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.
"Oh whence, as wafted from Elysium, whence
These perfumes, strangers to the raptured sense?

T

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*,
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 redd'ning blast†.

The sails were furled: with many a melting close,

Solemn and slow the evening-anthem rose,

Rose to the Virgin.

'Twas the hour of day,

When setting suns o'er summer-seas display

* Ex ligno lucido confectum, et arte mira laboratum. P. Martyr. dec. i. 5.

† The Simoom.

+ Salve, regina. Herrera, I. i. 12. It was the usual service, and always sung with great solemnity. "I remember one evening," says Oviedo, " when the ship was in full sail, and all the men were on their knees, singing Salve, regina, &c. Relacion Sommaria. The hymn, O Sanctissima, is still to be heard after sunset along the shores of Sicily, and its effect may better conceived than described.

be

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! * 'Twas 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, 'tis gone!—
'Twas 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?
Oh! 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;