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, Compress'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells, : 990 Of no regard save to the skilful eye: 995 1000 Art is too flow: by rapid Fate oppress'd, 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 For idle ages, starting, heard, at last, 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, 1020 Swift as the gale can bear the ship along, 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, 1035 And feeble desolation casting down The towering hopes and all the pride of Man: Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd 1040 The miferable scene; you, pitying, saw To infant-weakness funk the warrior's arm; Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form, 1050 Descends? From Ethiopia's poisoned woods*, 1055 * 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 1065 Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze, and stain'd Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad: 1070 Fromthedoom'dhousewhere matchless Horror reigns, 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. The wide enlivening air, is full of fate; 1085 |