Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 2.djvu/140

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 paus'd, 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 confounds:
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;
Nor Roman prow, nor daring Tyrian oar
Ere dash'd the white wave foaming to my shore;
Nor Greece nor Carthage ever spread the sail
On these my seas to catch the trading gale.
You, you alone have dared to plough my main,
And with the human voice disturb my lonesome reign.

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