To go, and yet to linger on the way;
To linger, and look back, and yet to go;
To hear a siren's pleasant voice, and know
The winds of Fortune waft you far away;
To build gay fabrics in the baseless air;
Like Lucifer, to fall precipitate
From heaven's high bliss even to a demon's
To sink despairing, nor regret despair;
From Friendship's voice affectionate to fly;
Wildly to rove, and talk in solitude;
To think each passing hour eternity;
All ill expecting, nor to hope for good;
And all the hell of jealousy to prove,
Is to be absent from the maid we love.
LOPE DE VEGA.
As when the mother, weak in tenderness,
Hears her sick child with prayers and tears
implore
Some seeming good, that makes his pain the less,
Yet, with short ease! the future evil more;
Even as her fondness yields to his vain will
She hastes to gratify her sickly son-
Anticipating then the coming ill,
Sadly she sits, and weeps what she has done :Thus have I pamper'd my distemper'd mind, And yielded thus to Fancy's wayward mood. Poor dupe of Fancy! self-condemn'd to find
The future anguish in the present good.-
Thus do I waste a wretched life away,
And nightly weep the errors of the day.
GARCILASO DE LA VEGA,
FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF CAMOENS.
Now prosperous gales the bending canvass swell'd; From these rude shores our fearless course we held:
Beneath the glistening wave the god of day
Had now five times withdrawn the parting ray,
When o'er the prow a sudden darkness spread,
And slowly floating o'er the mast's tall head
A black cloud hover'd: nor appear'd from far
The moon's pale glimpse,nor faintly twinkling star;
So deep a gloom the louring vapour cast,
Transfix'd with awe the bravest stood aghast.
Meanwhile a hollow bursting roar resounds,
As when hoarse surges lash their rocky mounds;
Nor had the blackening wave nor frowning heaven
The wonted signs of gathering tempest given.
Amazed we stood-' O thou, our fortune's guide,
Avert this omen, mighty God,' I cried;
'Or through forbidden climes adventurous stray'd,
Have we the secrets of the deep survey'd,
Which these wide solitudes of sea and sky
Were doom'd to hide from man's unhallow'd eye?
Whate'er this prodigy, it threatens more
Than midnight tempests and the mingled roar, When sea and sky combine to rock the marble shore.'
I spoke, when rising through the darken'd air, Appall'd we saw a hideous phantom glare : High and enormous o'er the flood he tower'd, And thwart our way with sullen aspect lour'd: An earthly paleness o'er his cheeks was spread, Erect uprose his hairs of wither'd red;
Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose,
Sharp and disjoin'd, his gnashing teeth's blue rows;
His haggard beard flow'd quivering on the wind,
Revenge and horror in his mien combined;
His clouded front, by withering lightnings scarred,
The inward anguish of his soul declared.
His red eyes glowing from their dusky caves
Shot livid fires: far echoing o'er the waves
His voice resounded, as the cavern'd shore
With hollow groan repeats the tempest's roar.
Cold gliding horrors thrill'd each hero's breast,
Our bristling hair and tottering knees confess'd
Wild dread; the while with visage ghastly wan,
His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began:
"O you, the boldest of the nations, fired
By daring pride, by lust of fame inspired,
Who, scornful of the bowers of sweet repose,
Through these my waves advance your fearless
prows,
Regardless of the lengthening watery way,
And all the storms that own my sovereign sway,
Who mid surrounding rocks and shelves explore
Where never hero braved my rage before;
Ye sons of Lusus, who with eyes profane
Have view'd the secrets of my awful reign,
Have pass'd the bounds which jealous Nature drew
To veil her secret shrine from mortal view;
Hear from my lips what direful woes attend,
And bursting soon shall o'er your race descend.
'With every bounding keel that dares my rage,
Eternal war my rocks and storms shall wage.
The next proud fleet that through my drear domain
With daring search shall hoist the streaming vane,
That gallant navy, by my whirlwinds toss'd,
And raging seas, shall perish on my coast:
Then he who first my secret reign descried,
A naked corse wide floating o'er the tide
Shall drive Unless my heart's full raptures fail,
O Lusus! oft shalt thou thy children wail;
Each year thy shipwreck'd sons shalt thou deplore,
Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore.
"With trophies plumed behold a hero come,
Ye dreary wilds, prepare his yawning tomb.
Though smiling fortune bless his youthful morn,
Though glory's rays his laurel'd brows adorn,
Full oft though he beheld with sparkling eye
The Turkish moons in wild confusion fly,
While he, proud victor, thunder'd in the rear,
All, all his mighty fame shall vanish here.
Quiloa's sons, and thine, Mombaze, shall see
Their conqueror bend his laurel'd head to me;
While, proudly mingling with the tempest's sound,
Their shouts of joy from every cliff rebound.
'The howling blast, ye slumbering storms pre-
A youthful lover, and his beauteous fair, [pare,
Triumphant sail from India's ravaged land;
His evil angel leads him to my strand.
Through the torn hulk the dashing waves shall roar,
The shatter'd wrecks shall blacken all my shore.
Themselves escaped, despoil'd by savage hands,
Shall naked wander o'er the burning sands,
Spared by the waves far deeper woes to bear,
Woes e'en by me acknowledged with a tear.
Their infant race, the promised heirs of joy,
Shall now no more a hundred hands employ;
By cruel want, beneath the parents' eye,
In these wide wastes their infant race shall die. Through dreary wilds where never pilgrim trod, Where caverns yawn, and rocky fragments nod,
The hapless lover and his bride shall stray,
By night unshelter'd, and forlorn by day.
In vain the lover o'er the trackless plain
Shall dart his eyes, and cheer his spouse in vain.
Her tender limbs, and breast of mountain snow,
Where ne'er before intruding blast might blow,
Parch'd by the sun, and shrivel'd by the cold
Of dewy night, shall he, fond man, behold.
Thus wandering wide, a thousand ills o'erpast,
In fond embraces they shall sink at last;
While pitying tears their dying eyes o'erflow,
And the last sigh shall wail each other's woe.
'Some few, the sad companions of their fate,
Shall yet survive, protected by my hate,
On Tagus' banks the dismal tale to tell,
How, blasted by my frown, your heroes fell.'
He paused, in act still further to disclose
A long, a dreary prophecy of woes:
When, springing onward, loud my voice resounds,
And midst his rage the threatening shade con-
founds:
'What art thou, horrid form, that ridest the air?
By Heaven's eternal light, stern fiend, declare.'
His lips he writhes, his eyes far round he throws,
And from his breast deep hollow groans arose;
Sternly askance he stood: with wounded pride
And anguish torn, In me, behold,' he cried,
While dark red sparkles from his eyeballs roll'd,
'In me the spirit of the Cape behold,
That rock by you the Cape of Tempests named, By Neptune's rage in horrid earthquakes framed, When Jove's red bolts o'er Titan's offspring flamed. With wide-stretch'd piles I guard the pathless strand,
And Afric's southern mound unmoved I stand: VOL. VI.
|