Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 2.djvu/123

Nor pilot knows if bounding shores are placed,
Or if one dreary sea o'erflow the lonely waste.

While thus our keels still onward boldly stray'd,
Now tost by tempests, now by calms delay'd,
To tell the terrors of the deep untry'd,
What toils we suffer'd, and what storms defy'd;
What rattling deluges the black clouds pour'd,
What dreary weeks of solid darkness lour'd;
What mountain surges mountain surges lash'd,
What sudden hurricanes the canvas dash'd;
What bursting lightnings, with incessant flare,
Kindled in one wide flame the burning air;
What roaring thunders bellow'd o'er our head,
And seem'd to shake the reeling ocean's bed:
To tell each horror on the deep reveal'd,
Would ask an iron throat with tenfold vigour steel'd:
Those dreadful wonders of the deep I saw,
Which fill the sailor's breast with sacred awe;
And which the sages, of their learning vain,
Esteem the phantoms of the dreamful brain.
That living fire, by sea-men held divine,
Of heaven's own care in storms the holy sign,

Which