And fain her godlike sons would disunite
By foreign gold, or by domestic spite;
But strives in vain to conquer or divide,
Whom Nassau's arms defend and counsels guide.

Fir'd with the name, which I so oft have found The distant climes and diff'rent tongues resound, I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain, That longs to launch into a bolder strain.

But I've already troubled you too long, Nor dare attempt a more advent'rous song. My humble verse demands a softer theme, A painted meadow, or a purling stream; Unfit for heroes; whom immortal lays,

And lines like Virgil's, or like yours, should praise.

MILTON'S STYLE IMITATED,

IN A

TRANSLATION OF A STORY

OUT OF THE

THIRD ENEID.

LOST in the gloomy horror of the night
We struck upon the coast where Ætna lies,
Horrid and waste its entrails fraught with fire,
That now casts out dark fumes and pitchy clouds,
Vast showers of ashes hov'ring in the smoke;
Now belches molten stones and ruddy flame
Incens'd, or tears up mountains by the roots,
Or flings a broken rock aloft in air.

The bottom works with smother'd fire, involv'd
In pestilential vapours, stench, and smoke.

"Tis said, that thunder-struck Enceladus
Groveling beneath th' incumbent mountain's weight
Lies stretch'd supine, eternal prey of flames;
And when he heaves against the burning load,
Reluctant, to invert his broiling limbs,

A sudden earthquake shoots through all the isle,
And Ætna thunders dreadful under ground,
Then pours out smoke in wreathing curls convolv'd,
And shades the sun's bright orb, and blots out day.
Here in the shelter of the woods we lodg'd,
And frighted heard strange sounds and dismal yells,
Nor saw from whence they came; for all the night
A murky storm deep low'ring o'er our heads
Hung imminent, that with impervious gloom

Oppos'd itself to Cynthia's silver ray,

And shaded all beneath. But now the sun
With orient beams had chas'd the dewy night
From earth and heav'n; all nature stood disclos'd:
When looking on the neighb'ring woods we saw
The ghastly visage of a man unknown,
An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;
Affliction's foul and terrible dismay

Sat in his looks, his face impair'd and worn
With marks of famine, speaking sore distress;
His locks were tangled, and his shaggy beard
Matted with filth; in all things else a Greek.

He first advanc'd in haste; but when he saw
Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career
Stopt short, he back recoil'd as one surpris'd:
But soon recovering speed, he ran, he flew
Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries
Our ears assail'd: "By heav'n's eternal fires,
By ev'ry god that sits enthron'd on high,
By this good light, relieve a wretch forlorn,
And bear me hence to any distant shore,
So I may shun this savage race accurst.
'Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late
With sword and fire o'erturned Neptunian Troy,
And laid the labour of the gods in dust;
For which, if so the sad offence deserves,
Plung'd in the deep, for ever let me lie
Whelm'd under seas; if death must be my doom,
Let man inflict it, and I die well pleas'd.

He ended here, and now profuse of tears

In suppliant mood fell prostrate at our feet;
We bade him speak from whence, and what he was,
And how by stress of fortune sunk thus low;
Anchises too, with friendly aspect mild,
Gave him his hand, sure pledge of amity;
When, thus encourag'd, he began his tale.

'I am one,' says he, 'of poor descent, my name Is Achæmenides, my country Greece,

Ulysses' sad compeer, who, whilst he fled
The raging Cyclops, left me here behind
Disconsolate, forlorn; within the cave
He left me, giant Polypheme's dark cave;
A dungeon wide and horrible, the walls
On all sides furr'd with mouldy damps, and hung
With clots of ropy gore, and human limbs,
His dire repast: himself of mighty size,
Hoarse in his voice, and in his visage grim,
Intractable, that riots on the flesh

Of mortal men, and swills the vital blood.
Him did I see snatch up with horrid grasp
Two sprawling Greeks, in either hand a man;
I saw him when with huge tempestuous sway
He dash'd and broke them on the grundsil edge;
The pavement swam in blood, the walls around
Were spatter'd o'er with brains. He lapt the blood,
And chew'd the tender flesh still warm with life,
That swell'd and heav'd itself amidst his teeth
As sensible of pain. Not less mean while
Our chief incens'd, and studious of revenge,
Plots his destruction, which he thus effects.
The giant, gorg'd with flesh, and wine, and blood,
Lay stretch'd at length and snoring in his den,
Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'er-charged
With purple wine and cruddled gore confused,
We gather'd round, and to his single eye,
The single eye that in his forehead glar'd
Like a full moon, or a broad burnish'd shield,
A forky staff we dext'rously apply'd,
Which, in the spacious socket turning round,
Scoop'd out the big round jelly from its orb,
But let me not thus interpose delays:
Fly, mortals, fly this curst detested race:
A hundred of the same stupendous size,
A hundred Cyclops live among the hills,
Gigantic brotherhood, that stalk along
With horrid strides o'er the high mountains tops,

Enormous in their gait; I oft have heard

Their voice and tread, oft seen them as they pass'd,
Skulking and scow'ring down, half dead with fear.
Thrice has the moon wash'd all her orb in light,
Thrice travell'd o'er, in her obscure sojourn,
The realms of night inglorious, since I've liv'd
Amidst these woods, gleaning from thorns and shrubs
A wretched sustenance. As thus he spoke,
We saw descending from a neighb'ring hill
Blind Polypheme; by weary steps and slow
The groping giant with a trunk of pine
Explor'd his way; around, his woolly flocks
Attended grazing; to the well-known shore
He bent his course, and on the margin stood,
A hideous monster, terrible, deform'd!

Full in the midst of his high front there gap'd
The spacious hollow where his eye-ball roll'd,
A ghastly orifice: he rins'd the wound,

And wash'd away the strings and clotted blood
That cak'd within; then stalking through the deep
He fords the ocean, while the topmost wave
Scarce reaches up his middle side; we stood
Amaz'd be sure, a sudden horror chill

Ran through each nerve, and thrill'd in ev'ry vein,
Till using all the force of winds and oars
We sped away; he heard us in our course,
And with his out-stretch'd arms around him grop'd,
But finding nought within his reach, he rais'd
Such hideous shouts that all the ocean shook.
Ev'n Italy, though many a league remote,
In distant echoes answer'd: Ætna roar'd,
Through all its inmost winding caverns roar'd.
Rous'd with the sound, the mighty family
Of one-ey'd brothers hasten to the shore,
And gather round the bellowing Polypheme,
A dire assembly: we with eager haste
Work ev'ry one, and from afar behold
A host, of giants covering all the shore.