No More Learning

Little, alas! was left my wretched share,
Except a house, a covert from the air:
But what by niggard fortune was denied,
A willing widow's copious wealth supplied.
My valour was my plea, a gallant mind,
That, true to honour, never lagg'd behind
(The sex is ever to a soldier kind).
Now wasting years my former strength confound,
And added woes have bow'd me to the ground;
Yet by the stubble you may guess the grain,
And mark the ruins of no vulgar man.
Me, Pallas gave to lead the martial storm,
And the fair ranks of battle to deform;
Me, Mars inspired to turn the foe to flight,
And tempt the secret ambush of the night.
Let ghastly Death in all his forms appear,
I saw him not, it was not mine to fear.
Before the rest I raised my ready steel,
The first I met, he yielded, or he fell.
But works of peace my soul disdain'd to bear,
The rural labour, or domestic care.
To raise the mast, the missile dart to wing,
And send swift arrows from the bounding string,
Were arts the gods made grateful to my mind;
Those gods, who turn (to various ends design'd)
The various thoughts and talents of mankind.
Before the Grecians touch'd the Trojan plain,
Nine times commander or by land or main,
In foreign fields I spread my glory far,
Great in the praise, rich in the spoils of war;
Thence charged with riches, as increased in fame,
To Crete return'd, an honourable name.
But when great Jove that direful war decreed,
Which roused all Greece, and made the mighty bleed;
Our states myself and Idomen employ
To lead their fleets, and carry death to Troy.
Nine years we warr'd; the tenth saw Ilion fall;
Homeward we sail'd, but heaven dispersed us all.
One only month my wife enjoy'd my stay;
So will'd the god who gives and takes away.
Nine ships I mann'd, equipp'd with ready stores,
Intent to voyage to the Aegyptian shores;
In feast and sacrifice my chosen train
Six days consum'd; the seventh we plough'd the main.
Crete's ample fields diminish to our eye;
Before the Boreal blast the vessels fly;
Safe through the level seas we sweep our way;
The steersman governs, and the ships obey.
The fifth fair morn we stem the Aegyptian tide,
And tilting o'er the bay the vessels ride:
To anchor there my fellows I command,
And spies commission to explore the land.
But, sway'd by lust of gain, and headlong will,
The coasts they ravage, and the natives kill.
The spreading clamour to their city flies,
And horse and foot in mingled tumult rise.
The reddening dawn reveals the circling fields,
Horrid with bristly spears, and glancing shields.
Jove thunder'd on their side. Our guilty head
We turn'd to flight; the gathering vengeance spread
On all parts round, and heaps on heaps lie dead.
I then explored my thought, what course to prove
(And sure the thought was dictated by Jove):
Oh, had he left me to that happier doom,
And saved a life of miseries to come!
The radiant helmet from my brows unlaced,
And low on earth my shield and javelin cast,
I meet the monarch with a suppliant's face,
Approach his chariot, and his knees embrace,
He heard, he saved, he placed me at his side;
My state he pitied, and my tears he dried,
Restrain'd the rage the vengeful foe express'd,
And turn'd the deadly weapons from my breast.
Pious! to guard the hospitable rite,
And fearing Jove, whom mercy's works delight.

"In Aegypt thus with peace and plenty bless'd,
I lived (and happy still have lived) a guest.
On seven bright years successive blessings wait;
The next changed all the colour of my fate.
A false Phoenician, of insiduous mind,
Versed in vile arts, and foe to humankind,
With semblance fair invites me to his home;
I seized the proffer (ever fond to roam):
Domestic in his faithless roof I stay'd,
Till the swift sun his annual circle made.
To Libya then he mediates the way;
With guileful art a stranger to betray,
And sell to bondage in a foreign land:
Much doubting, yet compell'd I quit the strand,
Through the mid seas the nimble pinnace sails,
Aloof from Crete, before the northern gales:
But when remote her chalky cliffs we lost,
And far from ken of any other coast,
When all was wild expanse of sea and air,
Then doom'd high Jove due vengeance to prepare.
He hung a night of horrors o'er their head
(The shaded ocean blacken'd as it spread):
He launch'd the fiery bolt: from pole to pole
Broad burst the lightnings, deep the thunders roll;
In giddy rounds the whirling ship is toss'd,
An all in clouds of smothering sulphur lost.
As from a hanging rock's tremendous height,
The sable crows with intercepted flight
Drop endlong; scarr'd, and black with sulphurous hue,
So from the deck are hurl'd the ghastly crew.