With gentle force impelling to that shore,

Where fate has destined he shall toil no more.

And now, two nights, and now two days were pass’d,

Since wide he wander’d on the watery waste;

Heaved on the surge with intermitting breath,

And hourly panting in the arms of death.

The third fair morn now blazed upon the main;

Then glassy smooth lay all the liquid plain;

The winds were hush’d, the billows scarcely curl’d,

And a dead silence still’d the watery world;

When lifted on a ridgy wave he spies

The land at distance, and with sharpen’d eyes.

As pious children joy with vast delight

When a loved sire revives before their sight

(Who, lingering long, has call’d on death in vain,

Fix’d by some demon to his bed of pain,

Till heaven by miracle his life restore);

So joys Ulysses at the appearing shore;

And sees (and labours onward as he sees)

The rising forests, and the tufted trees.

And now, as near approaching as the sound

Of human voice the listening ear may wound,

Amidst the rocks he heard a hollow roar

Of murmuring surges breaking on the shore;

Nor peaceful port was there, nor winding bay,

To shield the vessel from the rolling sea,

But cliffs and shaggy shores, a dreadful sight!

All rough with rocks, with foamy billows white.

Fear seized his slacken’d limbs and beating heart,

As thus he communed with his soul apart;


“Ah me! when, o’er a length of waters toss’d,

These eyes at last behold the unhoped-for coast,

No port receives me from the angry main,

But the loud deeps demand me back again.

Above, sharp rocks forbid access; around

Roar the wild waves; beneath, is sea profound!

No footing sure affords the faithless sand,

To stem too rapid, and too deep to stand.

If here I enter, my efforts are vain,

Dash’d on the cliffs, or heaved into the main;

Or round the island if my course I bend,

Where the ports open, or the shores descend,

Back to the seas the rolling surge may sweep,