No More Learning

"With trophies plum'd behold a hero come,[363]
Ye dreary wilds, prepare his yawning tomb.
Though smiling fortune bless'd his youthful morn,
Though glory's rays his laurell'd brows adorn,
Full oft though he beheld with sparkling eye
The Turkish moons[364] in wild confusion fly,
While he, proud victor, thunder'd in the rear,
All, all his mighty fame shall vanish here.
Quiloa's sons, and thine, Mombaz, shall see
Their conqueror bend his laurell'd head to me;
While, proudly mingling with the tempest's sound,
Their shouts of joy from every cliff rebound.

"The howling blast, ye slumb'ring storms prepare,
A youthful lover, and his beauteous fair,
Triumphant sail from India's ravag'd land;
His evil angel leads him to my strand.
Through the torn hulk the dashing waves shall roar,
The shatter'd wrecks shall blacken all my shore.
Themselves escaped, despoil'd by savage hands,
Shall, naked, wander o'er the burning sands,
Spar'd by the waves far deeper woes to bear,
Woes, e'en by me, acknowledg'd with a tear.
Their infant race, the promis'd heirs of joy,
Shall now, no more, a hundred hands employ;
By cruel want, beneath the parents' eye,
In these wide wastes their infant race shall die;
Through dreary wilds, where never pilgrim trod,
Where caverns yawn, and rocky fragments nod,
The hapless lover and his bride shall stray,
By night unshelter'd, and forlorn by day.
In vain the lover o'er the trackless plain
Shall dart his eyes, and cheer his spouse in vain.
Her tender limbs, and breast of mountain snow,
Where, ne'er before, intruding blast might blow,
Parch'd by the sun, and shrivell'd by the cold
Of dewy night, shall he, fond man, behold.
Thus, wand'ring wide, a thousand ills o'erpast,
In fond embraces they shall sink at last;
While pitying tears their dying eyes o'erflow,
And the last sigh shall wail each other's woe. [365]

"Some few, the sad companions of their fate,
Shall yet survive, protected by my hate,
On Tagus' banks the dismal tale to tell,
How, blasted by my frown, your heroes fell. "

He paus'd, in act still further to disclose
A long, a dreary prophecy of woes:
When springing onward, loud my voice resounds,
And midst his rage the threat'ning shade confounds.
"What art thou, horrid form, that rid'st the air?
By Heaven's eternal light, stern fiend, declare. "
His lips he writhes, his eyes far round he throws,
And, from his breast, deep hollow groans arose,
Sternly askance he stood: with wounded pride
And anguish torn, "In me, behold," he cried,
While dark-red sparkles from his eyeballs roll'd,
"In me the Spirit of the Cape behold,
That rock, by you the Cape of Tempests nam'd, }
By Neptune's rage, in horrid earthquakes fram'd, }
When Jove's red bolts o'er Titan's offspring flam'd.
}
With wide-stretch'd piles I guard the pathless strand,
And Afric's southern mound, unmov'd, I stand:
Nor Roman prow, nor daring Tyrian oar
Ere dash'd the white wave foaming to my shore;
Nor Greece, nor Carthage ever spread the sail
On these my seas, to catch the trading gale.
You, you alone have dar'd to plough my main,
And, with the human voice, disturb my lonesome reign. "

He spoke, and deep a lengthen'd sigh he drew,
A doleful sound, and vanish'd from the view:
The frighten'd billows gave a rolling swell,
And, distant far, prolong'd the dismal yell,
Faint, and more faint the howling echoes die,
And the black cloud dispersing, leaves the sky.
High to the angel-host, whose guardian care
Had ever round us watch'd, my hands I rear,
And Heaven's dread King implore: "As o'er our head
The fiend dissolv'd, an empty shadow fled;
So may his curses, by the winds of heav'n,
Far o'er the deep, their idle sport, be driv'n! "----

With sacred horror thrill'd, Melinda's lord
Held up the eager hand, and caught the word.
"Oh, wondrous faith of ancient days," he cries,
"Conceal'd in mystic lore and dark disguise!
Taught by their sires, our hoary fathers tell,
On these rude shores a giant-spectre fell,
What time, from heaven the rebel band were thrown:[366]
And oft the wand'ring swain has heard his moan.
While o'er the wave the clouded moon appears
To hide her weeping face, his voice he rears
O'er the wild storm. Deep in the days of yore,
A holy pilgrim trod the nightly shore;
Stern groans he heard; by ghostly spells controll'd,
His fate, mysterious, thus the spectre told:
'By forceful Titan's warm embrace compress'd,
The rock-ribb'd mother, Earth, his love confess'd:
The hundred-handed giant[367] at a birth,
And me, she bore, nor slept my hopes on earth;
My heart avow'd, my sire's ethereal flame;
Great Adamastor, then, my dreaded name.
In my bold brother's glorious toils engaged,
Tremendous war against the gods I waged:
Yet, not to reach the throne of heaven I try,
With mountain pil'd on mountain to the sky;
To me the conquest of the seas befel,
In his green realm the second Jove to quell.
Nor did ambition all my passions hold,
'Twas love that prompted an attempt so bold.
Ah me, one summer in the cool of day,
I saw the Nereids on the sandy bay,
With lovely Thetis from the wave, advance
In mirthful frolic, and the naked dance.
In all her charms reveal'd the goddess trod,
With fiercest fires my struggling bosom glow'd;
Yet, yet I feel them burning in my heart,
And hopeless, languish with the raging smart.
For her, each goddess of the heavens I scorn'd,
For her alone my fervent ardour burn'd.
In vain I woo'd her to the lover's bed,
From my grim form, with horror, mute she fled.
Madd'ning with love, by force I ween to gain
The silver goddess of the blue domain;
To the hoar mother of the Nereid band[368]
I tell my purpose, and her aid command:
By fear impell'd, old Doris tries to move,
And, win the spouse of Peleus to my love.