MILTON's STYLE IMITATED,

IN A TRANSLATION

OF

A STORY OUT OF THE THIRD ÆNEID.

L

OST in the gloomy horror of the night

We ftruck upon the coaft where Ætna lies,
Horrid and waste, its entrails fraught with fire,
That now cafts out dark fumes and pitchy clouds,
Vaft showers of afhes hovering in the fmoke;
Now belches molten ftones and ruddy flame
Incenft, or tears up mountains by the roots,
Or flings a broken rock aloft in air.

The bottom works with fmother'd fire, involv'd
In peftilential vapours, fench and smoke.

'Tis faid, that thunder-ftruck Enceladus
Groveling beneath th' incumbent mountain's weight
Lies stretch'd fupine, eternal prey of flames;
And when he heaves against the burning load,
Reluctant, to invert his broiling limbs,

A fudden earthquake fhoots through all the isle,
And Ætna thunders dreadful under ground,
Then pours out smoke in wreathing curls convolv'd,
And fhades the fun's bright orb, and blots out day.
Here in the fhelter of the woods we lodg'd,
And frighted heard strange sounds and difmal yells,
Nor faw from whence they came; for all the night
A murky storm deep louring o'er our heads
Hung imminent, that with impervious gloom
Oppos'd itself to Cynthia's filver ray,

And

And fhaded all beneath. But now the fun

With orient beams had chac'd the dewy night
From earth and heaven; all nature stood difclos'd;
When looking on the neighbouring woods we saw
The ghaftly visage of a man unknown,

An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;
Affliction's foul and terrible dismay

Sat in his looks, his face impair'd and worn
With marks of famine, speaking fore distress;
His locks were tangled, and his fhaggy beard
Matted with filth; in all things else a Greek.

He firft advanc'd in haste; but when he faw
Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career
Stopt fhort, he back recoil'd as one furpriz'd:
But foon recovering speed, he ran, he flew
Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries

Our ears afsail'd: "By heaven's eternal fires,

By every God that fits inthron'd on high, "By this good light, relieve a wretch forlorn,, "And bear me hence to any distant shore, "So I may shun this favage race accurst.

" 'Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late "With fword and fire o'erturn'd Neptunian Troy, "And laid the labour of the Gods in duft ; "For which, if fo the fad offence deferves, "Plung'd in the deep, for ever let me lie "Whelm'd under feas; if death must be my doom, "Let man inflict it, and I die well pleas'd." He ended here, and now profufe of tears In fuppliant mood fell proftrate at our feet; We bade him speak from whence, and what he was,

And

And how by stress of fortune funk thus low;
Anchises too with friendly aspect mild
Gave him his hand, fure pledge of amity,
When, thus encourag'd, he began his tale.
I'm one, fays he, of poor defcent, my name
Is Achæmenides, my country Greece,
Ulyffes' fad compeer, who, whilft he fled
The raging Cyclops, left me here behind
Difconfolate, forlorn; within the cave
He left me, giant Polypheme's dark cave;
A dungeon wide and horrible, the walls
On all fides furr'd with mouldy damps, and hung
With clots of ropy gore, and human limbs,
His dire repaft himself of mighty fize,
Hoarfe in his voice, and in his visage grim,
Intractable, that riots on the flesh

Of mortal men, and fwills the vital blood.
Him did I fee fnatch up with horrid grafp
Two fprawling Greeks, in either hand a man :
I saw him when with huge tempeftuous sway
He dafht and broke them on the grundfil edge;
The pavement fwam in blood, the walls around
Were fpatter'd o'er with brains. He lapt the blood,
And chew'd the tender flesh still warm with life,
That fwell'd and heav'd itself amidst his teeth
As fenfible of pain. Not lefs mean while
Our chief incens'd, and studious of revenge,
Plots his deftruction, which he thus effects.

The giant, gorg'd with flesh, and wine, and blood,
Lay stretcht at length and fnoring in his den,
Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'ercharg'd

With purple wine and cruddled gore confus'd.
We gather'd round, and to his single eye,
The fingle eye that in his forehead glar'd
Like a full moon, or a broad burnish'd fhield,
A forky ftaff we dextrously apply'd,

Which, in the fpacious focket turning round,
Scoopt out the big round jelly from its orb.
But let me not thus interpofe delays:
Fly, mortals, fly this curft detefted race:
A hundred of the fame ftupendous size,
A hundred Cyclops live among the hills,
Gigantic brotherhood, that stalk along
With horrid ftrides o'er the high mountains tops,
Enormous in their gait; I oft have heard

Their voice and tread; oft feen them as they past,
Sculking and fcouring down, half dead with fear.
Thrice has the moon wash'd all her orb in light,
Thrice travel'd o'er in her obfcure fojourn,
The realms of night inglorious, fince I've liv'd
Amidst thefe woods, gleaning from thorns and fhrubs
A wretched fuftenance. As thus he spoke,
We faw defcending from a neighbouring hill
Blind Polypheme; by weary fteps and flow
The groping giant with a trunk of pine
Explor'd his way around his woolly flocks
Attended grazing: to the well-known fhore
He bent his courfe, and on the margin ftood,
A hideous monfter, terrible, deform'd;
Full in the midft of his high front there gap'd
The fpacious hollow where his eye-ball roll'd,
A ghaftly

E

A ghaftly orifice; he rins'd the wound,

And wash'd away the strings and clotted blood
That cak'd within; then stalking through the deep
He fords the ocean; while the topmast wave

Scarce reaches up his middle fide: we stood
Amaz'd, be fure; a fudden horror chill

Ran through each nerve, and thrill'd in every vein,
Till, using all the force of winds and oars,

We fped away; he heard us in our course,
And with his out-stretch'd arms around him grop'd,
But, finding nought within his reach, he rais'd
Such hideous fhouts that all the ocean fhook.
Ev'n Italy, though many a league remote,
In diftant echos anfwer'd; Ætna roar'd,
Through all its inmoft winding caverns roar'd.
Rous'd with the found, the mighty family
Of one-eyed brothers haften to the shore,
And gather round the bellowing Polypheme,
A dire assembly: we with eager haste
Work every one, and from afar behold
A hoft of giants covering all the shore.

So ftands a foreft tall of mountain oaks
Advanc'd to mighty growth: the traveller
Hears from the humble valley where he rides
The hollow murmurs of the winds that blow
Amidft the boughs, and at the distance fees
The fhady tops of trees unnumber'd rise,
A ftately profpect, waving in the clouds.

THE