For now, reluctant, and constrain'd by charms,
Absent he lay in her desiring arms,
In slumber wore the heavy night away,
On rocks and shores consumed the tedious day; 200 There sat all desolate, and sigh'd alone,
With echoing sorrows made the mountains groan, And roll'd his eyes o'er all the restless main,
Till dimm'd with rising grief they stream'd again. Here on his musing mood the goddess press'd, Approaching soft; and thus the chief address'd: 206 Unhappy man! to wasting woes a prey,
No more in sorrows languish life away:
Free as the winds I give thee now to rove-
Go, fell the timber of yon lofty grove,
And form a raft, and build the rising ship,
Sublime to bear thee o'er the gloomy deep.
To store the vessel let the care be mine,
With water from the rock, and rosy wine,
And life-sustaining bread, and fair array,
And prosperous gales to waft thee on the way.
These, if the gods with my desires comply,
(The gods, alas! more nighty far than I,
And better skill'd in dark events to come,)
In peace shall land thee at thy native home."
With sighs Ulysses heard the words she spoke, Then thus his melancholy silence broke: "Some other motive, goddess, sways thy mind; (Some close design, or turn of womankind ;) Nor my return the end, nor this the way, On a slight raft to pass the swelling sea, Huge, horrid, vast! where scarce in safety sails The best built ship, though Jove inspire the gales. The bold proposal how shall I fulfil,
Dark as I am, unconscious of thy will?
Swear then thou mean'st not what my soul forebodes;
Swear by the solemn oath that binds the gods."
Him, while he spoke, with smiles Calypso eyed,
And gently grasp'd his hand, and thus replied:
"This shows thee, friend, by old experience taught, And learned in all the wiles of human thought. 236 How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise! But hear, oh earth, and hear, ye sacred skies! And thou, oh Styx! whose formidable floods Glide through the shades, and bind the attesting gods!
No form'd design, no meditated end,
Lurks in the counsel of thy faithful friend;
Kind the persuasion, and sincere my aim;
The same my practice, were my fate the same.
Heaven has not cursed me with a heart of steel, 245 But given the sense to pity, and to feel."
Thus having said, the goddess march'd before:
He trod her footsteps in the sandy shore.
At the cool cave arrived, they took their state;
He fill'd the throne where Mercury had sat.
For him the nymph a rich repast ordains,
Such as the mortal life of man sustains;
Before herself were placed the cates divine,
Ambrosial banquet, and celestial wine.
Their hunger satiate, and their thirst repress'd, 255 Thus spoke Calypso to her godlike guest: "Ulysses!" with a sigh she thus began;
"Oh sprung from gods! in wisdom more than man: Is then thy home the passion of thy heart?
Thus wilt thou leave me, are we thus to part? 260
Farewell! and ever joyful mayst thou be,
Nor break the transport with one thought of me.
But, ah, Ulysses! wert thou given to know
What fate yet dooms thee yet to undergo;
Thy heart might settle in this scene of ease,
And ev❜n these slighted charms might learn to please.
A willing goddess, and immortal life,
Might banish from thy mind an absent wife.
Am I inferior to a mortal dame?
Less soft my feature, less august my frame?
Or shall the daughters of mankind compare
Their earthborn beauties with the heavenly fair?"
"Alas! for this," the prudent man replies,
Against Ulysses shall thy anger rise?
Loved and adored, oh goddess, as thou art,
Forgive the weakness of a human heart.
Though well I see thy graces far above
The dear, though mortal object of my love,
Of youth eternal well the difference know,
And the short date of fading charms below;
Yet every day while absent thus I roam,
I languish to return and die at home.
Whate'er the gods shall destine me to bear
In the black ocean, or the watery war,
'Tis mine to master with a constant mind;
Inured to perils, to the worst resign'd,
By seas, by wars, so many dangers run;
Still I can suffer: their high will be done!"
Thus while he spoke, the beamy sun descends, And rising night her friendly shade extends. To the close grot the lonely pair remove, And slept delighted with the gifts of love. When rosy morning call'd them from their rest, Ulysses robed him in the cloak and vest. The nymph's fair head a veil transparent graced, Her swelling loins a radiant zone embraced With flowers of gold: an under robe, unbound, In snowy waves flow'd glittering on the ground. Forth issuing thus, she gave him first to wield A weighty axe, with truest temper steel'd, And double edged; the handle smooth and plain, Wrought of the clouded olive's easy grain; And next, a wedge to drive with sweepy sway: Then to the neighbouring forest led the way. On the lone island's utmost verge there stood Of poplars, pines, and firs, a lofty wood, Whose leafless summits to the skies aspire, Scorch'd by the sun, or sear'd by heavenly fire : (Already dried.) These pointing out to view, The nymph just show'd him, and with tears with
Now toils the hero: trees on trees o'erthrown
Fall crackling round him, and the forests groan:
Sudden, full twenty on the plain are strow'd,
And lopp'd and lighten'd of their branchy load.
At equal angles these disposed to join,
He smoothed and squared them by the rule and line. (The wimbles for the work Calypso found :)
With those he pierced them, and with clinchers bound.
Long and capacious as a shipwright forms
Some bark's broad bottom to out ride the storms,
So large he built the raft: then ribb'd it strong 321
From space to space, and nail'd the planks along;
These form'd the sides: the deck he fashion'd last;
Then o'er the vessel raised the taper mast,
With crossing sail yards dancing in the wind;
And to the helm the guiding rudder join'd :
(With yielding osiers fenced, to break the force
Of surging waves, and steer the steady course.)
Thy loom, Calypso, for the future sails
Supplied the cloth, capacious of the gales.
With stays and cordage last he rigg'd the ship,
And, roll'd on levers, launched her in the deep.
Four days were pass'd, and now the work
complete,
Shone the fifth morn, when from her sacred seat 334
The nymph dismiss'd him, (odorous garments given,)
And bathed in fragrant oils that breathed of heaven:
Then fill'd two goatskins with her hands divine,
With water one, and one with sable wine :
Of every kind, provisions heaved aboard;
And the full decks with copious viands stored. 340
The goddess, last, a gentle breeze supplies,
To curl old ocean, and to warm the skies.
And, now, rejoicing in the prosperous gales,
With beating heart Ulysses spreads his sails:
Placed at the helm he sat, and mark'd the skies,
Nor closed in sleep his ever-watchful eyes.
There view'd the Pleiads, and the Northern Team,
And great Orion's more refulgent beam,
To which, around the axle of the sky,
The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye:
Who shines exalted on the ethereal plain,
Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main.
Far on the left those radiant fires to keep
The nymph directed, as he sail'd the deep.
Full seventeen nights he cut the foamy way:
The distant land appear'd the following day:
Then swell'd to sight Phæacia's dusky coast,
And woody mountains, half in vapours lost;
That lay before him indistinct and vast,
Like a broad shield amid the watery waste.
But him, thus voyaging the deeps below,
From far, on Solyme's aerial brow,
The king of ocean saw, and, seeing, burn'd;
(From Æthiopia's happy climes return'd ;)
The raging monarch shook his azure head,
And thus in secret to his soul he said:
"Heavens! how uncertain are the powers on
Is then reversed the sentence of the sky,
In one man's favour; while a distant guest
I shared secure the Ethiopian feast?
Behold how near Phæacia's land he draws!
The land, affix'd by fate's eternal laws
To end his toils. Is then our anger vain?
No; if this sceptre yet commands the main.”
He spoke, and high the forky trident hurl'd,
Rolls clouds on clouds, and stirs the watery world;
At once the face of earth and sea deforms,
Swells all the winds, and rouses all the storms.
Down rush'd the night: east, west, together roar;
And south and north roll mountains to the shore;
Then shook the hero, to despair resign'd,
And question'd thus his yet unconquer'd mind:
"Wretch that I am! what further fates attend
This life of toils, and what my destined end?
|