110

Her Cato following thro' Numidian wilds,
Difdainful of Campania's gentle plains,
And all the green delights Aufonia pours,
When for them the must bend the fervile knee,
And fawning take the splendid robber's boon.
Nor ftop the terrors of these 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

955

960

With inftant death. Patient of thirst and toil, 965
Son of the defert! even the camel feels,

Shot thro' his withered heart, the fiery blast:
Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad,
Sallies the fudden wirl wind. Straight the fands,
Commov'd around, in gathering eddies play : 970
Nearer and nearer still they darkening come,
Till with the general all-involving storm
Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise,
And by their noon-day fount dejected thrown,
Or funk at night in fad difastrous fleep,

Beneath defcending hills the caravan

Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets

975

Th' impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain, And Mecca faddens at the long delay.

But chief at fea, whofe every flexile wave

980

Obeys the blaft, 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,

985

And dire Ecnephia* reign. Amid the heavens,
Falfely ferene, deep in a cloudy speck +
Comprefs'd, the mighty tempeft brooding dwells,
Of no regard fave to the fkilful eye:
Fiery and foul, the small prognostic 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 spreading fail; then down at once,
Precipitant, defcends a mingled mass

999

995
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 ftormy Cape,
By bold Ambition led, and bolder thirst

1000

Of gold: for then from ancient gloom emerg'd 1005

Typhon and Ecnephia, names of particular ftorms or hurricanes, known only between the tropics.

+ Called by failors the Ox-eye, being in appearance, at first, no bigger.

Vafco de Gama, the firft who failed round Africa, by the Cape of Good Hope, to the Eaft-Indies.

The rifing world of Trade; the Genius then
Of Navigation, that in hopeless sloth

Had flumber'd on the vast Atlantic deep
For idle ages, ftarting, heard, at last,
The Lufitanian Prince*, who, Heaven-inspir'd,
To love of useful glory rous'd mankind,
And in unbounded Commerce mix'd the world.
Increasing ftill the terrois of these storms,

1011

1020

His jaws horrific, arm'd with threefold fate
Here dwells the direful thark. Lur'd by the fcent 1015
Of steaming crowds, of rank disease, 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 spoils unhappy Guinea of her fons,
Demands his fhare of prey; demands themselves.
The ftormy Fates defcend: one death involves
Tyrants and flaves; when ftraight 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 steam from swampy fens,
Where putrefaction into life ferments,

1025

And breathes deftructive myriads; or from woods, Impenetrable fhades, rcceffes foul,

1031

* Don Henry, third fon to John 1. king of Portugal. His frong genius to the difcovery of new countries was the chief fource of all the modern improvements in navigation,

In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapt,
Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot
Has ever dar'd to pierce, then, wasteful, forth
Walks the dire Power of peftilent disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,
Sick Nature blafting, and to heartless woe,
And feeble defolation cafting down

1035

1040

The towering hopes and all the pride of Man :
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quench'd
The British fire. You, gallant Vernon! faw
The miferable scene; you, pitying, saw
To infant-weakness funk the warrior's arm;
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghaftly form,
The lip pale-quivering, and the beamless eye, 1045
No more with ardour bright: you heard the groans
Of agonizing fhips from fhore to shore:

Heard nightly plung'd amid the fullen waves
The frequent corfe, while on each other fix'd,
In fad prefage, the blank affiftants feem'd,
Silent, to ask whom Fate would next demand.

What need I mention those inclement skies,
Where, frequent o'er the fickening city Plague,
The fierceft child of Nemefis divine,

1050

Defcends? From Ethiopia's poifoned woods*, 1055
From ftifled Cairo's filth, and fetid fields
With locuft-armies putrefying heap'd,

These are the caufes fuppofed to be the first origin of the

plague, in Dr. Mead's elegant book on that fubject,

This great deftroyer fprung. Her awful rage
The brutes escape: man is her deftin'd prey,
Intemperate man! and o'er his guilty domes 1060
She draws a close incumbent cloud of death,
Uninterrupted by the living winds,

Forbid to blow a wholesome breeze, and ftain'd
With many a mixture by the fun, fuffus'd,
Of angry afpect. Princely Wisdom, then,
Dejects his watchful eye, and from the hand
Of feeble Justice, ineffectual, drop

1065

The fword and balance: mute the voice of Joy,
And hufh'd the clamour of the busy world:

Empty the streets, with uncouth verdure clad: 1070
Into the worft of deferts fudden turn'd

The cheerful haunt of men; unless escap'd

From thedoom'dhousewhere matchless Horror reigns,
Shut up by barbarous Fear, the fmitten wretch,
With frenzy wild, breaks loose, and, loud to heaven
Screaming, the dreadful policy arraigns,
The fullen door,

Inhuman, and unwife.

Yet uninfected, on its cautious hinge

Fearing to turn, abhors fociety.

1076

Dependents, friends, relations, Love himself, 108e
Savag'd by woe, forget the tender tie,

The fweet engagement of the feeling heart.
But vain their felfish care; the circling sky,
The wide enlivening air, is full of fate;
And, ftruck by turns, in folitary pangs

1085