At once the fury of the prow was quelled;
And (whence or why from many an age withheld)*
Shrieks, not of men, were mingling in the blast ;
And armed shapes of god-like stature passed!
Slowly along the evening-sky they went,

As on the edge of some vast battlement;
Helmet and shield, and spear and gonfalon

Streaming a baleful light that was not of the sun!

Long from the stern the great Adventurer gazed With awe not fear; then high his hands he raised. "Thou All-supreme in goodness as in power,

Who, from his birth to this eventful hour,

Hast led thy servant over land and sea, †
Confessing Thee in all, and all in Thee,

Oh still" He spoke, and lo, the charm accurst
Fled whence it came, and the broad barrier burst!
A vain illusion! (such as mocks the eyes

Of fearful men, when mountains round them rise

frozen sea,

"where St. Amaro suffers no ship to stir backward or forward."-Hist. del Almirante, c. 19.

* The author seems to have anticipated his long slumber in the library of the Fathers.

They may give me what name they please. I am servant of Him, &c. Hist. del Almirante, c. 2.

From less than nothing) nothing now beheld,
But scattered sedge-repelling, and repelled!

And once again that valiant company
Right onward came, ploughing the Unknown Sea.
Already borne beyond the range of thought,
With Light divine, with Truth Immortal fraught,
From world to world their steady course they keep, *
Swift as the winds along the waters sweep,
Mid the mute nations of the purple deep.

-And now the sound of harpy-wings they hear;
Now less and less, as vanishing in fear!

And see, the heavens bow down, the waters rise,
And, rising, shoot in columns to the skies, †
That stand-and still, when they proceed, retire,
As in the Desert burned the sacred fire;
Moving in silent majesty, till Night

Descends, and shuts the vision from their sight.

As St. Christopher carried Christ over the deep waters, so Columbus went over safe, himself and his company.—Hist. c. 1. + Water-spouts.-See Edwards's History of the West Indies, I. 12. Note.

CANTO III.

An Assembly of Evil Spirits.

*

THO' changed my cloth of gold for amice grey
In my spring-time, when every month was May,
With hawk and hound I coursed away the hour,
Or sung my roundelay in lady's bower.
And tho' my world be now a narrow cell,
(Renounced for ever all I loved so well)

Tho' now my head be bald, my feet be bare,
And scarce my knees sustain my book of prayer,

Oh I was there, one of that gallant crew,

And saw-and wondered whence his Power He drew,
Yet little thought, tho' by his side I stood,

Of his great Foes in earth and air and flood,
Then uninstructed.-But my sand is run,

And the Night coming - - - and my Task not done! -

* Many of the first discoverers ended their days in a hermitage or a cloister.

'Twas in the deep, immeasurable cave

Of ANDES,* echoing to the Southern wave,
Mid pillars of Basalt, the work of fire,

That, giant-like, to upper day aspire,

'Twas there that now, as wont in heaven to shine,
Forms of angelic mould and grace divine
Assembled. All, exiled the realms of rest,
In vain the sadness of their souls suppressed;
Yet of their glory many a scattered ray
Shot thro' the gathering shadows of decay.
Each moved a God; and all, as Gods, possessed
One half the globe; from pole to pole confessed!+

Oh could I now-but how in mortal verseTheir numbers, their heroic deeds rehearse!

* Vast indeed must be those dismal regions, if it be true, as conjectured (Kircher. Mund. Subt. I. 202), that Etna, in her eruptions, has discharged twenty times her original bulk. Well might she be called by Euripides (Troades, v. 222) the Mother of Mountains; yet Etna herself is but " a mere firework, when compared to the burning summits of the Andes."

+ Gods, yet confessed later.-Milton. Ils ne laissent pas d'en être les esclaves, et de les honorer plus que le grand Esprit, qui de sa nature est bon.-Lafitau.

These in dim shrines and barbarous symbols reign,
Where PLATA and MARAGNON meet the Main.*
Those the wild hunter worships as he roves,
In the green shade of CHILI's fragrant groves;
Or warrior-tribes with rites of blood implore,
Whose night-fires gleam along the sullen shore
Of HURON or ONTARIO, inland seas,†

What time the song of death is in the breeze!
'Twas now in dismal pomp and order due,
While the vast concave flashed with lightnings blue,
On shining pavements of metallic ore,

That many an age the fusing sulphur bore,

They held high council. All was silence round,
When, with a voice most sweet yet most profound,
A sovereign Spirit burst the gates of night,
And from his wings of gold shook drops of liquid light!

* Rivers of South America. Their collision with the tide has the effect of a tempest.

+ Lakes of North America. Huron is above a thousand miles in circumference. Ontario receives the waters of the Niagara, so famous for its falls; and discharges itself into the Atlantic by the river St. Lawrence.