Here, on his musing mood the goddess press’d, Approaching soft, and thus the chief address’d: “Unhappy man! to wasting woes a prey, No more in sorrows languish life away: Free as the winds I give thee now to rove: Go, fell the timber of yon lofty grove, And form a raft, and build the rising ship, Sublime to bear thee o’er the gloomy deep. To store the vessel let the care be mine, With water from the rock and rosy wine, And life-sustaining bread, and fair array, And prosperous gales to waft thee on the way. These, if the gods with my desire comply (The gods, alas, more mighty far than I, And better skill’d in dark events to come), In peace shall land thee at thy native home.” With sighs Ulysses heard the words she spoke, Then thus his melancholy silence broke: “Some other motive, goddess! sways thy mind (Some close design, or turn of womankind), Nor my return the end, nor this the way, On a slight raft to pass the swelling sea, Huge, horrid, vast! where scarce in safety sails The best-built ship, though Jove inspires the gales. The bold proposal how shall I fulfil, Dark as I am, unconscious of thy will? Swear, then, thou mean’st not what my soul forebodes; Swear by the solemn oath that binds the gods.” Him, while he spoke, with smiles Calypso eyed, And gently grasp’d his hand, and thus replied: “This shows thee, friend, by old experience taught, And learn’d in all the wiles of human thought, How prone to doubt, how cautious, are the wise! But hear, O earth, and hear, ye sacred skies! And thou, O Styx! whose formidable floods Glide through the shades, and bind the attesting gods! No form’d design, no meditated end, Lurks in the counsel of thy faithful friend; Kind the persuasion, and sincere my aim; The same my practice, were my fate the same. Heaven has not cursed me with a heart of steel, But given the sense to pity, and to feel.” Thus having said, the goddess marched before: He trod her footsteps in the sandy shore. At the cool cave arrived, they took their state; He filled the throne where Mercury had sate. For him the nymph a rich repast ordains, Such as the mortal life of man sustains; Before herself were placed the the cates divine, Ambrosial banquet and celestial wine. Their hunger satiate, and their thirst repress’d, Thus spoke Calypso to her godlike guest: