Her hero's danger touch'd the pitying power,
The nymph's seducements, and the magic bower.
Thus she began her plaint: "Immortal Jove!
And you who fill the blissful seats above!
Let kings no more with gentle mercy sway,
Or bless a people willing to obey,
But crush the nations with an iron rod,
And every monarch be the scourge of God;
If from your thoughts Ulysses you remove,
Who ruled his subjects with a father's love.
Sole in an isle, encircled by the main,
Abandon'd, banish'd from his native reign,
Unbless'd he sighs, detain'd by lawless charms,
And press'd unwilling in Calypso's arms.
Nor friends are there, nor vessels to convey,
Nor oars to cut the immeasurable way.
And now fierce traitors studious to destroy
His only son, their ambush'd fraud employ;
Who, pious, following his great father's fame,
To sacred Pylos and to Sparta came."
"What words are these!" replied the power who forms
The clouds of night, and darkens heaven with storms;
"Is not already in thy soul decreed,
The chief's return shall make the guilty bleed?
What cannot wisdom do? Thou mayst restore
The son in safety to his native shore;
While the fell foes, who late in ambush lay,
With fraud defeated measure back their way."
Then thus to Hermes the command was given,
"Hermes, thou chosen messenger of heaven!
Go, to the nymph be these our orders borne:
'Tis Jove's decree, Ulysses shall return :
The patient man shall view his old abodes,
Nor help'd by mortal hand, nor guiding gods:
In twice ten days shall fertile Scheria find,
Alone, and floating to the wave and wind.
The bold Phæacians there, whose haughty line
Is mix'd with gods, half human, half divine,
The chief shall honour as some heavenly guest,
And swift transport him to his place of rest.
His vessels loaded with a plenteous store
Of brass, of vestures, and resplendent ore,
(A richer prize than if his joyful isle
Received him charged with Ilion's noble spoil,)
His friends, his country, he shall see, though late;
Such is our sovereign will, and such is fate."
The god who mounts the winged
Fast to his feet the golden pinions binds,
That high through fields of air his flight sustain
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the boundless main.
He grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly,
Or in soft slumber seals the wakeful eye:
Then shoots from heaven to high Pieria's steep,
And stoops incumbent on the rolling deep.
So watery fowl, that seek their fishy food,
With wings expanded o'er the foaming flood,
Now sailing smooth the level surface sweep,
Now dip their pinions in the briny deep.
Thus o'er the world of waters Hermes flew,
Till now the distant island rose in view:
Then, swift ascending from the azure wave,
He took the path that winded to the cave.
Large was the grot in which the nymph he found:
(The fair-hair'd nymph, with every beauty crown'd.)
She sat and sung; the rocks resound her lays:
The cave was brighten'd with a rising blaze:
Cedar and frankincense, an odorous pile,
Flamed on the hearth, and wide perfumed the isle ;
While she with work and song the time divides,
And through the loom the golden shuttle guides.
Without the grot a various sylvan scene
Appear'd around, and groves of living green;
Poplars and alders ever quivering play'd,
And nodding cypress form'd a fragrant shade;
On whose high branches, waving with the storm,
The birds of broadest wing their mansions form, 85
The chough, the sea mew, the loquacious crow,
And scream aloft, and skim the deeps below.
Depending vines the shelving cavern screen,
With purple clusters blushing through the green,
Four limpid fountains from the clefts distil;
And every fountain pours a several rill,
In mazy windings wandering down the hill;
Where bloomy meads with vivid greens were
crown'd,
And glowing violets threw odours round.
A scene where if a god should cast his sight,
A god might gaze and wander with delight!
Joy touch'd the messenger of heaven; he staid
Entranced, and all the blissful haunts survey'd.
Him, entering in the cave, Calypso knew;
For powers celestial to each other's view
Stand still confess'd, though distant far they lie
To habitants of earth, or sea, or sky.
But sad Ulysses, by himself apart,
Pour'd the big sorrows of his swelling heart;
All on the lonely shore he sat to weep,
And roll'd his eyes around the restless deep;
Towards his loved coast he roll'd his eyes in vain,
Till, dimm'd with rising grief, they stream'd again.
Now graceful seated on her shining throne,
To Hermes thus the nymph divine begun:
"God of the silver wand! on what behest
Arrivest thou here, an unexpected guest?
Loved as thou art, thy free injunctions lay;
"Tis mine, with joy and duty to obey.
Till now a stranger, in a happy hour
Approach, and taste the dainties of my bower."
Thus having spoke, the nymph the table spread;
(Ambrosial cates, with nectar rosy red ;)
Hermes the hospitable rite partook,
Divine refection! then, recruited, spoke :
"What moved this journey from my native sky, A goddess asks, nor can a god deny :
Hear then the truth. By mighty Jove's command Unwilling have I trod this pleasing land;
For who, self-moved, with weary wing would sweep
Such length of ocean and unmeasured deep:
A world of waters! far from all the ways
Where men frequent, or sacred altars blaze?
But to Jove's will submission we must pay;
What power so great to dare to disobey?
A man, he says, a man resides with thee,
Of all his kind most worn with misery;
The Greeks, (whose arms for nine long years em-
ploy'd
Their force on Ilion, in the tenth destroy'd,)
At length embarking in a luckless hour,
With conquest proud, incensed Minerva's power:
Hence on the guilty race her vengeance hurl'd
With storms pursued them through the liquid world.
There all his vessels sunk beneath the wave!
There all his dear companions found their grave!
Saved from the jaws of death by Heaven's decree,
The tempest drove him to these shores and thee.
Him, Jove now orders to his native lands
Straight to dismiss; so destiny commands:
Impatient fate his near return attends,
And calls him to his country, and his friends."
Ev'n to her inmost soul the goddess shook;
Then thus her anguish and her passion broke:
"Ungracious gods! with spite and envy cursed!
Still to your own ethereal race the worst!
Ye envy mortal and immortal joy,
And love, the only sweet of life, destroy.
Did ever goddess by her charms engage
A favour'd mortal, and not feel your rage?
So when Aurora sought Orion's love,
Her joys disturb'd your blissful hours above,
Till, in Ortygia, Dian's winged dart
Had pierced the hapless hunter to the heart.
So when the covert of the thrice-ear'd field
Saw stately Ceres to her passion yield,
Scarce could Jasion taste her heavenly charms,
But Jove's swift lightning scorch'd him in her arms.
And is it now my turn, ye mighty powers?
Am I the envy of your blissful bowers?
A man, an outcast to the storm and wave,
It was my crime to pity and to save;
When he who thunders rent his bark in twain,
And sunk his brave companions in the main,
Alone, abandon'd, in mid-ocean toss'd,
The sport of winds, and driven from every coast,
Hither this man of miseries I led,
Received the friendless, and the hungry fed;
Nay promised, vainly promised, to bestow
Immortal life, exempt from age and wo.
'Tis pass'd-and Jove decrees he shall remove; 175
Gods as we are, we are but slaves to Jove.
Go then he may: (he must, if he ordain,
Try all those dangers, all those deeps again :)
But never, never shall Calypso send
To toil like these her husband and her friend.
What ships have I, what sailors to convey,
What oars to cut the long laborious way?
Yet I'll direct the safest means to go;
That last advice is all I can bestow."
To her the power who bears the charming rod : "Dismiss the man, nor irritate the god;
Prevent the rage of him who reigns above,
For what so dreadful as the wrath of Jove ?"
Thus having said, he cut the cleaving sky,
And in a moment vanish'd from her eye.
The nymph, obedient to divine command,
To seek Ulysses, paced along the sand.
Him pensive on the lonely beach she found,
With streaming eyes in briny torrents drown'd,
And inly pining for his native shore ;
For now the soft enchantress pleased no more:
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