Book I

Awake a louder and a loftier strain!Beloved harp, whose tones have oft beguiledMy solitary sorrows, when I leftThe scene of happier hours, and wandered far,A pale and drooping stranger; I have sat(While evening listened to the convent bell)On the wild margin of the Rhine, and wooedThy sympathies, "a-weary of the world,"And I have found with thee sad fellowship,Yet always sweet, whene'er my languid handPassed carelessly o'er the responsive wires,While unambitious of the laurelled meedThat crowns the gifted bard, I only askedSome stealing melodies, the heart might love,And a brief sonnet to beguile my tears!But I had hope that one day I might wakeThy strings to loftier utterance; and now,Bidding adieu to glens, and woods, and streams,And turning where, magnificent and vast,Main Ocean bursts upon my sight, I strike,--Rapt in the theme on which I long have mused,--Strike the loud lyre, and as the blue waves rock,Swell to their solemn roar the deepening chords.Lift thy indignant billows high, proclaimThy terrors, Spirit of the hoary seas!I sing thy dread dominion, amid wrecks,And storms, and howling solitudes, to ManSubmitted: awful shade of CamoensBend from the clouds of heaven.By the bold tonesOf minstrelsy, that o'er the unknown surge(Where never daring sail before was spread)Echoed, and startled from his long reposeThe indignant Phantom of the stormy Cape;Oh, let me think that in the winds I hearThy animating tones, whilst I pursueWith ardent hopes, like thee, my venturous way,And bid the seas resound my song! And thou,Father of Albion's streams, majestic Thames,Amid the glittering scene, whose long-drawn waveGoes noiseless, yet with conscious pride, beneathThe thronging vessels' shadows; nor through scenesMore fair, the yellow Tagus, or the Nile,That ancient river, winds. THOU to the strainShalt haply listen, that records the MIGHTOf OCEAN, like a giant at thy feetVanquished, and yielding to thy gentle stateThe ancient sceptre of his dread domain!All was one waste of waves, that buried deepEarth and its multitudes: the Ark alone,High on the cloudy van of Ararat,Rested; for now the death-commissioned stormSinks silent, and the eye of day looks outDim through the haze; while short successive gleamsFlit o'er the weltering Deluge as it shrinks,Or the transparent rain-drops, falling few,Distinct and larger glisten. So the ArkRests upon Ararat; but nought aroundIts inmates can behold, save o'er th' expanseOf boundless waters, the sun's orient orbStretching the hull's long shadow, or the moonIn silence, through the silver-cinctured clouds,Sailing as she herself were lost, and leftIn Nature's loneliness!But oh, sweet Hope,Thou bid'st a tear of holy ecstasyStart to their eye-lids, when at night the Dove,Weary, returns, and lo! an olive leafWet in her bill: again she is put forth,When the seventh morn shines on the hoar abyss:--Due evening comes: her wings are heard no more!The dawn awakes, not cold and dripping sad,But cheered with lovelier sunshine; far awayThe dark-red mountains slow their naked peaksUpheave above the waste; Imaus gleams;Fume the huge torrents on his desert sides;Till at the awful voice of Him who rulesThe storm, the ancient Father and his trainOn the dry land descend.Here let us pause.No noise in the vast circuit of the globeIs heard; no sound of human stirring: noneOf pasturing herds, or wandering flocks; nor songOf birds that solace the forsaken woodsFrom morn till eve; save in that spot that holdsThe sacred Ark: there the glad sounds ascend,And Nature listens to the breath of Life.The fleet horse bounds, high-neighing to the windThat lifts his streaming mane; the heifer lows;Loud sings the lark amid the rainbow's hues;The lion lifts him muttering; MAN comes forth--He kneels upon the earth--he kisses it;And to the GOD who stretched that radiant bow,He lifts his trembling transports.From one spotAlone of earth such sounds ascend. How changedThe human prospect! when from realm to realm,From shore to shore, from isle to furthest isle,Flung to the stormy main, man's murmuring race,Various and countless as the shells that strewThe ocean's winding marge, are spread; from shoresSinensian, where the passing proas gleamInnumerous 'mid the floating villages:To Acapulco west, where laden deepWith gold and gems rolls the superb galleon,Shadowing the hoar Pacific: from the North,Where on some snowy promontory's heightThe Lapland wizard beats his drum, and callsThe spirits of the winds, to th' utmost South,Where savage Fuego shoots its cold white peaks,Dreariest of lands, and the poor PecheraisShiver and moan along its waste of snows.So stirs the earth; and for the Ark that passedAlone and darkling o'er the dread abyss,Ten thousand and ten thousand barks are seenFervent and glancing on the friths and sounds;From the Bermudian that, with masts inclined,Shoots like a dart along; to the tall shipThat, like a stately swan, in conscious prideBreasts beautiful the rising surge, and throwsThe gathered waters back, and seems to moveA living thing, along her lucid wayStreaming in white-winged glory to the sun!Some waft the treasures of the east; some bearTheir country's dark artillery o'er the surgeFrowning; some in the southern solitudes,Bound on discovery of new regions, spread,'Mid rocks of driving ice, that crash around,Their weather-beaten mainsail; or exploreTheir perilous way from isle to isle, and windThe tender social tie; connecting man,Wherever scattered, with his fellow-man.How many ages rolled away ere thus,From NATURE'S GENERAL WRECK, the world's great sceneWas tenanted! See from their sad abode,At Heaven's dread voice, heard from the solitude,As in the dayspring of created things,The sad survivors of a buried worldCome forth; on them, though desolate their seat,The sky looks down with smiles; for the broad sun,That to the west slopes his untired career,Hangs o'er the water's brim. The aged sire,Now rising from his evening sacrifice,Amid his offspring stands, and lifts his eyes,Moist with a tear, to the bright bow: the fireYet on the altar burns, whose trailing fumeGoes slowly up, and marks the lucid copeOf the soft sky, where distant clouds hang stillAnd beautiful. So placid Evening stealsAfter the lurid storm, like a sweet formOf fairy following a perturbed shapeOf giant terror, that in darkness strode.Slow sinks the lord of day; the clustering cloudsMore ardent burn; confusion of rich hues,Crimson, and gold, and purple, bright, inlayTheir varied edges; till before the eye,As their last lustre fades, small silver starsSucceed; and twinkling each in its own sphere,Thick as the frost's unnumbered spangles, strewThe slowly-paling heavens. Tired Nature seemsLike one who, struggling long for life, had beatThe billows, and scarce gained a desert crag,O'er-spent, to sink to rest: the tranquil airsWhisper repose. Now sunk in sleep reclinesThe Father of the world; then the sole moonMounts high in shadowy beauty; every cloudRetires, as in the blue space she moves onAmid the fulgent orbs supreme, and looksThe queen of heaven and earth. Stilly the streamsRetiring sound; midnight's high hollow vaultFaint echoes; stilly sound the distant streams.When, hark! a strange and mingled wail, and criesAs of ten thousand thousand perishing!A phantom, 'mid the shadows of the dead,Before the holy Patriarch, as he slept,Stood terrible:--Dark as a storm it stoodOf thunder and of winds, like hollow seasRemote; meantime a voice was heard: Behold,Noah, the foe of thy weak race! my nameDestruction, whom thy sons in yonder plainsShall worship, and all grim, with mooned hornsPaint fabling: when the flood from off the earthBefore it swept the living multitudes,I rode amid the hurricane; I heardThe universal shriek of all that lived.In vain they climbed the rocky heights: I struckThe adamantine mountains, and like dustThey crumbled in the billowy foam. My hall,Deep in the centre of the seas, receivedThe victims as they sank! Then, with dark joy,I sat amid ten thousand carcases,That weltered at my feet! But THOU and THINEHave braved my utmost fury: what remainsBut vengeance, vengeance on thy hated race;--And be that sheltering shrine the instrument!Thence, taught to stem the wild sea when it roars,In after-times to lands remote, where roamedThe naked man and his wan progeny,They, more instructed in the fatal useOf arts and arms, shall ply their way; and thouWouldst bid the great deep cover thee to seeThe sorrows of thy miserable sons:But turn, and view in part the truths I speak.He said, and vanished with a dismal soundOf lamentation from his grisly troop.Then saw the just man in his dream what seemedA new and savage land: huge forests stretchedTheir world of wood, shading like night the banksOf torrent-foaming rivers, many a leagueWandering and lost in solitudes; green islesHere shone, and scattered huts beneath the shadeOf branching palms were seen; whilst in the sunA naked infant playing, stretched his handTo reach a speckled snake, that through the leavesOft darted, or its shining volumes rolledErratic.From the woods a sable manCame, as from hunting; in his arms he tookThe smiling child, that with the feathers playedWhich nodded on his brow; the sheltering hutReceived them, and the cheerful smoke went upAbove the silent woods.Anon was heardThe sound as of strange thunder, from the mouthsOf hollow engines, as, with white sails spread,Tall vessels, hulled like the great Ark, approachedThe verdant shores: they, in a woody coveSafe-stationed, hang their pennants motionlessBeneath the palms. Meantime, with shouts and song,The boat rows hurrying to the land; nor longEre the great sea for many a league is tinged,While corpse on corpse, down the red torrent rolled,Floats, and the inmost forests murmur--Blood.Now vast savannahs meet the view, where highAbove the arid grass the serpent liftsHis tawny crest:--Not far a vessel ridesUpon the sunny main, and to the shoreBlack savage tribes a mournful captive urge,Who looks to heaven with anguish. Him they castBound in the rank hold of the prison-ship,With many a sad associate in despair,Each panting chained to his allotted space;And moaning, whilst their wasted eye-balls roll.Another scene appears: the naked slaveWrithes to the bloody lash; but more to viewNature forbad, for starting from his dreamThe just Man woke. Shuddering he gazed around;He saw the earliest beam of morning shineSlant on the hills without; he heard the breathOf placid kine, but troubled thoughts and sadArose. He wandered forth; and now far on,By heavy musings led, reached a ravineMost mild amid the tempest-riven rocks,Through whose dark pass he saw the flood remoteGray-spreading, while the mists of morn went up.He paused; when on his lonely pathway flashedA light, and sounds as of approaching wingsInstant were heard. A radiant form appeared,Celestial, and with heavenly accent said:Noah, I come commissioned from above,Where angels move before th' eternal throneOf heaven's great King in glory, to dispelThe mists of darkness from thy sight; for know,Not unpermitted of th' Eternal OneThe shadows of thy melancholy dreamHung o'er thee slumbering: Mine the task to showFuturity's faint scene;--now follow me.He said; and up to the unclouded heightOf that great Eastern mountain, that surveysDim Asia, they ascended. Then his browThe Angel touched, and cleared with whispered charmThe mortal mist before his eyes.--At once(As in the skiey mirage, when the seerFrom lonely Kilda's western summit seesA wondrous scene in shadowy vision rise)The NETHER WORLD, with seas and shores, appearedSubmitted to his view: but not as then,A melancholy waste, deform and sad;But fair as now the green earth spreads, with woods,Champaign, and hills, and many winding streamsRobed, the magnificent illusion rose.He saw in mazy longitude devolvedThe mighty Brahma-Pooter; to the EastThibet and China, and the shining seaThat sweeps the inlets of Japan, and windsAmid the Curile and Aleutian isles,Pale to the north. Siberia's snowy scenesAre spread; Jenisca and the freezing ObAppear, and many a forest's shady trackFar as the Baltic, and the utmost boundsOf Scandinavia; thence the eye returns:And lo! great Lebanon--abrupt and darkWith pines, and airy Carmel, rising slowAbove the midland main, where hang the capesOf Italy and Greece; swart Africa,Beneath the parching sun, her long domainReveals, the mountains of the Moon, the sourceOf Nile, the wild mysterious Niger, lostAmid the torrid sands; and to the southHer stormy cape. Beyond the misty mainThe weary eye scarce wanders, when beholdPlata, through vaster territory poured;And Andes, sweeping the horizon's tract,Mightiest of mountains! whose eternal snowsFeel not the nearer sun; whose umbrage chillsThe murmuring ocean; whose volcanic firesA thousand nations view, hung like the moonHigh in the middle waste of heaven; thy range,Shading far off the Southern hemisphere,A dusky file Titanic.So spreadBefore our great forefather's view the globeAppeared; with seas, and shady continents,And verdant isles, and mountains lifting darkTheir forests, and indenting rivers, pouredIn silvery maze. And, Lo! the Angel said,These scenes, O Noah, thy posterityShall people; but remote and scattered wide,They shall forget their GOD, and see no trace,Save dimly, of their Great Original.Rude caves shall be their dwellings: till, with noiseOf multitudes, imperial cities rise.But the Arch Fiend, the foe of GOD and man,Shall fling his spells; and, 'mid illusions drear,Blear Superstition shall arise, the earthEclipsing.--Deep in caves, vault within vaultFar winding; or in night of thickest woods,Where no bird sings; or 'mid huge circles grayOf uncouth stone, her aspect wild, and paleAs the terrific flame that near her burns,She her mysterious rites, 'mid hymns and cries,Shall wake, and to her shapeless idols, vastAnd smeared with blood, or shrines of lust, shall leadHer votaries, maddening as she waves her torch,With visage more expanded, to the groansOf human sacrifice.Nor think that loveAnd happiness shall dwell in vales remote:The naked man shall see the glorious sun,And think it but enlightens his poor isle,Hid in the watery waste; cold on his limbsThe ocean-spray shall beat; his DeitiesShall be the stars, the thunder, and the winds;And if a stranger on his rugged shoresBe cast, his offered blood shall stain the strand.O wretched man! who then shall raise thee upFrom this thy dark estate, forlorn and lost?The Patriarch said.The Angel answered mild,His God, who destined him to noblest ends!But mutual intercourse shall stir at firstThe sunk and grovelling spirit, and from sleepThe sullen energies of man rouse up,As of a slumbering giant. He shall walkSublime amid the works of GOD: the earthShall own his wide dominion; the great seaShall toss in vain its roaring waves; his eyeShall scan the bright orbs as they roll aboveGlorious, and his expanding heart shall burn,As wide and wider in magnificenceThe vast scene opens; in the winds and clouds,The seas, and circling planets, he shall seeThe shadow of a dread Almighty move.Then shall the Dayspring rise, before whose beamThe darkness of the world is past:--For, hark!Seraphs and angel-choirs with symphoniesAcclaiming of ten thousand golden harps,Amid the bursting clouds of heaven revealed,At once, in glory jubilant, they sing--God the Redeemer liveth! He who tookMan's nature on him, and in human shroudVeiled his immortal glory! He is risen!God the Redeemer liveth! And behold!The gates of life and immortalityOpen to all that breathe!Oh, might the strainsBut win the world to love; meek CharityShould lift her looks and smile; and with faint voiceThe weary pilgrim of the earth exclaim,As close his eye-lids--Death, where is thy sting?O Grave, where is thy victory?And ye,Whom ocean's melancholy wastes divide,Who slumber to the sullen surge, awake,Break forth into thanksgiving, for the barkThat rolled upon the desert deep, shall bearThe tidings of great joy to all that live,Tidings of life and light.Oh, were those men,(The Patriarch raised his drooping looks, and said)Such in my dream I saw, who to the islesAnd peaceful sylvan scenes o'er the wide seasCame tilting; then their murderous instrumentsLifted, that flashed to the indignant sun,Whilst the poor native died:--Oh, were those menInstructed in the laws of holier love,Thou hast displayed?The Angel meek replied--Call rather fiends of hell those who abuseThe mercies they receive: that such, indeed,On whom the light of clearer knowledge beams,Should wander forth, and for the tender voiceOf charity should scatter crimes and woe,And drench, where'er they pass, the earth with blood,Might make ev'n angels weep:But the poor tribesThat groaned and died, deem not them innocentAs injured; more ensanguined rites and deedsOf deepest stain were theirs; and what if God,So to approve his justice, and exactMost even retribution, blood for blood,Bid forth the Angel of the storm of death!Thou saw'st, indeed, the seeming innocenceOf man the savage; but thou saw'st not all.Behold the scene more near! hear the shrill whoopOf murderous war! See tribes on neighbour tribesRush howling, their red hatchets wielding high,And shouting to their barbarous gods! BeholdThe captive bound, yet vaunting direst hate,And mocking his tormentors, while they gashHis flesh unshrinking, tear his eyeballs, burnHis beating breast! Hear the dark temples ringTo groans and hymns of murderous sacrifice;While the stern priest, the rites of horror done,With hollow-echoing chaunt lifts up the heartOf the last victim 'mid the yelling throng,Quivering, and red, and reeking to the sun!Reclaimed by gradual intercourse, his heartWarmed with new sympathies, the forest-chiefShall cast the bleeding hatchet to his godsOf darkness, and one Lord of all adore--Maker of heaven and earth.Let it suffice,He hath permitted EVIL for a whileTo mingle its deep hues and sable shadesAmid life's fair perspective, as thou saw'stOf late the blackening clouds; but in the endAll these shall roll away, and evening stillCome smilingly, while the great sun looks downOn the illumined scene. So CharityShall smile on all the earth, and Nature's GodLook down upon his works; and while far offThe shrieking night-fiends fly, one voice shall riseFrom shore to shore, from isle to furthest isle--Glory to God on high, and on earth peace,Peace and good-will to men!Thou rest in hope,And Him with meekness and with trust adore!He said, and spreading bright his ampler wing,Flew to the heaven of heavens; the meek man bowedAdoring, and, with pensive thoughts resigned,Bent from the aching height his lonely way.

See Camoens' description of the dreadful Phantom at the Cape ofGood Hope.

Forster says the miserable creatures who visited the ship in theStraits of Magellan, seldom uttered any other word than"Passeray"--hence the name of Pecherais was given to them.