No needy mortals here, with hunger bold,

Or wretched hunters through the wintry cold

Pursue their flight; but leave them safe to bound

From hill to hill, o’er all the desert ground.

Nor knows the soil to feed the fleecy care,

Or feels the labours of the crooked share;

But uninhabited, untill’d, unsown,

It lies, and breeds the bleating goat alone.

For there no vessel with vermilion prore,

Or bark of traffic, glides from shore to shore;

The rugged race of savages, unskill’d

The seas to traverse, or the ships to build,

Gaze on the coast, nor cultivate the soil,

Unlearn’d in all the industrious art of toil,

Yet here all products and all plants abound,

Sprung from the fruitful genius of the ground;

Fields waving high with heavy crops are seen,

And vines that flourish in eternal green,

Refreshing meads along the murmuring main,

And fountains streaming down the fruitful plain.


“A port there is, inclosed on either side,

Where ships may rest, unanchor’d and untied;

Till the glad mariners incline to sail,

And the sea whitens with the rising gale,

High at the head, from out the cavern’d rock,

In living rills a gushing fountain broke:

Around it, and above, for ever green,

The busy alders form’d a shady scene;

Hither some favouring god, beyond our thought,

Through all surrounding shade our navy brought;

For gloomy night descended on the main,

Nor glimmer’d Phoebe in the ethereal plain:

But all unseen the clouded island lay,

And all unseen the surge and rolling sea,

Till safe we anchor’d in the shelter’d bay:

Our sails we gather’d, cast our cables o’er,

And slept secure along the sandy shore.

Soon as again the rosy morning shone,

Reveal’d the landscape and the scene unknown,

With wonder seized, we view the pleasing ground,

And walk delighted, and expatiate round.

Roused by the woodland nymphs at early dawn,

The mountain goats came bounding o’er the lawn:

In haste our fellows to the ships repair,