So near the pastures, and so short the way,

His double toils may claim a double pay,

And join the labours of the night and day.


“Within a long recess a bay there lies,

Edged round with cliffs high pointing to the skies;

The jutting shores that swell on either side

Contract its mouth, and break the rushing tide.

Our eager sailors seize the fair retreat,

And bound within the port their crowded fleet:

For here retired the sinking billows sleep,

And smiling calmness silver’d o’er the deep.

I only in the bay refused to moor,

And fix’d without, my halsers to the shore.


“From thence we climb’d a point, whose airy brow

Commands the prospect of the plains below;

No tracks of beasts, or signs of men, we found,

But smoky volumes rolling from the ground.

Two with our herald thither we command,

With speed to learn what men possess’d the land.

They went, and kept the wheel’s smooth-beaten road

Which to the city drew the mountain wood;

When lo! they met, beside a crystal spring,

The daughter of Antiphates the king;

She to Artacia’s silver streams came down;

(Artacia’s streams alone supply the town);

The damsel they approach, and ask’d what race

The people were? who monarch of the place?

With joy the maid the unwary strangers heard

And show’d them where the royal dome appear’d.

They went; but as they entering saw the queen

Of size enormous, and terrific mien

(Not yielding to some bulky mountain’s height),

A sudden horror struck their aching sight.

Swift at her call her husband scour’d away

To wreak his hunger on the destined prey;

One for his food the raging glutton slew,

But two rush’d out, and to the navy flew.


“Balk’d of his prey, the yelling monster flies,

And fills the city with his hideous cries;

A ghastly band of giants hear the roar,

And, pouring down the mountains, crowd the shore.

Fragments they rend from off the craggy brow

And dash the ruins on the ships below;