And, issuing through the portals of the West,
Fearless, resolved, with every sail unfurled,
Planted his standard on the Unknown World?
Him, by the Paynim bard descried of yore,
And ere his coming sung on either shore,
Him could not I exalt-by Heaven designed
To lift the e veil that covered half mankind !
Yet, ere I die, I would fulfil my vow;

Praise cannot wound his generous spirit now.

Her awful face; and Nature's self reposed;
When, slowly rising in the azure sky,

Three white sails shone-but to no mortal eye,
Entering a boundless sea. In slumber cast,
The very ship-boy, on the dizzy mast,
Half breathed his orisons! Alone unchanged,
Calmly, beneath, the great Commander1 ranged,
Thoughtful not sad; and, as the planet grew,
His noble form, wrapt in his mantle blue,
Athwart the deck a deepening shadow threw.
"Thee hath it pleased-Thy will be done!" he
said,2

Then sought his cabin; and, their garments spread,

Around him lay the sleeping as the dead,

1 In the original, El Almirante. "In Spanish America," says M. de Humboldt, "when El Almirante is pronounced without the addition of a name, that of Columbus is understood; as, from the lips of a Mexican, El Marchese signifies Cortes;" and as among the Florentines, Il Segretario has always signified Machiavel.

"It has pleased our Lord to grant me faith and assurance for this enterprise-He has opened my understanding, and made me most willing to go." See his Life by his son, Ferd. Columbus, entitled, Hist, del Almirante Don Christoval Colon, c. 4 & 37.

His Will begins thus. "In the name of the most holy Trinity, who inspired me with the idea, and who afterwards made it clear to me, that by traversing the Ocean westwardly," &c.

When, by his lamp to that mysterious Guide,'
On whose still counsels all his hopes relied,
That Oracle to man in mercy given,

Whose voice is truth, whose wisdom is from heaven,

Who over sands and seas directs the stray,
And, as with God's own finger, points the way,
He turned; but what strange thoughts perplexed
his soul,

When, lo, no more attracted to the Pole,
The Compass, faithless as the circling vane,
Fluttered and fixed, fluttered and fixed again!
At length, as by some unseen Hand imprest,
It sought with trembling energy—the West! 2
"Ah no!" he cried, and calmed his anxious brow."
"Ill, nor the signs of ill, 'tis thine to show ;
Thine but to lead me where I wished to go!"

Columbus erred not.3 In that awful hour,
Sent forth to save, and girt with Godlike power,
And glorious as the regent of the sun,4
An Angel came! He spoke, and it was done!
He spoke, and, at his call, a mighty Wind,"
Not like the fitful blast, with fury blind,
But deep, majestic, in its destined course,

1 The compass might well be an object of superstition. A belief is said to prevail even at this day, that it will refuse to traverse when there is a dead body on board.

2 Herrera, dec. I. lib. i. c. 9.

3 When these regions were to be illuminated, says Acosta, cùm divino concilio decretum esset, prospectum etiam divinitus est, ut tam longi itineris dux certus hominibus præberetur.-De Natura Novi Orbis.

A romantic circumstance is related of some early navigator in the Histoire Gén, des Voyages, I. i. 2. "On trouva dans l'île de Cuervo une statue équestre, couverte d'un manteau, mais la tête nue, qui tenoit de la main gauche la bride du cheval, et qui montroit l'occident de la main droite. Il y avoit sur le bas d'un roc quelques lettres gravées, qui ne furent point entendues; mais il parut clairement que le signe de la main regardoit l'Amérique."

4 Rev. xix. 17.

5 The more Christian opinion is, that God, with eyes of compas sion, as it were, looking down from heaven, called forth those winds of mercy, whereby this new world received the hope of salvation.Preambles to the Decades of the Ocean.

Sprung with unerring, unrelenting force,

From the bright East. Tides duly ebbed and flowed;

Stars rose and set; and new horizons glowed:
Yet still it blew! As with primeval sway
Still did its ample spirit, night and day,

Move on the waters !—All, resigned to Fate,
Folded their arms and sate;1 and seemed to wait
Some sudden change; and sought, in chill sus-

pense,

New spheres of being, and new modes of sense; As men departing, though not doomed to die, And midway on their passage to eternity.

CANTO II.

THE VOYAGE CONTINUED.

CHAT vast foundations in the Abyss

are there,

As of a former world? Is it not

where

Atlantic kings their barbarous pomp displayed; Sunk into darkness with the realms they swayed, When towers and temples, thro' the closing wave, A glimmering ray of ancient splendour gaveAnd we shall rest with them.-Or are we thrown " * (Each gazed on each, and all exclaimed as one,) Where things familiar cease and strange begin, All progress barred to those without, within ? -Soon is the doubt resolved. Arise, behold

To return was deemed impossible, as it blew always from home. Hist, del Almirante, c. 19. Nos pavidi-at pater Anchises-lætus.

We stop to stir no more . . . nor will the tale bè told."

The pilot smote his breast; the watchman cried “Land!” and his voice in faltering accents died.1 At once the fury of the prow was quelled;

And (whence or why from many an age withheld)2

Shricks, not of men, were mingling in the blast;
And armed shapes of god-like stature passed!
Slowly along the evening-sky they went,
As on the edge of some vast battlement;
Helmet and shield, and spear and gonfalon
Streaming a baleful light that was not of the sun!

Long from the stern the great Adventurer gazed
With awe not fear; then high his hands he raised.
"Thou All-supreme . . . in goodness as in power,
Who, from his birth to this eventful hour,
Hast led thy servant over land and sea,3
Confessing Thee in all, and all in Thee,

Oh still "He spoke, and lo, the charm accurst
Fled whence it came, and the broad barrier burst!
A vain illusion! (such as mocks the eyes
Of fearful men, when mountains round them rise
From less than nothing) nothing now beheld,
But scattered sedge-repelling, and repelled!

And once again that valiant company
Right onward came, ploughing the Unknown Sea.
Already borne beyond the range of thought,
With Light divine, and Truth Immortal fraught,

1 Historians are not silent on the subject. The sailors, according to Herrera, saw the signs of an inundated country (tierras anegadas); and it was the general expectation that they should end their lives there, as others had done in the frozen sea, "where St. Amaro suffers no ship to stir backward or forward."-Hist. del Almirante, c. 19.

2 The author seems to have anticipated his long slumber in the library of the Fathers.

3 They may give me what name they please. I am servant of Him, &c.-Hist. del Almirante, c. 2.

From world to world their steady course they keep,'
Swift as the winds along the waters sweep,
Mid the mute nations of the purple deep.
-And now the sound of harpy-wings they hear;
Now less and less, as vanishing in fear!

And see, the heavens bow down, the waters rise,
And, rising, shoot in columns to the skies,2
That stand-and still, when they proceed, retire,
As in the Desert burned the sacred fire;
Moving in silent majesty, till Night
Descends, and shuts the vision from their sight.

CANTO III.

AN ASSEMBLY OF EVIL SPIRITS.

HO' changed my cloth of gold for

amice grey

3

In my spring-time, when every month was May,

With hawk and hound I coursed away the hour,
Or sung my roundelay in lady's bower.

And tho' my world be now a narrow cell,
(Renounced for ever all I loved so well,)
Tho' now my head be bald, my feet be bare,
And scarce my knees sustain my book of prayer,
Oh I was there, one of that gallant crew,

And saw-and wondered whence his Power He drew,

Yet little thought, tho' by his side I stood,

As St. Christopher carried Christ over the deep waters, so Columbus went over safe, himself and his company.-Hist. c. 1. Water-spouts.-See Edwards's History of the West Indies, I, 12.

Note.

Many of the first discoverers ended their days in a hermitage or a cloister.