To thee I speak, O It’aly! sunk by curse
of thousand sins, who dost thyself adverse.
9
Ah, wretched Christians, who such cross incur,
be you perchance the teeth by Cadmus sown,
that waste of brother-blood ye thus prefer
when all by self-same mother-womb are grown?
How durst you see yon Holy Sepulture
owned by the bandogs who such feuds disown,
who come to hold and have your ancient ground,
their warlike prowess making them renown’d?
10
Ye know ’tis now their usance and decree,
whereof they are observantists entire,
to levy restless hosts of Heathenry,
and harm the hearts that dear Christ’s love desire:
While fierce Alecto ’mid your chivalry
for ever soweth tares of wrath and ire:
Look! an your eyes to risks like these ye close,
how they and you to you be deadliest foes.
11
If lust of lucre and of lordship led
your course to conquer far and foreign lands,
see you not Hermus and Pactólus shed
adown their fertile valleys aureate sands?
Assyria, Lydia, spin the golden thread,
lurk veins of sheeny ore in Africk strand:
Let these rich treasures sluggish sprites arouse
since rouse you not the rights of Holy House.
12
Those fierce projectiles, of our days the work,
murtherous engines, dire artilleries,
against Byzantine walls, where dwells the Turk,
should long before have belcht their batteries.
Oh, hurl it back in forest-caves to lurk
where Caspian crests and steppes of Scythia freeze,
that Turkish ogre-prog’eny multiplied
by op’ulent Europe’s policy and pride.153
13
Georgians, Armenians, Grecians, hapless Thrace
cry on your name to quell th’ unspeakable horde
that dooms parforce their darlings to embrace
Alcoran’s precepts (tax of blood abhor’d!):
Prove, when you punish yon inhuman race,
the Sage’s spirit and the Soldier’s sword;
nor covet arr’ogant praise and vainest boast
of vaunting valour o’er a brother-host.
14
But while ye blindly thirst to drink the blood
of your own veins, Oh hapless Race insane!
never hath failèd Christian hardihood
in this our little household Lusitane:
Her seats are set by Africk’s salty flood;
she holds in Asian realms the largest Reign;
She sows and ears o’er all the Fourth new-found;
and there would hasten had but Earth more ground.
15
Meanwhile behold we what new chance befell
the seld-seen Voyagers who Fame would earn,
Since gentle Venus deigned the gale to quell,
and futile furies of fierce winds to spurn;
when they the large-spread Land’s appearance hail,
of stubborn obst’inate toil the bound and bourne,
and where the Saviour’s seed they wend to sow,
enthrone new lords, new lights, new laws bestow.
16
Soon as along the stranger-shores they lay,
a fragile fleet that fishing people bare
they found, and by such guidance learnt the way
to Calecut, whose denizens they were:
Thither inclined the Prores without delay;
for ’twas the City fairest ’mid the fair
in land of Malabar and where abode
the King, whose orders all that Region owe’d.
17
Outside of Indus, inside Ganges, lies
a wide-spread country famed enough of yore;
northward the peaks of caved Emódus154 rise,
and southward Ocean doth confine the shore:
She bears the yoke of various sovranties
and various eke her creeds: While these adore
vicious Mafóma, those to stock and stone
bow down, and eke to brutes among them grown.
18
There, deep i’ the mighty Range, that doth divide
the land, and cutteth Asian continent,
whose crests are known by names diversified,
of ev’ry country where its trend is bent;
outburst the fountains, which commingling glide
in pow’erful streams, that die when travel-spent
in Indic Ocean, and the arms of these
convert the country to a Chersonèse:
19
Twixt either river from this breadth of base
puts forth the spacious land a long thin horn,
quasi-pyramidal, which in th’ embrace
of Ocean lies with Isle Ceylón toforn:
And, near the source that shows the natal place
of Gange, if olden Fame of Truth be born,
the happy Peoples of th’ adjacent bowers,
feed on the fragrance of the finest flowers;
20
But now of many usance, mode and name
are all the tribes who have and hold the ground;
Pathans and Delhis urge the proudest claim
to land and numbers, for they most abound:
Deccanis, Oriás, who both misclaim
salvation in the sounding flood is found
by Ganges rolled; and here the land Bengal
is rich in sort her wealth exceedeth all.
21
The sovranty of bellicose Cambay,
(men say ’twas puissant Porus’ olden reign);
Narsinga’s Kingdom, with her rich display
of gold and gems but poor in martial vein:
Here seen yonside where wavy waters play
a range of mountains skirts the murmuring Main,
serving the Malabar for mighty mure,
who thus from him of Canará dwells secure.
22
The country-people call this range the Ghaut,
and from its foot-hills scanty breadth there be
whose seaward-sloping coast-plain long hath fought
’gainst Ocean’s natural ferocity:
Here o’er her neighbour Cities, sans a doubt,
Calecut claimeth highest dignity,
crown of the kingdom fair and flourishing:
Here he entitled “Samorim”155 is King.
23
Arrived the Squadron off that wealthy land,
she sent a Portingall to make report,
so mote the Géntoo monarch understand
who hath arrivèd in his distant port:
A stream the Herald struck which, leaving land
entereth Ocean; and his novel sort,
his hue, his strange attire, his stranger-ways
made all the lieges gather round to gaze.
24
Amid the swarming rout that thronged to view,
cometh a Muslim, who was born and bred
in distant Barb’ary ’mid her barbarous crew,
there, where in ancient day Antaeus sway’d:
Right well the Lusitanian realm he knew,
or by the scanty distance thither led,
or ’signèd by the Sword and Fortune’s brand,
to long-drawn exile in a foreign land.
25
With jocund mien our Messenger to sound,
for-that he speaketh well the speech of Spain,
he thus:—“Who brought thee to this new world’s bound,
far from thy Fatherland, the Lusitan?”
“Op’ening,” respondeth he, “the seas profound
which never openèd the race of man;
for Indus’ mighty flood we hither bore,
to win for Holy Faith one triumph more.”
26
By the long voyage sore astonied stood
the Moor Monsaydé, thus his name was known;
when told the Lusian how
