And fafe return'd him through the perilous way, We rear a column on the friendly bay. Our keels, that now had fteer'd through many a clime, By shell-fish roughen'd, and incased with slime, Joyful we clean, while bleating from the field The fleecy dams the fmiling natives yield: But while each face an honeft welcome fhews, And big with sprightly hope each bofom glows, (Alas! how vain the bloom of human joy! How foon the blasts of woe that bloom destroy !) A dread difeafe its rankling horrors shed, And death's dire ravage through mine army spread. Never mine eyes fuch dreary fight beheld, Ghaftly the mouth and gums enormous * fwell'd; And inftant, putrid like a dead man's wound, Poifoned with foetid fteams the air around, No fage phyfician's ever-watchful zeal, No skilful furgeon's gentle hand to heal, k Were found each dreary mournful hour we gave Some brave companion to a foreign grave : A grave, i We rear a column.-It was the custom of the Portuguese navigators to erect croffes on the fhores of the new-difcovered countries. Gama carried materials for pillars of stone along with him, and erected fix of these croffes during his expedition. They bore the name and arms of the king of Portugal, and were intended as proofs of the title which accrues from the first discovery. Ghaftly the mouth and gums enormous fwell'd.-This poetical description of the fcurvy is by no means exaggerated above what fometimes really happens in the course of a long voyage, and in an unhealthful climate, to which the conftitution is unhabituated. A grave, the awful gift of every fhore ! 3 Now deeply yearning o'er our deathful fate, Where thou, O king, heaven's regent power below, And sprightly hope revived in every breast, So dread as ours, my faithful lips have told. Nor fage Ulyffes, nor the Trojan pride, Such raging gulphs, fuch whirling storms defy'd; O thou whose breaft all Helicon inflamed, And all the horrors of the Cyclop's cell; Where love of abfent friend awakes no m more; In 1 And burl the guardian pilot from the helm-See Æn. v. 833. m The purple fore.-The Lotophagi, fo named from the plant Lotus, are thus defcribed by Homer: Not prone to ill, nor strange to foreign guest, (Thence n In all their charms display Calypfo's fmiles, (Thence called Lotophagi) which whoso tastes, Nor other home nor other care intends, Give POPE, Odyf. ix. But quits his house, his country, and his friends: The three we fent, from off th' inchanting ground We dragg'd reluctant, and by force we bound: The reft in hafte forfook the pleasing shore, Or, the charm tafted, had return'd no more. The natural history of the lotos, however, is very different. There are various kinds of it. The Lybian lotos is a shrub like a bramble, the berries like the myrtle, but purple when ripe, and about the bignefs of an olive. Mixed with bread-corn it was used as food for flaves. They alfo made an agreeable wine of it, but which would not keep above ten days. See Pope's note in loco. i n In skins confin'd the bluftering winds controul.-The gift of Eolus to Ulyffes. The adverfe winds in leathern bags he brac'd," Comprefs'd their force, and lock'd each struggling blast: For him the mighty fire of gods affign'd, The tempeft's lord, the tyrant of the wind; But Zephyrus exempt, with friendly gales He charg'd to fill, and guide the swelling fails: Rare gift! but oh, what gift to fools avails. POPE, Odyf. x. The companions of Ulyffes imagined that thefe bags contained fome valuable treasure, and opened them while their leader flept. The tempefts bursting out drove the fleet from Ithaca, which was then in fight, and was the cause of a new train of miferies. Give every flower that decks Aonia's hill To grace your fables with divineft skill; Where truth all unadorn'd and pure exceeds them all, While thus illuftrious GAMA charm'd their ears, While present to the view, by fancy brought, Apollo now withdrew the cheerful day, And left the western sky to twilight grey; Beneath the wave he fought fair Thetis' bed, And to the fhore Melinda's fovereign sped. What |