Sudden shall skim along the dusky glades Thin airy shoals, and visionary shades. Then give command the sacrifice to haste, Let the flay'd victims in the flame be cast, And sacred vows and mystic song applied To grisly Pluto and his gloomy bride. Wide o'er the pool thy faulchion waved around

Shall drive the spectres from forbidden ground:

The sacred draught shall all the dead forbear,

Till awful from the shades arise the seer.
Let him, oraculous, the end, the way,
The turns of all thy future fate display,
Thy pilgrimage to come, and remnant of
thy day."

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'So speaking, from the ruddy orient shone

The Morn, conspicuous on her golden

Her waist was circled with a zone of gold.

Forth issuing then, from place to place I flew;

Rouse man by man, and animate my crew. "Rise, rise, my mates! 't is Circe gives com

mand:

Our journey calls us: haste, and quit the land."

All rise and follow, yet depart not all, For Fate decreed one wretched man to fall. 'A youth there was, Elpenor was he named,

660

Not much for sense, nor much for courage famed: The youngest of our band, a vulgar soul, Born but to banquet, and to drain the bowl.

He, hot and careless, on a turret's height With sleep repair'd the long debauch of night:

The sudden tumult stirr'd him where he lay,

And down he hasten'd, but forgot the way; Full headlong from the roof the sleeper fell,

And snapp'd the spinal joint, and waked in Hell.

"The rest crowd round me with an eager look;

I met them with a sigh, and thus bespoke:

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"Already, friends! ye think your toils are o'er,

Your hopes already touch your native shore: Alas! far otherwise the Nymph declares, Far other journey first demands our cares: To tread th' uncomfortable paths beneath, The dreary realms of darkness and of death;

To seek Tiresias' awful shade below, And thence our fortunes and our fates to know."

'My sad companions heard in deep despair;

Frantic they tore their manly growth of hair;

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To earth they fell; the tears began to rain;
But tears in mortal miseries are vain.
Sadly they fared along the sea-beat shore:
Still heav'd their hearts, and still their eyes
ran o'er.

The ready victims at our bark we found,
The sable ewe and ram, together bound.
For, swift as thought, the Goddess had been
there,

And thence had glided viewless as the air:

Ulysses takes his leave of Alcinoüs and Aretè, and embarks in the evening. Next morning the ship arrives at Ithaca; where the sailors, as Ulysses is yet sleeping, lay him on the shore with all his treasures. On their return, Neptune changes their ship into a rock. In the mean time, Ulysses awaking, knows not his native Ithaca, by reason of a mist which Pallas had cast round him. He breaks into loud lamentations; till the Goddess appearing to him in the form of a shepherd, discovers the country to him, and points out the particular places. He then tells a feigned story of his adventures, upon which she manifests herself, and they consult together on the measures to be taken to destroy the suitors. To conceal his return, and disguise his person the more effectually, she changes him into the figure of an old beggar.

HE ceas'd; but left so pleasing on their

And leave the sinking hills and less'ning shores.

While on the deck the Chief in silence lies,

And pleasing slumbers steal upon his eyes.
As fiery coursers in the rapid race
Urged by fierce drivers thro' the dusty
space,

Toss their high heads, and scour along the plain;

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So mounts the bounding vessel o'er the main.

Back to the stern the parted billows flow, And the black ocean foams and roars below.

Thus with spread sails the winged galley
flies;

Less swift an eagle cuts the liquid skies;
Divine Ulysses was her sacred load,
A man in wisdom equal to a God!
Much danger, long and mighty toils he
bore,

In storms by sea, and combats on the shore:

All which soft sleep now banish'd from his breast, Wrapp'd in a pleasing, deep, and death

like rest.

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Resumed their oars, and measured back the main.

Nor yet forgot old Ocean's dread Su

preme The vengeance vow'd for eyeless Polypheme.

Before the throne of mighty Jove he stood;

And sought the secret counsels of the God. 'Shall then no more, O Sire of Gods! be

mine

The rights and honours of a power divine? Scorn'd ev'n by man, and (oh severe disgrace!)

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By soft Phæacians, my degen'rate race! Against yon destin'd head in vain I swore, And menaced vengeance, ere he reach'd his shore;

To reach his natal shore was thy decree; Mild I obey'd, for who shall war with thee? Behold him landed, careless and asleep, From all th' eluded dangers of the deep;