Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 1.djvu/477

And while yon sun emits his rays divine,
And while the stars in midnight azure shine,
Where'er my sails are stretch'd the world around,
Thy praise shall brighten, and thy name resound.

He spoke; the painted barges swept the flood,
Where, proudly gay, the anchored navy rode;
Earnest the king the lordly fleet surveys;
The mortars thunder, and the trumpets raise
Their martial sounds Melinda's sons to greet;
Melinda's sons with timbrels hail the fleet.
And now no more the sulphury tempest roars;
The boatmen leaning on the rested oars
Breathe short; the barges now at anchor moor'd,
The king, while silence listen'd round, implored
The glories of the Lusian wars to hear,
Whose faintest echoes long had pleased his ear:
Their various triumphs on the Afric shore
O'er those who hold the son of Hagar's lore,
Fond he demands, and now demands again
Their various triumphs on the western main:
Again, ere readiest answer found a place,
He asks the story of the Lusian race;
What god was founder of the mighty line,
Beneath what heaven their land, what shores adjoin;
And what their climate, where the sinking day
Gives the last glimpse of twilight's silvery ray.