To fearless luft of blood, the favage race
Roam, licens'd by the fhading hour of guilt,
And foul mifdeed, when the pure day has shut
His facred eye. The tyger darting fierce
Impetuous on the prey his glance has doom'd:
The lively-fhining leopard, speckled o’er
With many a fpot, the beauty of the waste;
And, fcorning all the taming arts of Man,
The keen hyena, felleft of the fell.
Thefe, rushing from th' inhofpitable woods
Of Mauritania, or the tufted ifles,
That verdant rife amid the Lybian wild,
Innumerous glare around their fhaggy king,
Majeftic, ftalking o'er the printed fand;
And, with imperious and repeated roars,
Demand their fated food. The fearful flocks
Crowd near the guardian fwain; the nobler herds,
Where, round their lordly bull, in rural cafe,
They ruminating lie, with horror hear
The coming rage. Th' awaken'd village starts;
And to her fluttering breast the mother strains
Her thoughtless infant. From the Pyrate's den,
Or ftern Morocco's tyrant fang escap'd,
The wretch half-wishes for his bonds again
While, uproar all, the wilderness refounds,
From Atlas caftward to the frighted Nile.
Unhappy he! who from the first of joys,
Society, cut off, is left alone
Amid this world of death. Day after day,
Sad on the jutting eminence he fits,
And views the main that ever toils below;
Still fondly forming in the fartheft verge,
Where the round ether mixes with the wave,
Ships, dim-discovered, dropping from the clouds
At evening, to the setting fun he turns
A mournful eye, and down his dying heart
Sinks helpless; while the wonted roar is up,
And hifs continual thro' the tedious night.
Yet here, even here, into these black abodes
Of monsters, unappall'd, from stooping Rome,
And guilty Cæfar, LIBERTY retir'd,
Her CATO following thro' Numidian wilds:
Difdainful of Campania's gentle plains,
And all the green delights Aufonia pours;
When for them fhe muft bend the fervile knee,
And fawning take the fplendid robber's boon.
Nor flop the terrors of those regions here.
Commiffion'd demons oft, angels of wrath,
Let loose the raging elements. Breath'd hot,
From all the boundless furnace of the sky,
And the wide glittering waste of burning fand,
A fuffocating wind the pilgrim fmites
With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil,
Son of the defert! even the camel feels,
Shot thro' his wither'd heart, the fiery blast.
Or from the black-red ether, burfling broad,
Sallies the fudden whirlwind. Strait the fands,
Commov'd around, in gathering eddies play :
Nearer and nearer ftill they darkening come;
Till, with the general all-involving ftorm
Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arife;
And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown,
Or funk at night in fad disastrous fleep,
Beneath defcending hills, the caravan
In Cairo's crowded streets
Th' impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca faddens at the long delay.
But chief at fea, whose every flexile wave
Obeys the blast, the aërial tumult fwells.
In the dread ocean, undulating wide,
Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,
The circling Typhon*, whirl'd from point to point, Exhaufting all the rage of all the sky,
And dire Ecnephia* reign. Amid the heavens,
* Typhon and Ecnephia, names of particular ftorms or hurricanes, known only between the tropics.
Falfely ferene, deep in a cloudy * speck
Comprefs'd, the mighty tempest brooding dwells:
Of no regard, fave to the skilful eye,
Fiery and foul, the fmall prognoftic hangs
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Mufters its force. A faint deceitful calm,
A fluttering gale, the demon fends before,
To tempt the fpreading fail. Then down at once,
Precipitant, defcends a mingled mafs
Of roaring winds, and flame, and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fix'd the failor ftands.
Art is too flow: by rapid fate opprefs'd,
His broad-wing'd veffel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bofom of the black abyss.
With fuch mad feas the daring GAMA † fought,
For many a day, and many a dreadful night,
Inceffant, lab'ring round the formy Cape;
By bold ambition led, and bolder thirft
Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerg'd
The rifing world of trade: the Genius, then,
Of navigation, that, in hopelefs floth,
* Called by failors the Ox-eye, being in appearance at first no bigger.
VASCO DE GAMA, the first who filed round Africa, by the Cape of Good Hope, to the East Indies.
Had flumber'd on the vaft Atlantic deep,
For idle ages, ftarting, heard at lart
The LUSITANIAN PRINCE; who, HEAV'N-infpir'd,
To love of ufeful glory rous'd mankind,
And in unbounded Commerce mix'd the world.
Increafing ftill the terrors of these storms,
His jaws horrific arm'd with threefold fate,
Here dwells the direful fhark. Lur'd by the fcent
Of steaming crowds, of rank difeafe, and death,
Behold! he rushing cuts the briny flood,
Swift as the gale can bear the fhip along;
And, from the partners of that cruel trade,
Which fpoils unhappy Guinea of her fons,
Demands his share of prey; demands themselves.
The ftormy fates defcend: one death involves
Tyrants and flaves; when strait, their mangled limbs
Crashing at once, he dyes the purple feas
With gore, and riots in the vengeful meal.
When o'er this world, by equinoctial rains
Flooded immenfe, looks out the joyless fun,
And draws the copious fteam: from fwampy fens,
Where putrefaction into life ferments,
* DON HENRY, third fon to John the First, king of Portugal. His ftrong genius to the difcovery of new countries was the chief fource of all the modern improvements in navigation.
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