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! 139
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 Iasion 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 :
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 mighty 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?"
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