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I saw, when his enormous hand
Plucked forth two victims from our band,
Swung round, and on the threshold dashed,
While all the floor with blood was splashed:
I saw him grind them, bleeding fresh,
And close his teeth on quivering flesh:
Not unrequited: such a wrong
My wily chieftain brooked not long:
E'en in that dire extreme of ill
Ulysses was Ulysses still.
For when o'ercome with sleep and wine
Along the cave he lay supine,
Ejecting from his monstrous maw
Wine mixed, with gore and gobbets raw,
We pray to Heaven, our parts dispose,
And in a circle round him close,
With sharpened point that eyeball pierce
Which 'neath his brow glared lone and fierce,
Like Argive shield or sun's broad light,
And thus our comrades' death requite.
But fly, unhappy, fly, and tear
Your anchors from the shore:
For vast as Polyphemus there
Guards, feeds, and milks his fleecy car
On the sea's margin make their home
And o'er the lofty mountains roam
A hundred Cyclops more.
Three moons their circuit nigh have made,
Since in wild den or woodland shade
My wretched life I trail,
See Cyclops stalk from rock to rock,
And tremble at their footsteps' shock,
And at their voices quail.
Hard cornel fruits that life sustain,
And grasses gathered from the plain.