And live; give all thy terrors to the wind. Soon as thy arms the happy shore shall gain, Return the gift, and cast it in the main: Observe my orders, and with heed obey, Cast it far off, and turn thy eyes away.” With that, her hand the sacred veil bestows, Then down the deeps she dived from whence she rose; A moment snatch’d the shining form away, And all was covered with the curling sea. Struck with amaze, yet still to doubt inclined, He stands suspended, and explores his mind: “What shall I do? unhappy me! who knows But other gods intend me other woes? Whoe’er thou art, I shall not blindly join Thy pleaded reason, but consult with mine: For scarce in ken appears that distant isle Thy voice foretells me shall conclude my toil. Thus then I judge: while yet the planks sustain The wild waves’ fury, here I fix’d remain: But, when their texture to the tempest yields, I launch adventurous on the liquid fields, Join to the help of gods the strength of man, And take this method, since the best I can.” While thus his thoughts an anxious council hold, The raging god a watery mountain roll’d; Like a black sheet the whelming billows spread, Burst o’er the float, and thunder’d on his head. Planks, beams, disparted fly; the scatter’d wood Rolls diverse, and in fragments strews the flood. So the rude Boreas, o’er the field new-shorn, Tosses and drives the scatter’d heaps of corn. And now a single beam the chief bestrides: There poised a while above the bounding tides, His limbs discumbers of the clinging vest, And binds the sacred cincture round his breast: Then prone an ocean in a moment flung, Stretch’d wide his eager arms, and shot the seas along. All naked now, on heaving billows laid, Stern Neptune eyed him, and contemptuous said: “Go, learn’d in woes, and other foes essay! Go, wander helpless on the watery way; Thus, thus find out the destined shore, and then (If Jove ordains it) mix with happier men. Whate’er thy fate, the ills our wrath could raise Shall last remember’d in thy best of days.”