The fweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,
Under the fhadow of whose friendly boughs
They fit carousing where their liquor grows.
Figs there unplanted thro' the fields do grow,
Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,
With the rare fruit, inviting them to spoil
Carthage, the mistress of fo rich a foil.
The naked rocks are not unfruitful there,
But as fome conftant seasons, ev'ry year
Their barren tops with luscious food abound,
And with the eggs of various fowls are crown'd.
Tobacco is the worst of things, which they
To English landlords, as their tribute, pay.
Such is the mould that the bleft tenant feeds
On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.
With candy'd plantains and the juicy pine,
On choiceft melons and fweet grapes they dine,
And with potatoes fat their wanton fwine.
Nature these cates with fuch a lavish hatid
Pours out among them, that our coarfer land
Taftes of that bounty, and does cloth return,
Which not for warmth, but ornament, is worn:
For the kind spring, which but falutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and bloffoms on the fame trees live;
At once they promise what at once they give.
So fweet the air, so moderate the clime,
None fickly lives, or dies before his time.
Heav'n fure has kept this spot of earth uncurft,
To fhew how all things were created first.
The tardy plants in our cold orchards plac'd,
Referve their fruit for the next age's taste :
There a small grain in fome few months will be so
A firm, a lofty, and a spacious tree.
'The palma-christi, and the fair papà,
Now but a feed, (preventing Nature's law)
In half the circle of the hafty year
Project a fhade, and lovely fruits do wear.
And as their trees, in our dull region set,
But faintly grow, and no perfection get,
So in this northern track our hoarfer throats
Utter unripe and ill-constrained notes,
While the fupporter of the poets' ftyle,
Phoebus on them eternally does fmile.
Oh! how I long my careless limbs to lay
Under the plantain's fhade, and all the day
With amorous airs my fancy entertain,
Invoke the Mufes, and improve my vein!
No paffion there in my free breast should move,
None but the sweet and beft of paffions, love.
There while I fing, if gentle Love be by,
That tunes my lute, and winds the string so high,
With the sweet found of Sachariffa's name
I'll make the lift'ning favages grow tame.
But while I do these pleafing dreams endite,
I am diverted from the promis'd fight.
Of their alarm, and how their foes
Difcover'd were, this Canto fhows.
THO' rocks fo high about this inland rife,
That well they may the num'rous Turk despise,
Yet is no human fate exempt from fear,
Which shakestheir hearts, while thro'the ifle they hear
A lafting noife, as horrid and as loud
As thunder makes before it breaks the cloud.
Three days they dread this murmur ere they know
From what blind cause th' unwonted found may grów:
At length to monsters of unequal fize,
Hard by the fhore, a fisherman efpies;
Two mighty whales! which swelling seas had toft,
And left them pris'ners on the rocky coast:
One as a mountain vast, and with her came
A cub, not much inferiour to his dam.
Here in a pool, among the rocks engag'd,
They roar'd, like lions caught in toils, and rag’d.
The man knew what they were, who heretofore
Had feen the like lie murder'd on the shore;
By the wild fury of some tempest cast,
The fate of ships, and shipwreck'd men, to taste. 20
As careless dames, whom wine and fleep betray
To frantick dreams, their infants overlay ;
So there fometimes the raging ocean fails,
And her own brood exposes; when the whales
Against sharp rocks, like reeling veffels quash'd, 25
Tho' huge as mountains, are in pieces dash'd:
Along the fhore their dreadful limbs lie scatter'd,
Like hills with earthquakes shaken,torn,and shatter'd.
Hearts fure of brass they had who tempted first
Rude feas, that spare not what themselves have nurst.
The welcome news thro' all the nation spread,
To fudden joy and hope converts their dread:
What lately was their publick terrour, they
Behold with glad eyes as a certain prey ;
Difpofe already of th' untaken spoil,
And, as the purchase of their future toil,
These share the bones, and they divide the oil.
So was the huntsman by the bear opprest,
Whofe hide he fold-before he caught the beast!
They man their boats, and all their young men arm With whatsoever may the monsters harm; Pikes, halberts, fpits, and darts that wound fo far, The tools of peace, and instruments of war. Now was the time for vig'rous lads to show What love or honour could invite them to: A goodly theatre! where rocks are round With rev'rend age and lovely laffes crown'd. Such was the lake which held this dreadful pair Within the bounds of noble Warwick's fhare: Warwick's bold Earl! than which no title bears 50 A greater found among our British peers;
And worthy he the mem'ry to renew,
The fate and honour to that title due,
Whose brave adventures have transferr'd his name, And thro' the new world spread his growing fame.But how they fought, and what their valour gain'd, Shall in another Canto be contain'd.
The bloody fight, fuccefslefs toil,
And how the fishes fack'd the ifle.
THE boat which on the first assault did go,
Strook with a harping-ir'n the younger foe;
Who, when he felt his fide fo rudely gor'd,
Loud as the fea that nourish'd him he roar'd.
As a broad bream, to please some curious taste,
While yet alive, in boiling water cast,
Vex'd with unwonted heat he flings about
The scorching brass, and hurls the liquor out;
So with the barbed jav'lin ftung, he raves,
And fcourges with his tail the suff'ring waves.
Like Spenfer's Talus with his iron flail,
He threatens ruin with his pond'rous tail;
Diffolving at one ftroke the batter'd boat,
And down the men fall drenched in the moat;
With ev'ry fierce encounter they are forc'd
To quit their boats, and fare like men unhors'd.
The bigger whale like fome huge carrack lay, Which wanteth fea-room with her foes to play: Slowly she swims, and when, provok'd she wou'd Advance her tail, her head falutes the mud:
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