The storm at sea reminds us of AEschylus in splendour:
The winds were such, that scarcely could
they shew
With greater force or greater rage around,
Than if it were this purpose then to blow
The mighty tower of Babel to the ground....
Now rising to the clouds they seem to
go
O’er the wild waves of Neptune borne
on end;
Now to the bowels of the deep below;
It seems to all their senses, they descend;
Notus and Auster, Boreas, Aquila,
The very world’s machinery would
rend;
While flashings fire the black and ugly
night
And shed from pole to pole a dazzling
light....
But now the star of love beamed forth
its ray,
Before the sun, upon the horizon clear,
And visited, as messenger of day,
The earth and spreading sea, with brow
to cheer....
And, as it subsides:
The mountains that we saw at first appeared,
In the far view, like clouds and nothing
more.
Off the coast of India:
Now o’er the hills broke forth the
morning light
Where Ganges’ stream is murmuring
heard to flow,
Free from the storm and from the first
sea’s fight,
Vain terror from their hearts is banished
now.
His magic island, the Ilha of Venus, could only have been imagined by a poet who had travelled widely. All the delights of the New World are there, with the vegetation of Southern Europe added. It is a poet’s triumphant rendering of impressions which the discoverers so often felt their inability to convey:
From far they saw the island fresh and
fair,
Which Venus o’er the waters guiding
drove
(E’en as the wind the canvas white
doth bear)....
Where the coast forms a bay for resting-place,
Curved and all quiet, and whose shining
sand
Is painted with red shells by Venus’
hand....
Three beauteous mounts rise nobly to the
view,
Lifting with graceful pride their sweeling
head,
O’er which enamelled grass adorning
grew.
In this delightful lovely island glad,
Bright limpid streams their rushing waters
threw
From heights with rich luxuriant verdure
clad,
’Midst the white rocks above, their
source derive,
The streams sonorous, sweet, and fugitive....
A thousand trees toward heaven their summits
raise,
With fruits odoriferous and fair;
The orange in its produce bright displays
The tint that Daphne carried in her hair;
The citron on the ground its branches
lays,
Laden with yellow weights it cannot bear;
The beauteous melons, which the whole
perfume
The virgin bosom in their form assume.
The forest trees, which on the hills combine
To ennoble them with leafy hair o’ergrown,
Are poplars of Alcides; laurels shine,
The which the shining God loved as his
own;
Myrtles of Cytherea with the pine
Of Cybele, by other love o’erthrown;


