Who freeze alive, nor, dead, in dust repose,
High-hung in forests to the casing snows."
Now mid angelic multitudes he flies,

That hourly come with blessings from the skies;
Wings the blue element, and, borne sublime,
Eyes the set sun, gilding each distant clime;
Then, like a meteor shooting to the main,
Melts into pure intelligence again.

CANTO VII.

A Mutiny excited.

WHAT though Despondence reigned, and wild Affright –
Stretched in the midst, and, through that dismal night,'
By his white plume revealed and buskins white,2
Slept ROLDAN. When he closed his gay career,
Hope fled forever, and with Hope fled Fear.
Blest with each gift indulgent Fortune sends,
Birth and its rights, wealth and its train of friends,
Star-like he shone! Now beggared and alone,
Danger he wooed, and claimed her for his own.

O'er him a Vampire his dark wings displayed.3

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Called on the Spirit within. Disdaining flight,
Calmly she rose, collecting all her might.
Dire was the dark encounter!

Long unquelled,
Her sacred seat, sovereign and pure, she held.
At length the great foe binds her for his prize,
And awful, as in death, the body lies!

Not long to slumber! In an evil hour Informed and lifted by the unknown power, It starts, it speaks! "We live, we breathe no more! The fatal wind blows on the dreary shore! On yonder cliffs beckoning their fellow-prey, The spectres stalk, and murmur at delay!" -Yet if thou canst (not for myself I plead! Mine but to follow where 't is thine to lead), O, turn and save! To thee, with streaming eyes, To thee cach widow kneels, each orphan cries! Who now, condemned the lingering hours to tell, Think and but think of those they loved so well!”

All melt in tears! but what can tears avail? These climb the mast, and shift the swelling sail. These snatch the helm; and round me now I hear Smiting of hands, outcries of grief and fear (That in the aisles at midnight haunt me still, Turning my lonely thoughts from good to ill). "Were there no graves- none in our land," they cry "That thou hast brought us on the deep to die?" Silent with sorrow, long within his cloak His face he muffled - then the HERO spoke. "Generous and brave! when God himself is here. Why shake at shadows in your mid career? He can suspend the laws himself designed, He walks the waters, and the wingéd wind;

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Himself your guide! and yours the high behest,
To lift your voice, and bid a world be blest!
And can you shrink? to you, to you consigned
The glorious privilege to serve mankind!
O, had I perished, when my failing frame "
Clung to the shattered oar mid wrecks of flame!
Was it for this I lingered life away,
The scorn of Folly, and of Fraud the prey;"
Bowed down my mind, the gift His bounty gave,
At courts a suitor, and to slaves a slave?

Yet in His name whom only we should fear ('T is all, all I shall ask, or you shall hear) Grant but three days."

He spoke not uninspired;12

And each in silence to his watch retired.

At length among us came an unknown Voice! "Go, if ye will; and, if ye can, rejoice. Go, with unbidden guests the banquet share. In his own shape shall Death receive you there."13

CANTO VIII.

Land discovered.

TWICE in the zenith blazed the orb of light;
No shade, all sun, insufferably bright!
Then the long line found rest-in coral groves
Silent and dark, where the sea-lion roves:
And all on deck, kindling to life again,
Sent forth their anxious spirits o'er the main.
"O whence, as wafted from Elysium, whence
These perfumes, strangers to the raptured sense?

These boughs of gold, and fruits of heavenly hue,
Tinging with vermeil light the billows blue?
And (thrice, thrice blessed is the eye that spied,
The hand that snatched it sparkling in the tide)
Whose cunning carved this vegetable bowl,1
Symbol of social rites and intercourse of soul?"
Such to their grateful ear the gush of springs,
Who course the ostrich, as away she wings;
Sons of the desert! who delight to dwell
'Mid kneeling camels round the sacred well;
Who, ere the terrors of his pomp be passed,
Fall to the demon in the reddening blast.2

The sails were furled; with many a melting close, Solemn and slow the evening-anthem rose,

Rose to the Virgin.'

'T was the hour of day

When setting suns o'er summer-seas display

A path of glory, opening in the west
To golden climes, and islands of the blest;
And human voices, on the silent air,

Went o'er the waves in songs of gladness there!

Chosen of Men ! 4 'T was thine, at noon of night, First from the prow to hail the glimmering light;" (Emblem of Truth divine, whose secret ray Enters the soul, and makes the darkness day!) "PEDRO RODRIGO! there, methought, it shone ! There in the west! and now, alas! 't is gone! 'T was all a dream! we gaze and gaze in vain! -But mark and speak not, there it comes again! It moves! what form unseen, what being there With torch-like lustre fires the murky air? His instincts, passions, say, how like our own? O! when will day reveal a world unknown?"

CANTO IX.

The New World.

Long on the deep the mists of morning lay,
Then rose, revealing, as they rolled away,
Half-circling hills, whose everlasting woods
Sweep with their sable skirts the shadowy floods :
And say, when all, to holy transport given,
Embraced and wept as at the gates of Heaven,
When one and all of us, repentant, ran,
And, on our faces, blessed the wondrous man;
Say, was I then deceived, or from the skies
Burst on my ear seraphic harmonies?

Glory to God!” unnumbered voices sung,
“Glory to God!” the vales and mountains rung,
Voices that hailed Creation's primal morn,
And to the shepherds sung a Saviour born.

Slowly, bare-headed, through the surf we bore
The sacred cross,' and, kneeling, kissed the shore.
But what a scene was there?? Nymphs of romance,
Youths graceful as the Faun, with eager glance,
Spring from the glades, and down the alleys peep,
Then headlong rush, bounding from steep to steep,
And clap their hands, exclaiming as they run,
6 Come and behold the Children of the Sun !" 4
When hark, a signal-shot! The voice, it came
Over the sea in darkness and in flame!
They saw, they heard; and up the highest hill,
As in a picture, all at once were still !
Creatures so fair, in garments strangely wrought,
From citadels, with Heaven's own thunder fraught,

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