In those bright eyes, where love was wont to frame
His sharpest darts, and raise his purest flame,
A drop he sprinkles that had power to steep
Her heavy eye-lids in the dew of sleep.
Now prone on earth she sinks, a lovely prize,
Defenceless at his lawless will she lies;
While, at his pleasure, he can wander o'er
Each nameless beauty, every grace explore.
Oft to her mouth his trembling lips are prest;
And oft his kisses print her ivory breast.
None view his actions, on that desert coast:
But the soft hour of love with him is lost.
The hoary dotard, whose impure desire
Forgets what sage and reverend years require,
Shame of his kind! with drowsy age opprest,
By slow degrees resigns his limbs to rest,
And every sense in dull oblivion laid,
Soon lies in slumber by the slumbering maid.
But now a fresh disaster fortune sent,
Who seldom leaves till all her darts are spent:
And here I must th' occasion first display
That draws me something from the path away:
In seas remote, beneath the western skies,
Beyond the Irish coast an island lies,
Ebuda call'd, on whose ill-fated ground
Th' inhabitants are now but thinly found.
with such another hermit, who casts her in a deep sleep, and carries her away from her husband, when she is afterwards delivered by a lion, who terrifies the hermit that had conveyed her to a cave. See likewise the old Fisherman and Florimel in Spenser, Fairy Queen, B. iii. C. viii.
A dreadful orc, and numerous monsters more,
By Proteus sent, have ravag'd all the shore.
The ancient stories (strange to hear!) relate,
A powerful monarch govern'd once the state:
This prince a daughter fair and young possess'd,
With every grace and every virtue blest;
Whose heavenly charms, as on the strand she stood,
Enflam'd the heart of Proteus midst the flood:
The bloomy virgin by his love compell'd,
Her pregnant womb a growing burthen swell'd.
Most hateful to her sire was this to hear,
Above all others impious and severe !
Nor would he by remorse, or love, be led
To save his hapless child's devoted head.
His grandson (harmless object of his spite)
Was murder'd ere he yet had seen the light!
Proteus, to whom 'tis given in charge to keep
The herds of Neptune, ruler of the deep,
Ver. 355. A dreadful orc,---] The word orca in the Italian has no particular signification, but is applied to any monster or creature of the imagination: in the xviith book, orco is used for a deformed and dreadful giant: the word orc occurs in Milton:
The haunts of seals and orcs and sew-mew's clang!
Par. Lost, B. xi. ver. 835.
Ver. 356. By Protcus sent,---] Ariosto makes a strange mixture of the Christian and Pagan theology: Neptune, Proteus, and the other marine gods, are here introduced without scruple. Spenser in like manner employs the fables and symbols of the ancients, and makes the heathen deities agents in his poem; and, like Ariosto, brings Proteus into the above-mentioned tale of Florimel and the Fisherman : Proteus is shepherd of the seas of yore,
And hath the charge of Neptune's mighty herd: ;
An aged sire with head all frory hore,
And sprinkled frost upon his dewy beard, &c.
For his lov'd consort's death indignant burn'd,
And to revenge her all his fury turn'd.
With speed he sent ashore his savage train,
The phocoe, orcs, and monsters of the main;
That not alone their rage on herds employ'd,
But villages and husbandmen destroy'd.
The soldiers arm'd, by night and day prepar'd,
High on the city's walls maintain'd the guard,
While from the fields the trembling people flew :
At length to learn what course they must pursue
To end their plague, the oracle they sought;
And thence the deputies this answer brought:
"That Heaven requir'd them with unweary'd care
"To seek a damsel, like the former, fair;
"A victim doom'd beside the roaring tide,
"T' appease the God for her that guiltless dy'd.
"So might th' offended power the maid receive,
"And from their woes th' afflicted land relieve.
"But if the scourge remain'd, they must present
"Another dame, 'till Proteus' wrath was spent."
I dare not true, nor false, this story hold,
Which former annals have of Proteus told:
Thus far 'tis known--in this unhappy place,
A law prevails against the female race,
To nourish daily with their guiltless blood
An hideous monster, rising from the flood,
A dreadful orc, that near the isle remain❜d,
When every other had the seas regain'd.
Hard is the lot of woman ever found,
But harder still on this unpitying ground.
O wretched virgins! in a luckless hour
By fortune cast on this ill-omen'd shore,
Where, by the waves, in cruel watch they stand
To seize on strangers with an impious hand;
Whose lives may for the nation's guilt atone,
And thus preserve the numbers of their own.
From port to port the vessels scour the main,
New victims for the sacrifice to gain.
Some maids by force they win, and some by stealth,
By flattery these, and those by hopes of wealth;
And thus they drew such numbers in their power,
As every prison fill'd, and every tower.
A pinnace, that had sail'd from land to land,
Passing before the solitary strand,
Where on the grassy turf the lovely maid,
Unblest Angelica, asleep was laid,
Their anchor cast, the seamen stopp'd, to bring
Wood from the grove, and water from the spring,
And there beheld the flower of beauty's charms,
Clasp'd in the holy father's reverend arms!
O! precious prize! adorn'd with every grace!
Too precious far for such a barbarous race!
O! cruel fortune! canst thou then maintain
Thy sway on earth with such relentless reign,
To yield an offering to a monster's rage,
Those graces that could Agrican engage
From Caucasus Albracca's force to brave,
With half of Scythia there to find a grave!
That beauty priz'd by Sacripant before
His martial glory and his regal power!
That beauty, which the mighty fame defac'd
Of Anglant's knight, and laid his senses waste!
That beauty, which had rouz'd such chiefs to arms, 485 And fill'd the eastern empire with alarms!
Now lies forlorn, to woe and death betray'd,
Without a friend to hear, a friend to aid!
The damsel sleeping on the senseless ground,
Before she wak'd, with ready chains they bound;
They seiz'd the hermit too; and with their prey
Back to the strand again resum'd their way.
To the high mast the bellying canvas strain'd,
The vessel soon the mournful island gain'd.
Yet pity wrought so far her charms to spare,
For many days they kept the virgin-fair;
Till now, exhausted all their hapless store,
Weeping they led her to the destin'd shore.
What tongue can tell the sorrows, tears, and sighs,
The lamentations loud that pierc'd the skies!
'Twas strange the pitying rocks did not divide,
When to the stone her lovely limbs were ty'd.
I can no more---such pangs my breast assail,
The muse must leave untold the piteous tale;
And to a theme less gloomy turn the strain,
'Till her torn mind recovers strength again.
Nor squalid snakes, nor spotted tigress stung
With dreadful fury for her ravish'd young,
Or aught that in the tract of Afric lands
Envenom'd wanders o'er the burning sands,
Could view without remorse this maiden's cruel bands.
Had fame the tidings to Orlando brought,
Who late in Paris' walls his fair-one sought;
Ver. 462. Had fame the tidings-] See the before cited book in Spenser, where Florimel falls into the hands of the old Fisherman.
O!
ye brave knights! that boast this lady's love
Where be ye now......
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