Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 2.djvu/347

Then o'er the pillow of a furious priest,
Whose burning zeal the Koran's lore profest,
Revealed he stood conspicuous in a dream,
His semblance shining as the moon's pale gleam:
And, Guard, he cries, my son, O timely guard,
Timely defeat the dreadful snare prepared:
And canst thou careless, unaffected sleep,
While these stern lawless rovers of the deep
Fix on thy native shore a foreign throne,
Before whose steps thy latest race shall groan!
He spoke; cold horror shook the Moorish priest;
He wakes, but soon reclines in wonted rest:
An airy phantom of the slumbering brain
He deem'd the vision; when the fiend again,
With sterner mien and fiercer accent spoke:
Oh faithless! worthy of the foreign yoke!
And knowest thou not thy prophet sent by heaven,
By whom the Koran's sacred lore was given,
God's chiefest gift to men: And must I leave
The bowers of Paradise, for you to grieve,
For you to watch, while thoughtless of your woe,
Ye sleep, the careless victims of the foe;
The foe, whose rage will soon with cruel joy,
If unopposed, my sacred shrines destroy.
Then while kind heaven th' auspicious hour bestows,
Let every nerve their infant strength oppose.

When