And cast their weapons at the victor's feet. Whom thus he cheared:--O Rhodian youth, I fought For love alone, nor other booty sought; Your lives are safe; your vessel I resign, Yours be your own, restoring what is mine: In Iphigene I claim my rightful due, Robbed by my rival, and detained by you; Your Pasimond a lawless bargain drove, The parent could not sell the daughter's love; Or if he could, my love disdains the laws, And, like a king, by conquest gains his cause; Where arms take place, all other pleas are vain, Love taught me force, and force shall love maintain. You, what by strength you could not keep, release, And at an easy ransom buy your peace.-- Fear on the conquered side soon signed the accord, And Iphigene to Cymon was restored. While to his arms the blushing bride he took, To seeming sadness she composed her look; As if by force subjected to his will, Though pleased, dissembling, and a woman still. And, for she wept, he wiped her falling tears, And prayed her to dismiss her empty fears;-- For yours I am, he said, and have deserved Your love much better whom so long I served, Than he to whom your formal father tied Your vows, and sold a slave, not sent a bride.-- Thus while he spoke, he seized the willing prey, As Paris bore the Spartan spouse away. Faintly she screamed, and even her eyes confessed She rather would be thought, than was, distressed. Who now exults but Cymon in his mind? } Vain hopes and empty joys of human kind, } Proud of the present, to the future blind! } Secure of fate, while Cymon plows the sea, And steers to Candy with his conquered prey, Scarce the third glass of measured hours was run, When like a fiery meteor sunk the sun, The promise of a storm; the shifting gales Forsake by fits, and fill, the flagging sails; Hoarse murmurs of the main from far were heard, And night came on, not by degrees prepared, But all at once; at once the winds arise, The thunders roll, the forky lightning flies. In vain the master issues out commands, In vain the trembling sailors ply their hands; The tempest unforeseen prevents their care, And from the first they labour in despair. The giddy ship, betwixt the winds and tides Forced back and forwards, in a circle rides, Stunned with the different blows; then shoots amain, Till, counterbuffed, she stops, and sleeps again. Not more aghast the proud archangel fell, Plunged from the height of heaven to deepest hell, Than stood the lover of his love possessed, Now cursed the more, the more he had been blessed; More anxious for her danger, than his own, Death he defies, but would be lost alone. Sad Iphigene to womanish complaints Adds pious prayers, and wearies all the saints; Even, if she could, her love she would repent, But since she cannot, dreads the punishment: Her forfeit faith, and Pasimond betrayed,