He pray’d, and straight the gentle stream subsides, Detains the rushing current of his tides, Before the wanderer smooths the watery way, And soft receives him from the rolling sea. That moment, fainting as he touch’d the shore, He dropp’d his sinewy arms: his knees no more Perform’d their office, or his weight upheld: His swoln heart heaved; his bloated body swell’d: From mouth and nose the briny torrent ran; And lost in lassitude lay all the man, Deprived of voice, of motion, and of breath; The soul scarce waking in the arms of death. Soon as warm life its wonted office found, The mindful chief Leucothea’s scarf unbound; Observant of her word, he turn’d aside His head, and cast it on the rolling tide. Behind him far, upon the purple waves, The waters waft it, and the nymph receives. Now parting from the stream, Ulysses found A mossy bank with pliant rushes crown’d; The bank he press’d, and gently kiss’d the ground; Where on the flowery herb as soft he lay, Thus to his soul the sage began to say: “What will ye next ordain, ye powers on high! And yet, ah yet, what fates are we to try? Here by the stream, if I the night out-wear, Thus spent already, how shall nature bear The dews descending, and nocturnal air; Or chilly vapours breathing from the flood When morning rises?—If I take the wood, And in thick shelter of innumerous boughs Enjoy the comfort gentle sleep allows; Though fenced from cold, and though my toil be pass’d, What savage beasts may wander in the waste? Perhaps I yet may fall a bloody prey To prowling bears, or lions in the way.” Thus long debating in himself he stood: At length he took the passage to the wood, Whose shady horrors on a rising brow Waved high, and frown’d upon the stream below. There grew two olives, closest of the grove, With roots entwined, the branches interwove; Alike their leaves, but not alike they smiled With sister-fruits; one fertile, one was wild. Nor here the sun’s meridian rays had power, Nor wind sharp-piercing, nor the rushing shower; The verdant arch so close its texture kept: Beneath this covert great Ulysses crept. Of gather’d leaves an ample bed he made (Thick strewn by tempest through the bowery shade); Where three at least might winter’s cold defy, Though Boreas raged along the inclement sky. This store with joy the patient hero found, And, sunk amidst them, heap’d the leaves around. As some poor peasant, fated to reside Remote from neighbours in a forest wide, Studious to save what human wants require, In embers heap’d, preserves the seeds of fire: Hid in dry foliage thus Ulysses lies, Till Pallas pour’d soft slumbers on his eyes; And golden dreams (the gift of sweet repose) Lull’d all his cares, and banish’d all his woes. BOOK VI. ARGUMENT.