Thy ridges rough and cheerless! what though Spring Nor kiss thy brow nor cool it with a flower, Yet will I hail thee, hail thy flinty couch, Where Valour and where Virtue have reposed.” The nymph said, sweetly smiling, “Fickle man Would not be happy could he not regret! And I confess how, looking back, a thought Has touched and tuned or rather thrilled my heart, Too soft for sorrow and too strong for joy: Fond foolish maid, ’twas with mine own accord It soothed me, shook me, melted, drowned, in tears. But weep not thou; what cause hast thou to weep? Wouldst thou thy country? wouldst those caves abhorred, Dungeons and portals that exclude the day? Gebir, though generous, just, humane, inhaled Rank venom from these mansions. Rest, O king In Egypt thou! nor, Tamar! pant for sway. With horrid chorus, Pain, Diseases, Death, Stamp on the slippery pavement of the proud, And ring their sounding emptiness through earth. Possess the ocean, me, thyself, and peace.” And now the chariot of the Sun descends, The waves rush hurried from his foaming steeds, Smoke issues from their nostrils at the gate, Which when they enter, with huge golden bar Atlas and Calpe close across the sea. SEVENTH BOOK. WHAT mortal first by adverse fate assailed, Trampled by tyranny or scoffed by scorn, Stung by remorse or wrung by poverty, Bade with fond sigh his native laud farewell? Wretched! but tenfold wretched who resolved Against the waves to plunge th’ expatriate keel Deep with the richest harvest of his land! Driven with that weak blast which Winter leaves Closing his palace gates on Caucasus, Oft hath a berry risen forth a shade; From the same parent plant another lies Deaf to the daily call of weary hind; Zephyrs pass by and laugh at his distress. By every lake’s and every river’s side The nymphs and Naiads teach Equality; In voices gently querulous they ask, “Who would with aching head and toiling arms Bear the full pitcher to the stream far off? Who would, of power intent on high emprise, Deem less the praise to fill the vacant gulf Then raise Charybdis upon Etna’s brow?” Amid her darkest caverns most retired, Nature calls forth her filial elements To close around and cruel that monster _Void_: Fire, springing fierce from his resplendent throne, And Water, dashing the devoted wretch Woundless and whole with iron-coloured mace, Or whirling headlong in his war-belt’s fold. Mark well the lesson, man! and spare thy kind. Go, from their midnight darkness wake the woods, Woo the lone forest in her last retreat: Many still bend their beauteous heads unblest And sigh aloud for elemental man. Through palaces and porches evil eyes Light upon e’en the wretched, who have fled The house of bondage or the house of birth; Suspicions, murmurs, treacheries, taunts, retorts,