Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 2.djvu/142

High to the angel host, whose guardian care
Had ever round us watch'd, my hands I rear,
And heaven's dread king implore, as o'er our head
The fiend dissolved, an empty shadow fled;
So may his curses by the winds of heaven
Far o'er the deep, their idle sport, be driven!

With sacred horror thrill'd, Melinda's lord
Held up the eager hand, and caught the word,
Oh wondrous faith of ancient days, he cries,
Conceal'd in mystic lore, and dark disguise!
Taught by their sires, our hoary fathers tell,
On these rude shores a giant spectre fell,
What time from heaven the rebel band were thrown:
And oft the wandering swain has heard his moan.
While o'er the wave the clouded moon appears
To hide her weeping face, his voice he rears
O'er the wild storm. Deep in the days of yore,
A holy pilgrim trod the nightly shore;
Stern groans he heard; by ghostly spells controll'd,
His fate, mysterious, thus the spectre told:

By forceful Titan's warm embrace comprest,
The rock-ribb'd mother earth his love confest;
The hundred-handed giant at a birth,
And me she bore: nor slept my hopes on earth:
My heart avow'd, my sire's ethereal flame;
Great Adamastor then my dreaded name.

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