And when the gods our arms with conquest crown'd, With haughty love the audacious monster strove
When Troy's proud bulwarks smoked upon the ground, To force the goddess, and to rival Jove.

Greece to reward her soldier's gallant toils,
Heap'd high his navy with unnumber'd spoils.
Thus, great in glory, from the din of war,
Safe he return'd, without one hostile scar;
Though spears in iron tempests rain'd around,
Yet innocent they play'd, and guiltless of a wound.
While yet I spoke, the shade with transport glow'd,
Rose in his majesty, and nobler trod;

With haughty stalk he sought the distant glades
Of warrior kings, and join'd the illustrious shades.
Now, without number, ghost by ghost arose,
All wailing with unutterable woes.
Alone, apart, in discontented mood,
A gloomy shade, the sullen Ajax stood;
For ever sad with proud disdain he pined,
And the lost arms for ever stung his mind;
Though to the contest Thetis gave the laws,
And Pallas, by the Trojans, judged the cause.
O why was I victorious in the strife?

O dear-bought honour with so brave a life!
With him the strength of war, the soldiers' pride,
Our second hope to great Achilles, died!
Touch'd at the sight from tears I scarce refrain,
And tender sorrow thrills in every vein;
Pensive and sad I stand, at length accost
With accents mild the inexorable ghost.

660

There Tantalus along the Stygian bounds
Pours out deep groans (which groans all hell re-

sounds ;)

Even in the circling floods refreshment craves, 721
And pines with thirst amidst a sea of waves;
When to the water he his lip applies,
Back from his lip the treacherous water flies
Above, beneath, around, his hapless head,
Trees of all kinds delicious fruitage spread;
There figs sky-dyed, a purple hue disclose,
Green looks the olive, the pomegranate glows,
There dangling pears exalting scents unfold,
And yellow apples ripen into gold:
The fruit he strives to seize; but blasts arise
Toss it on high, and whirl it to the skies.

I turn'd my eye, and as I turn'd survey'd
A mournful vision! the Sisyphian shade;
670 With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the
ground.

Still burns thy rage? and can brave souls resent
Even after death? Relent, great shade relent!
Perish those arms which by the gods' decree
Accursed our army with the loss of thee!
With thee we fell; Greece wept thy hapless fates,
And shook astonish'd through her hundred states.
Not more, when great Achilles press'd the ground,
And breathed his manly spirit through the wound.
O deem thy fall not owed to man's decree,
Jove hated Greece, and punish'd Greece in thee!
Turn, then, oh peaceful turn, thy wrath controul,
And calm the raging tempest of thy soul.

680

690

While yet I speak, the shade disdains to stay,
In silence turns, and sullen stalks away.
Touch'd at his sour retreat, through deepest night,
Through hell's black bounds I had pursued his
flight,

And forced the stubborn spectre to reply;
But wondrous visions drew my curious eye.
High on a throne, tremendous to behold,
Stern Minos waves a mace of burnish'd gold;
Around ten thousand thousand spectres stand
Through the wide dome of Dis, a trembling band.
Still as they plead, the fatal lots he rolls,
Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.
There huge Orion, of portentous size,
Swift through the gloom a giant-hunter flies;
A ponderous mass of brass with direful sway
Aloft he whirls, to crush the savage prey;
Stern beasts in trains that by his truncheon fell,
Now grisly forms, shoot o'er the lawns of hell.

There Tityus large and long, in fetters bound,
O'erspreads nine acres of infernal ground;
Two ravenous vultures, furious for their food,
Scream o'er the fiend, and riot in his blood,
Incessant gore the liver in his breast,

The immortal liver grows, and gives the immortal

feast.

For as o'er Panopè's enamell'd plains

Latona journey'd to the Pythian fanes,

Again the restless orb his toil renews,

730

750

Dust mounts in clouds, and sweat descends in dews.
Now I the strength of Hercules behold, 741
A towering spectre of gigantic mould,
A shadowy form! for high in heaven's abodes
Himself resides, a god among the gods;
There, in the bright assemblies of the skies,
He nectar quaff's, and Hebè crowns his joys.
Here hovering ghosts, like fowl, his shade surround,
And clang their pinions with terrific sound;
Gloomy as night he stands, in act to throw
The aërial arrow from the twanging bow.
Around his breast a wondrous zone is roll'd,
Where woodland monsters grin in fretted gold.
There sullen lions sternly seem to roar,
The bear to growl, to foam the tusky boar;
There war and havoc and destruction stood,
And vengeful murder red with human blood.
Thus terribly adorn'd the figures shine,
Inimitably wrought with skill divine.
The mighty ghost advanced with awful look,
And turning his grim visage sternly spoke.

760

O exercised in grief! by arts refined!
O taught to bear the wrongs of base mankind!
Such, such was I still toss'd from care to care,
While in your world I drew the vital air!
700 Even I, who from the Lord of Thunders rose,
Bore toils and dangers, and a weight of woes;
To a base monarch still a slave confined
(The hardest bondage to a generous mind!)
Down to these worlds I trod the dismal way,
And dragg'd the three-mouth'd dog to upper day;
Even hell I conquer'd through the friendly aid 771
Of Maia's offspring and the martial maid.

710

No more my heart the dismal din sustains,
And my cold blood hangs shivering in my veins;
Lest Gorgon, rising from the infernal lakes,
With horrors arm'd, and curls of hissing snakes,
Should fix me stiffen'd at the monstrous sight,
A stony image, in eternal night!

The goddess spoke: in feasts we waste the day,
Till Phoebus downward plunged his burning ray; 40
Then sable night ascends, and balmy rest
Seals every eye, and calms the troubled breast
Then, curious, she commands me to relate
The dreadful scenes of Pluto's dreary state.
She sat in silence while the tale I tell,
790 The wondrous visions, and the laws of hell.
Then thus: The lot of man the gods dispose;
These ills are past: now hear thy future woes.
O prince, attend! some favouring power be kind,
And print the important story on thy mind!

Straight from the direful coast to purer air
I speed my flight, and to my mates repair.
My mates ascend the ship; they strike their oars;
The mountains lessen, and retreat the shores :
Swift o'er the waves we fly; the freshening gales
Sing through the shrouds, and stretch the swelling
sails.

BOOK XII.

ARGUMENT.

The Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis.

Next, where the Sirens dwell, you plough the

seas;

Their song is death, and makes destruction please.
Unblest the man, whom music wins to stay
Nigh the curst shore, and listen to the lay.
No more that wretch shall view the joys of life,
His blooming offspring, or his beauteous wife:

He relates how, after his return from the shades he was In verdant meads they sport; and wide around
sent by Circe on his voyage, by the coast of the Sirens, Lie human bones, that whiten all the ground;
and by the strait of Scylla and Charybdis: the man- The ground polluted floats with human gore,
ner in which he escaped those dangers: how, being cast And human carnage taints the dreadful shore.
on the island of Trinacria, his companions destroyed

the oxen of the Sun: the vengeance that followed; how Fly swift the dangerous coast: let every ear all perished by shipwreck except himself, who, swim- Be stopp'd against the song! 'tis death to hear! ming on the mast of the ship, arrived on the island of Firm to the mast thyself with chains be bound, Calypso. With which his narration concludes.

BOOK XII.

THUS o'er the rolling surge the vessel flies,
Till from the waves the Eæan hills arise.
Here the gay morn resides in radiant bowers,
Here keeps her revels with the dancing Hours;
Here Phœbus rising in the ethereal way,

50

60

Nor trust thy virtue to the enchanting sound.
If, mad with transport, freedom thou demand,
Be every fetter strain'd, and added band to band.
These seas o'erpass'd, be wise! but I refrain
To mark distinct thy voyage o'er the main :
New horrors rise! let prudence be thy guide,
And guard thy various passage through the tide. 70
High o'er the main two rocks exalt their brow,
The boiling billows thundering roll below;

Through heaven's bright portals pours the beamy day. Through the vast waves the dreadful wonders move,

At once we fix our halsers on the land,
At once descend, and press the desert sand:
There, worn and wasted, lose our cares in sleep
To the hoarse murmurs of the rolling deep.

Soon as the morn restored the day, we paid
Sepulchral honours to Elpenor's shade.
Now by the ax the rushing forest bends,
And the huge pile along the shore ascends,
Around we stand, a melancholy train,
And a loud groan re-echoes from the main.
Fierce o'er the pyre, by fanning breezes spread
The hungry flame devours the silent dead.
A rising tomb, the silent dead to grace,
Fast by the roarings of the main we place;
The rising tomb a lofty column bore,
And high above it rose the tapering oar.

Hence named Erratic by the gods above.
No bird of air, no dove of swiftést wing,
That bears ambrosia to the ethereal king,
10 Shuns the dire rocks: in vain she cuts the skies,
The dire rocks meet, and crush her as she flies;
Not the fleet bark, when prosperous breezes play,
Ploughs o'er that roaring surge its desperate way;
80
O'erwhelm'd it sinks: while round a smoke expires,
And the waves flashing seem to burn with fires.
Scarce the famed Argo, pass'd these raging floods,
The sacred Argo, fill'd with demigods!
Even she had sunk, but Jove's imperial bride
Wing'd her fleet sail, and push'd her.o'er the tide.
20 High in the air the rock its summit shrouds
In brooding tempests, and in rolling clouds:
Loud storms around, and mists eternal rise,
Beat its bleak brow, and intercept the skies.
When all the broad expansion, bright with day,
Glows with the autumnal or the summer ray,
The summer and the autumn glow in vain,
The sky for ever lowers, for ever clouds remain.
Impervious to the step of man it stands,
Though borne by twenty feet, though arm'd with
twenty hands;

30

Meantime the goddess our return survey'd
From the pale ghosts, and hell's tremendous shade.
Swift she descends: a train of nymphs divine
Bear the rich viands and the generous wine:
In act to speak the power of magic stands,
And graceful thus accosts the listening bands.
O sons of woe! decreed by adverse fates
Alive to pass through hell's eternal gates!
All, soon or late, are doom'd that path to tread ;
More wretched you, twice number'd with the dead!
This day adjourn your cares, exalt your souls,
Indulge the taste, and drain the sparkling bowls;
And when the morn unveils her saffron ray,
Spread your broad sails, and plough the liquid way.
Lo I this night, your faithful guide, explain
Your woes by land, your dangers on the main.

Smooth as the polish of the mirror rise
The slippery sides, and shoot into the skies.
Full in the centre of this rock display'd,
A yawning cavern casts a dreadful shade: .
Nor the fleet arrow from the twanging bow,
Sent with full force, could reach the depth below.
Wide to the west the horrid gulf extends,
And the dire passage down to hell descends

90

100

110

O fly the dreadful sight! expand thy sails,
Ply the strong oar, and catch the nimble gales;
Here Scylla bellows from her dire abodes,
Tremendous pest, abhorr'd by man and gods!
Hideous her voice, and with less terrors roar
The whelps of lions in the midnight hour.
Twelve feet, deform'd and foul, the fiend dispreads;
Six horrid necks she rears, and six terrific heads;
Her jaws grin dreadful with three rows of teeth :
Jaggy they stand, the gaping den of death;
Her parts obscene the raging billows hide;
Her bosom terribly o'erlooks the tide.
When stung with hunger she embroils the flood,
The sea-dog and the dolphin are her food;
She makes the huge leviathan her prey,
And all the monsters of the watery way;
The swiftest racer of the azure plain

Here fills her sails and spreads her oars in vain:
Fell Scylla rises, in her fury roars,

Rob not the god! and so propitious gales
Attend thy voyage, and impel thy sails;
But if thy impious hands the flocks destroy,
The gods, the gods avenge it and ye die!
'Tis thine alone (thy friends and navy lost)
Through tedious toils to view thy native coast
She ceas'd; and now arose the morning ray;
Swift to her dome the goddess held her way.
Then to my mates I measured back the plain,
Climb'd the tall bark, and rush'd into the main:
Then bending to the stroke, their oars they drew
To their broad breasts, and swift the galley flew.
Up sprung a brisker breeze: with freshening gales,
The friendly goddess stretch'd the swelling sails:
We drop our oars; at ease the pilot guides;
120 The vessel light along the level glides.
When, rising sad and slow, with pensive look,
Thus to the melancholy train I spoke:

At once six mouths expands, at once six men de

Oh friends, oh ever partners of my woes,
Attend while I what heaven foredooms disclose.
Hear all! Fate hangs o'er all; on you it lies
To live or perish! to be safe, be wise!

In flowery meads the sportive Sirens play,
Touch the soft lyre, and tune the vocal lay;
Me, me alone, with fetters firmly bound,
The gods allow to hear the dangerous sound.

'Midst roaring whirlpools, and absorbs the main: 130 Hear and obey: if freedom I demand,

Thrice in her gulfs the boiling seas subside,
Thrice in dire thunders she refunds the tide.
Oh, if thy vessel plough the direful waves
When seas retreating roar within her caves,
Ye perish all! though he who rules the main
Lend his strong aid, his aid he lends in vain.
Ah, shun the horrid gulf! by Scylla fly,
'Tis better six to lose, than all to die.

I then: O nymph, propitious to my prayer,
Goddess divine, my guardian power, declare,
Is the foul fiend from human vengeance freed?
Or, if I rise in arms, can Scylla bleed?

150

180

190

200

Be every fetter strain'd, be added band to band.
While yet I speak the winged galley flies
And lo! the Siren shores like mists arise.
Sunk were at once the winds: the air above,
And waves below at once forgot to move:
Some dæmon calm'd the air, and smooth'd the deep,
Hush'd the loud winds, and charm'd the waves to sleep.
Now every sail we furl, each oar we ply;
Lash'd by the stroke, the frothy waters fly.

210

140 The ductile wax with busy hands I mould,
And cleft in fragments, and the fragments roll'd:
The aërial region now grew warm with day,
The wax dissolved beneath the burning ray;
Then every ear I barr'd against the strain,
And from access of phrenzy lock'd the brain.
Now round the masts my mates the fetters roll'd,
And bound me limb by limb with fold on fold.
Then bending to the stroke, the active train
Plunge all at once their oars, and cleave the main.
While to the shore the rapid vessel flies,
Our swift approach the Siren choir descries;
Celestial music warbles from their tongue,
And thus the sweet deluders tune the song.
Oh stay, oh pride of Greece! Ulysses, stay!
Oh cease thy course, and listen to our lay!
Blest is the man ordain'd our voice to hear,
The song instructs the soul, and charms the ear.
Approach! thy soul shall into raptures rise!
Approach! and learn new wisdom from the wise!
We know whate'er the kings of mighty name
Achieved at Ilion in the field of fame;
Whate'er beneath the sun's bright journey lies, 230
Oh stay, and learn new wisdom from the wise!

Then she: Oh worn by toils, oh broke in fight,
Still are new toils and war thy dire delight?
Will martial flames for ever fire thy mind,
And never, never, be to heaven resign'd?
How vain thy efforts to avenge the wrong!
Deathless the pest! impenetrably strong!
Furious and fell, tremendous to behold!
Even with a look she withers all the bold!
She mocks the weak attempts of human might:
Oh fly her rage! thy conquest is thy flight.
If but to seize thy arms thou make delay,
Again the fury vindicates her prey,
Her six mouths yawn, and six are snatch'd away.
From her foul womb Cratæis gave to air
This dreadful pest! To her direct thy prayer,
To curb the monster in her dire abodes,
And guard thee through the tumult of the floods. 159
Thence to Trinacria's shore you bend your way,
Where graze thy herds, illustrious source of day!
Seven herds, seven flocks, enrich the sacred plains,
Each herd, each flock, full fifty heads contains:
The wondrous kind a length of age survey,
By breed increase not, nor by death decay.
Two sister goddesses possess the plain,
The constant guardians of the woolly train:
Lampetie fair, and Phaethusa young,
From Phoebus and the bright Neæra sprung:
Here, watchful o'er the flocks, in shady bowers
And flowery meads they waste the joyous hours.

170

220

Thus the sweet charmers warbled o'er the main;
My soul takes wing to meet the heavenly strain;
I give the sign, and struggle to be free:
Swift row my mates, and shoot along the sea;
New chains they add, and rapid urge the way,
Till, dying off, the distant sounds decay:
Then, scudding swiftly from the dangerous ground,
The deafen'd ear unlock'd, the chains unbound

Now all at once tremendous scenes unfold;
Thunder'd the deeps, the smoking billows roll'd!
Tumultuous waves embroil the bellowing flood,
All trembling, deafen'd, and aghast we stood!
No more the vessel plough'd the dreadful wave,
Fear seized the mighty, and unnerved the brave;
Each dropt his oar: but swift from man to man
With looks serene I turn'd, and thus began:
Oh friends! oh often tried in adverse storms!
With ills familiar in more dreadful forms!
Deep in the dire Cyclopean den you lay,
Yet safe return'd-Ulysses led the way,
Learn courage hence, and in my care confide:
Lo! still the same Ulysses is your guide.
Attend my words! your oars incessant ply;
Strain every nerve, and bid the vessel fly.
If from yon justling rocks and wavy war
Jove safety grants, he grants it to your care.
And thou, whose guiding hand directs our way,
Pilot, attentive listen and obey!

240 In the wide dungeon she devours her food,
And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood.
Worn as I am with griefs, with care decay'd,
Never, I never, scene so dire survey'd!

My shivering blood, congeal'd, forgot to flow; 310
Aghast I stood, a monument of woe!

Now from the rocks the rapid vessel flies,
And the hoarse din like distant thunder dies;
To Sol's bright isle our voyage we pursue,
And now the glittering mountains rise to view.
250 There sacred to the radiant god of day,
Graze the fair herds, the flocks promiscuous stray:
Then suddenly was heard along the main
To low the ox, to bleat the woolly train.
Straight to my anxious thoughts the sound convey'd
The words of Circe and the Theban shade;
Warn'd by their awful voice these shores to shun,
With cautious fears oppress'd, I thus begun.

259
Bear wide thy course, nor plough those angry waves
Where rolls yon smoke, yon tumbling ocean raves:
Steer by the higher rock; lest whirl'd around
We sink, beneath the circling eddy drown'd.

While yet I speak, at once their oars they seize,
Stretch to the stroke, and brush the working seas.
Cautious the name of Scylla I suppress'd;
That dreadful sound had chill'd the boldest breast.
Meantime, forgetful of the voice divine,
All dreadful bright my limbs in armour shine;
High on the deck I take my dangerous stand,
Two glittering javelins lighten in my hand:
Prepared to whirl the whizzing spear I stay,
Till the fell fiend arise to seize her prey.
Around the dungeon, studious to behold
The hideous pest, my labouring eyes I roll'd;
In vain! the dismal dungeon, dark as night,
Veils the dire monster, and confounds the sight.

O friends! oh ever exercised in care!
Hear heaven's commands, and reverence what ye
hear!

To fly these shores the prescient Theban shade
And Circe warns! O be their voice obey'd:
Some mighty woe relentless heaven forbodes:
Fly these dire regions, and revere the gods!

319

340

O cruel thou! some fury sure has steel'd
That stubborn soul, by toil untaught to yield!
270 From sleep debarr'd, we sink from woes to woes;
And cruel, enviest thou a short repose?
Still must we restless rove, new seas explore,
The sun descending, and so near the shore?
And lo! the night begins her gloomy reign,
And doubles all the terrors of the main.
Oft in the dead of night loud winds arise,
Lash the wild surge, and bluster in the skies;
Or should the fierce south-west his rage display,
And toss with rising storms the watery way,
280 Though gods descend from heaven's aërial plain
To lend us aid, the gods descend in vain ;
Then while the night displays her awful shade,
Sweet time of slumber! be the night obey'd!
Haste ye to land! and when the morning ray
Sheds her bright beams, pursue the destined way. 350
A sudden joy in every bosom rose :
So will'd some dæmon, minister of woes!

Now through the rocks, appall'd with deep dismay,
We bend our course, and stem the desperate way;
Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms,
And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms.
When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves
The rough rock roars; tumultuous boil the waves;
They toss, they foam, a wild confusion raise,
Like waters bubbling o'er the fiery blaze;
Eternal mists obscure the aërial plain,
And high above the rock she spouts the main:
When in her gulfs the rushing sea subsides,
She drains the ocean with the refluent tides:
The rock rebellows with a thundering sound;
Deep, wondrous deep, below appears the ground.
Struck with despair, with trembling hearts we
view'd

290

To whom with grief-O swift to be undone,
Constrain'd I act what wisdom bids me shun.
But yonder herds and yonder flocks forbear;
Attest the heavens, and call the gods to hear:
Content, an innocent repast display,
By Circe given, and fly the dangerous prey.

360

Thus I and while to shore the vessel flies,
With hands uplifted they attest the skies;
Then where a fountain's gurgling waters play,
They rush to land, and end in feasts the day:
They feed; they quaff: and now (their hunger fled)
Sigh for their friends devour'd, and mourn the dead;
Nor cease the tears till each in slumber shares
A sweet forgetfulness of human cares.

Now far the night advanced her gloomy reign,
And setting stars roll'd down the azure plain :
When, at the voice of Jove, wild whirlwinds rise,
And clouds and double darkness veil the skies; 370

The moon, the stars, the bright ethereal host

Seem as extinct, and all their splendours lost;

O friends, be wise! nor dare the flocks destroy
Of these fair pastures: if ye touch, ye die.
Warn'd by the high command of heaven, be awed;
Holy the flocks, and dreadful is the god!
That god who spreads the radiant beams of light,
And views wide earth and heaven's unmeasured
height.

And now the moon had run her monthly round,
The south-east blustering with a dreadful sound:
Unhurt the beeves, untouch'd the woolly train 389
Low through the grove, or range the flowery plain:
Then fail'd our food; then fish we make our prey,
Or fowl that, screaming, haunt the watery way.
Till now, from sea or flood no succour found,
Famine and meagre want besieged us round.
Pensive and pale from grove to grove I stray'd,
From the loud storms to find a sylvan shade;
There o'er my hands the living wave I pour ;
And heaven and heaven's immortal thrones adore,
To calm the roarings of the stormy main,
And grant me peaceful to my realms again.
Then o'er my eyes the gods soft slumber shed,`
While thus Eurylochus arising said:

O friends, a thousand ways frail mortals lead
To the cold tomb, and dreadful all to tread;
But dreadful most, when, by a slow decay,
Pale hunger wastes the manly strength away.
Why cease ye then to implore the powers above,
And offer hecatombs to thundering Jove?
Why seize ye not yon beeves, and fleecy prey?
Arise unanimous; arise and slay:
And if the gods ordain a safe return,

To Phoebus shrines shall rise, and altars burn.
But, should the powers that o'er mankind preside,
Decree to plunge us in the whelming tide,
Better to rush at once to shades below,
Than linger life away, and nourish woe!

450

Aims the red bolt, and hurls the writhen brand!
Slain are those herds which I with pride survey,
When through the ports of heaven I pour the day
Or deep in ocean plunge the burning ray.
Vengeance, ye gods! or I the skies forego,
And bear the lamp of heaven to shades below.
To whom the thundering Power: O source of day!
Whose radiant lamp adorns the azure way,
Still may thy beams through heaven's bright por-
tals rise,

The joy of earth, and glory of the skies;
Lo! my red arm I bare, my thunders guide,
To dash the offenders in the whelming tide
To fair Calypso, from the bright abodes,
Hermes convey'd these counsels of the gods
Meantime from man to man my tongue exclaims,
My wrath is kindled, and my soul in flames.
In vain! I view perform'd the direful deed,
Beeves, slain by heaps, along the ocean bleed.

461

Now heaven gave signs of wrath; along the ground Crept the raw hides, and with a bellowing sound

469

400 Roar'd the dead limbs; the burning entrails groan'd.
Six guilty days my wretched mates employ
In impious feasting, and unhallow'd joy;
The seventh arose, and now the sire of gods
Rein'd the rough storms, and calm'd the tossing floods:
With speed the bark we climb; the spacious sails
Loosed from the yards invite the impelling gales.
Past sight of shore, along the surge we bound,
And all above is sky, and ocean all around;
When lo! a murky cloud the Thunderer forms
410 Full o'er our heads, and blackens heaven with storms.
Night dwells o'er all the deep: and now outflies
The gloomy West, and whistles in the skies.
The mountain-billows roar! the furious blast
Howls o'er the shroud, and rends it from the mast;
The mast gives way, and crackling as it bends, 481
Tears up the deck; and all at once descends;
The pilot by the tumbling ruin slain,

Dash'd from the helm, falls headlong in the main.
Then Jove in anger bids his thunders roll,
420 And forky lightnings flash from pole to pole:

Fierce at our heads his deadly bolt he aims,

Red with uncommon wrath, and wrapt in flames: train,Full on the bark it fell; now high, now low,

Thus he the beeves around securely stray,
When swift to ruin they invade the prey;
They seize, they kill!-but for the rite divine,
The barley fail'd, and for libations wine.
Swift from the oak they strip the shady pride;
And verdant leaves the flowery cake supplied.
With prayer they now address the ethereal
Slay the selected beeves, and flay the slain :
The thighs, with fat involved, divide with art,
Strew'd o'er with morsels cut from every part.
Water, instead of wine, is brought in urns,
And pour'd profanely as the victim burns.
The thighs thus offer'd, and the entrails dress'd,
They roast the fragments, and prepare the feast. 430
'Twas then soft slumber fled my troubled brain;
Back to the bark I speed along the main.
When lo! an odour from the feast exhales,
Spreads o'er the coast, and scents the tainted gales;
A chilly fear congeal'd my vital blood,
And thus, obtesting heaven, I mourn'd aloud.
O sire of men and gods, immortal Jove!
O all ye blissful powers that reign above!

Toss'd and re-toss'd, it reel'd beneath the blow; 490
At once into the main the crew it shook :
Sulphureous odours rose, and smouldering smoke.
Like fowl that haunt the floods, they sink, they rise,
Now lost, now seen, with shrieks and dreadful cries,
And strive to gain the bark; but Jove denies.
Firm at the helm I stand, when fierce the main
Rush'd with dire noise, and dash'd the sides in twain;
Again impetuous drove the furious blast,
Snapt the strong helm, and bore to sea the mast;
Firm to the mast with cords the helm I bind,
And ride aloft, to Providence resign'd,
Through tumbling billows and a war of wind.
Now sunk the West, and now a southern breeze
More dreadful than the tempest, lash'd the seas.

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