44
“ ‘An Hope deceive not, here I hope to deal
consummate vengeance on th’ Explorer’s head;122
nor he the latest shall my fury feel
by pertinacious confidence ybred;
nay, ye shall ev’ery year see many a keel
(if me my judgment here hath not misled)
such wrecks endure, shall see such fate befall,
that Death shall seem the lightest ill of all.
45
“ ‘And to the first illustrious Leader123 whom
Fame’s favour raiseth till he touch the skies,
I will give novel and eternal tomb,
by the dark sentence of a God all-wise:
Here of hard Turkish fleet that dree’d his doom,
he shall depose the prideful prosp’erous prize;
here shall at length my wrath and wrack surpass a
Quíloa in ruins and a rent Mombasah.
46
“ ‘Shall come Another, eke of honour’d fame,124
a Knight of loving heart and liberal hand,
and he shall bring his dainty darling Dame,
Love’s choicest treasure bound by Hymen’s band:
Ah, sore the sorrow, dark the day when came
the pair to this my hard and hateful land,
condemn’d from cruel wreck their lives to save
and, suffer’ed toils untold, to find a grave.
47
“ ‘Shall see slow starving die their children dear,
sweet pledges bred of love, in fond love born;
shall see the Caffres, greedy race and fere,
strip the fair Ladye of her raiment torn:
Shall see those limbs, as crystal light and clear,
by suns, and frosts, and winds, and weather worn,
when cease to tread, o’er long drawn miles, the heat
of sandy waste those delicatest feet.
48
“And, more, shall see their eyne, whom Fate shall spare
from ills so dreadful, from so dire a blow,
the two sad lovers left in mis’ery, where
implac’able thorns and terrible thickets glow:
There, when the stones wax soft at their despair,
shown by their ceaseless woe, sigh, groan, tear, throe,
in a last strained embrace their souls exhale
from out the fairest, fondest, saddest jail.”
49
“The fearful Monster would more ills unfold,
our doom disclosing, when aloud cried I:—
‘Who art thou, whose immense stupendous mould,
pardie, is mighty miracle to mine eye?’
His lips and dingy orbs he wreathed and roll’d,
and with a sudden frightful wailing cry,
in slow and bitter accents he replied
as though the question probed and galled his pride:
50
“ ‘I am that hidden mighty Head of Land,
the Cape of Tempests fitly named by you,
which Ptol’emy, Mela, Strabo never fand,
nor Pliny dreamt of, nor old Sages knew:
Here in South Ocean end I Africk strand,
where my unviewèd Point ye come to view,
which to the far Antarctick Pole extendeth;
such he your daring rashness dire offendeth.
51
“ ‘Encelados, and Terra’s Titan brood,
Aegaeon and the Centiman, the line
of me, who Adamástor hight, withstood
the hand that hurleth Vulcan’s bolt divine:
Hill upon hill to pile was not my mood;
to conquer Ocean-waves was my design;
I went to seek, as Captain of the Main,
the fleet of Neptune which I sought in vain.
52
“ ‘For Peleus’ high-born spouse my burning love
lurèd me rashly to such rude emprize;
the belles of heaven ne’er my breast could move
mine Ocean-Empress filled my yearning eyes:
One day I saw her with the Nereids rove,
all bare and beauteous, ’neath the summer skies:
and in such manner she bewitcht my will
no other feeling can my bosom fill.
53
“ ‘But as my Ladye’s grace I could not gain
for being homely, huge of form and face,
I sware by forceful rape my want t’ obtain
and so to Doris I disclosed my case:
In dread she told her child my loving pain
when modest Thetis, with her merry grace,
replied:—‘What Nymph can boast, whate’er her charms,
the strength to wrestle in a Giant’s arms?
54
“ ‘Algates, that Ocean may once more be free
from this sad Warfare, I some mode will find,
to gar mine honour with his suit agree;’
thus was the message to mine ear consign’d.
I, who no treach’erous snare in aught could see
(for lovers’ blindness is exceeding blind)
felt with a buoyant hope my bosom bound,
and hopes of passion by possession crown’d.
55
“ ‘Love madden’d, moonstruck, now I fled the war,
and kindly Doris named the trysting-night;
at length my lovely love I saw appear,
my winsome Thetis, in her robeless white:
Like one possest I hurried from afar
opeing mine arms to clasp the life and sprite
of this my body, and hot kisses rain
upon her cheeks, her locks, her glorious eyne.
56
“ ‘Ah! how it irks to tell my sad disgrace!
thinking my lover in these arms to hold,
mine arms a rugged Mountain did embrace,
yclad with bramble bush, a horrid wold:
Before this rock, upstanding face to face,
which for that Angel front I did enfold,
no more was I a Man, no! lorn and lone
a rock, a stone, I stood before a stone.
57
“ ‘Oh Nymph! the loveliest born that bare the Main,
alb’eit my presence ne’er by thee was sought,
how could my poor delusion cause thee pain?
Why not be mountain, cloud, rock, vision, nought?
Raging I wandered forth well-nigh insane
for yearning grief with foul dishonour fraught,
to seek another world, where none could see
my trickling tears, and scoff at them and me.
58
“ ‘Meanwhile my brethren, who the conquest lost,
crusht in extremest conquer’d mis’ery pinèd;
whom, for more surety, that vain-glorious host
of upstart Gods ’neath various Mounts consignèd:
And, as Immortals scoff at mortal boast,
I, to my sorrows in no wise resignèd,
felt Fate, mine awful foe, begin to shape
a dreadful vengeance for my daring rape.
59
“ ‘My flesh slow hardens into solid earth,
to rocks and horrid crags enstone my bones;
these limbs thou seest and this mighty girth,
extend where desert Ocean raves and moans:
In fine, the giant-stature of my birth
to this far Headland sprent with rocks and stones
the Gods debased; and doubling all my woes,
round me white, winsome, watery Thetis flows.’
60
“Thus parlied he; and with appalling cry,
from out our sight the gruesome Monster died;
the black cloud melted, and arose on
