Lo! Italy appears, Achates cries,
And Italy with shouts, the crowd replies.
My fire, tranfported, crowns a bowl with wine,
Stands on the deck, and calls the pow'rs divine:
Ye gods! who rule the tempefts, earth, and feas, 715
Befriend our course, and breathe a profperous breeze.
Up sprung th' expected breeze; the port we spy,
Near, and more near; and Pallas' fane on high,
With the steep hill, rofe dancing to the eye.
Our fails are furl'd; and from the seas profound, 720
We turn the prows to land, while ocean foams around.
Where from the raging east the furges flow,
The land indented bends an ample bow,
The port conceal'd within the winding shore,
Dafh'd on the fronting cliffs, the billows roar.
Two lofty tow'ring rocks extended wide,
With outstretch'd arms embrace the murmuring tide. Within the mighty wall the waters lie,
And from the coaft the temple feems to fly.
Here first, a dubious omen I beheld;
Four milk-white courfers graz'd the verdant field.
War, cry'd my fire, these hoftile realms prepare;
Train'd to the fight, thefe fteeds denounce the war.
But fince fometimes they bear the guiding rein,
Yok'd to the car; the hopes of peace remain.
Then, as her temple rais'd our fhouts, we paid
Our first devotions to the martial maid.
Next, as the rules of Helenus enjoin,
We veil'd our heads at Juno's facred firine; vine. }
This done;- -once more with shifting fails we fly, 741
And cautious pass the hoftile regions by.
Hence we renown'd Tarentum's bay behold,
Renown'd, 'tis faid, from Hercules of old.
Oppos'd, Lacinia's temple rofe on high,
And proud Caulonian tow'rs falute the sky.
Then, near the rocky Scylacaean bay
For wrecks defam'd, we plough the watʼry way.
Now we behold, emerging to our eyes
From diftant floods, Sicilian Ætna rise;
And hear a thund'ring din and dreadful roar
Of billows breaking on the rocky fhore.
The smoking waves boil high, on every fide,
And scoop the fands, and blacken all the tide.
Charybdis' gulf, my father cries, behold!
The direful rocks the royal feer foretold;
Ply, ply your oars, and stretch to every stroke:
Swift as the word, their ready oars, they took;
First skilful Palinure; then all the train
Steer to the left, and plough the liquid plain.
Now on a tow'ring arch of waves we rise,
Heav'd on the bounding billows, to the skies.
Then, as the roaring furge retreating fell,
We shoot down headlong to the depths of hell.
Thrice the rough rocks rebellow in our ears;
Thrice mount the foamy tides, and dafh the stars.
The wind now finking with the lamp of day,
Spent with her toils, and dubious of the way;
We reach the dire Cyclopean shore, that forms
An ample port, impervious to the storms.
But Ætna roars with dreadful ruins nigh,
Now hurls a bursting cloud of cinders high,
Involv'd in smoky whirlwinds to the sky;
With loud displosion, to the starry frame :
Shoots fiery globes, and furious floods of flame:
Now from her bellowing caverns burst away
Vaft piles of melted rocks, in open day.
Her fhatter'd entrails wide the mountain throws,
And deep as hell her burning center glows.
On vaft Enceladus this pond'rous load
Was thrown in vengeance by the thund'ring god; Who pants beneath the mountains; and expires, Through openings huge, the fierce tempeftuous fires; Oft as he fhifts his fide, the caverns roar;
With fioke and flame the skies are cover'd o'er, 785
And all Trinacria fhakes from shore to fhore.
That night we heard the loud tremendous found,
The monstrous mingled peal that thunder'd round;
While in the shelt'ring wood we fought repofe,
Nor knew from whence the dreadful tumult rofe. 790
For not one star displays his golden light;
The skies lie cover'd in the fhades of night;
The filver moon her glimmering fplendor fhrouds
In gathering vapours, and a night of clouds.
Now fled the dewy shades of night away,
Before the bluthes of the dawning day;
When, from the wood, fhot fudden forth in view
A wretch, in rags that flutter'd as he flew.
The human form in meager hunger loft;
The suppliant stranger, more than half a ghost, 800. Stretch'd forth his hands, and pointed to the coast. Ꮓ
We turn'd to view the fight;-his veft was torn,
And all the tatter'd garb was tagg'd with thorn.
His beard hangs long, and duft the wretch diftains,
And scarce the fhadow of a man remains.
In all befides, a Grecian he appears,
And late a foldier in the Trojan wars.
Soon as our Dardan dress and arms he view'd,
In fear fufpended for a space he stood;
Stood, ftop'd, and paus'd; then, fpringing forth, he flies
All headlong to the fhore with pray'rs and cries: 811
Oh! by this vital air, the ftars on high,
By every pitying pow'r who treads the sky!
Ye Trojans, take me hence; I ask no more;
But bear, oh bear me from this dreadful shore.
I own myself a Grecian, and confefs
I ftorm'd your Ilion with the fons of Greece.
If that offence must doom me to the grave,
Ye Trojans, plunge me in the whelming wave.
I die contented, if that grace I gain;
I die with pleasure, if I die by man.
Then kneel'd the wretch, and fuppliant clung around My knees with tears, and grovel'd on the ground. Mov'd with his cries, we urge him to relate
His name, his lineage, and his cruel fate :
Then by the hand my good old father took
The trembling youth, who thus encourag'd fpoke.
Ulyffes' friend, your empire to destroy,
I left my native Ithaca for Troy,
My fire, poor Adamaftus, fent from far
His fon, his Achaemenides, to war;
Oh! had we both our humble ftate maintain'd,
And safe in peace and poverty remain'd!
For me my friends forgetful left behind,
In the huge Cyclops' ample cave confin'd.
Floating with human gore, the dreadful dome
Lies wide and wafte, a folitary gloom!
With mangled limbs was all the pavement spread;
High as the ftars he heaves his horrid head.
The tow'ring giant ftalks with matchlefs might; 840
A favage fiend! tremendous to the fight.
(Far, far from earth, ye heav'nly pow'rs, repell
A fiend fo direful to the depths of hell!)
For flaughter'd mortals are the monster's food,
The bodies he devours, and quaffs the blood.
Thefe eyes beheld him, when his ample hand
Seiz'd two poor wretches of our trembling band.
Stretch'd o'er the cavern, with a dreadful stroke,
He fratch'd, he dafh'd, he brain'd 'em on the rock.
In one black torrent fwam the fmoking floor;
Fierce he devours the limbs that drop with gore;
The limbs yet sprawling, dreadful to furvey!
Still heave and quiver while he grinds the prey.
But mindful of himself, that fatal hour,
Not unreveng'd their death Ulyffes bore.
For while the nodding favage fleeps fupine,
Gorg'd with his horrid feaft, and drown'd in wine;
And, ftretch'd o'er half the cave, ejects the load
Of human offals mixt with human blood :
Trembling, by lot we took our posts around,
Th' enormous giant flumb'ring on the ground.
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