reigns,
Shut up by barbarous Fear, the smitten wretch,
With frenzy wild, breaks loose, and, loud to heaven

Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns,

Inhuman, and unwife. The fullen door,

Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge

Fearing to turn, abhors fociety.

1076

Dependents, friends, relations, Love himself, 1080

Savag'd by woe, forget the tender tie,

The sweet engagement of the feeling heart.
But vain their selfish care; the circling sky,

The wide enlivening air, is full of fate;
And, struck by turns, in folitary pangs

1085

« السابقةمتابعة »