No More Learning

Pirates perhaps, who seek through seas unknown
The lives of others, and expose your own? '

"His voice like thunder through the cavern sounds;
My bold companions thrilling fear confounds,
Appall'd at sight of more than mortal man!
At length, with heart recover'd, I began:

"'From Troy's famed fields, sad wanderers o'er the main,
Behold the relics of the Grecian train:
Through various seas, by various perils toss'd,
And forced by storms, unwilling on your coast;
Far from our destined course and native land,
Such was our fate, and such high Jove's command!
Nor what we are befits us to disclaim,
Atrides' friends (in arms a mighty name),
Who taught proud Troy and all her sons to bow;
Victors of late, but humble suppliants now!
Low at thy knee thy succour we implore;
Respect us, human, and relieve us, poor.
At least, some hospitable gift bestow;
'Tis what the happy to the unhappy owe;
'Tis what the gods require: those gods revere;
The poor and stranger are their constant care;
To Jove their cause, and their revenge belongs,
He wanders with them, and he feels their wrongs. "

"'Fools that ye are (the savage thus replies,
His inward fury blazing at his eyes),
Or strangers, distant far from our abodes,
To bid me reverence or regard the gods.
Know then, we Cyclops are a race above
Those air-bred people, and their goat-nursed Jove;
And learn, our power proceeds with thee and thine,
Not as he wills, but as ourselves incline.
But answer, the good ship that brought ye o'er,
Where lies she anchor'd? near or off the shore? '

"Thus he. His meditated fraud I find
(Versed in the turns of various human-kind):
And, cautious thus: 'Against a dreadful rock,
Fast by your shore the gallant vessel broke.
Scarce with these few I 'scaped; of all my train,
Whom angry Neptune, whelm'd beneath the main,
The scattered wreck the winds blew back again. '

"He answer'd with his deed: his bloody hand
Snatch'd two, unhappy! of my martial band;
And dash'd like dogs against the stony floor:
The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore.
Torn limb from limb, he spreads his horrid feast,
And fierce devours it like a mountain beast:
He sucks the marrow, and the blood he drains,
Nor entrails, flesh, nor solid bone remains.
We see the death from which we cannot move,
And humbled groan beneath the hand of Jove.
His ample maw with human carnage fill'd,
A milky deluge next the giant swill'd;
Then stretch'd in length o'er half the cavern'd rock,
Lay senseless, and supine, amidst the flock.
To seize the time, and with a sudden wound
To fix the slumbering monster to the ground,
My soul impels me! and in act I stand
To draw the sword; but wisdom held my hand.
A deed so rash had finished all our fate,
No mortal forces from the lofty gate
Could roll the rock. In hopeless grief we lay,
And sigh, expecting the return of day.
Now did the rosy-fingered morn arise,
And shed her sacred light along the skies;
He wakes, he lights the fire, he milks the dams,
And to the mother's teats submits the lambs.
The task thus finish'd of his morning hours,
Two more he snatches, murders, and devours.
Then pleased, and whistling, drives his flock before,
Removes the rocky mountain from the door,
And shuts again: with equal ease disposed,
As a light quiver's lid is oped and closed.
His giant voice the echoing region fills:
His flocks, obedient, spread o'er all the hills.

"Thus left behind, even in the last despair
I thought, devised, and Pallas heard my prayer.
Revenge, and doubt, and caution, work'd my breast;
But this of many counsels seem'd the best:
The monster's club within the cave I spied,
A tree of stateliest growth, and yet undried,
Green from the wood: of height and bulk so vast,
The largest ship might claim it for a mast.
This shorten'd of its top, I gave my train
A fathom's length, to shape it and to plane;
The narrower end I sharpen'd to a spire,
Whose point we harden'd with the force of fire,
And hid it in the dust that strew'd the cave,
Then to my few companions, bold and brave,
Proposed, who first the venturous deed should try,
In the broad orbit of his monstrous eye
To plunge the brand and twirl the pointed wood,
When slumber next should tame the man of blood.
Just as I wished, the lots were cast on four:
Myself the fifth. We stand and wait the hour.