Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 2.djvu/173

Unless they perish on the billowy way—
Then rouse, ye gods, and vindicate your sway.
The powers of heaven in vengeful anguish see
The tyrant of the skies, and fate's decree;
The dread decree, that to the Lusian train
Consigns, betrays your empire of the main:
Say, shall your wrong alarm the high abodes?
Are men exalted to the rank of gods,
O'er you exalted, while in careless ease
You yield the wrested trident of the seas,
Usurp'd your monarchy, your honours stained,
Your birth-right ravish'd, and your waves profaned!
Alike the daring wrong to me, to you,
And shall my lips in vain your vengeance sue!
This, this to sue from high Olympus bore—
More he attempts, but rage permits no more.
Fierce bursting wrath the watery gods inspires,
And their red eye-balls burn with livid fires:
Heaving and panting struggles evrey breast,
With the fierce billows of hot ire opprest.
Twice from his seat divining Proteus rose,
And twice he shook enraged his sedgy brows:
In vain; the mandate was already given,
From Neptune sent, to loose the winds of heaven:
In vain; though prophecy his lips inspired,
The ocean's queen his silent lips required.
Nor less the storm of headlong rage denies,
Or counsel to debate, or thought to rise.

And