“Six days and nights a doubtful course we steer, The next proud Lamos’ stately towers appear, And Læstrygonia’s gates arise distinct in air. 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 haisers to the shore. From thence we climb’d a point, whose airy brow Commands the prospect of the plains below: 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-beated road Which to the city drew the mountain wood; When lo! they met, beside a crystal spring, The daughter of Antiphates the king; 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 Swift at her call her husband scour’d away To wreck 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: The crackling vessels burst; hoarse groans arise, And mingled horrors echo to the skies; The men like fish, they struck upon the flood. And crammed their filthy throats with human food.” Following the old classic story a little further, Ulysses and his followers pass onward to the abode of the _Sirens_, where Pope has brought together their experience in the following rhyme: