ds were such, that scarcely could they shew
With greater force or greater rage around,
Than if it were this purpose then to blow
The mighty tower of Babel to the ground....
Now rising to the clouds they seem to go
O'er the wild waves of Neptune borne on end;
Now to the bowels of the deep below;
It seems to all their senses, they descend;
Notus and Auster, Boreas, Aquila,
The very world's machinery would rend;
While flashings fire the black and ugly night
And shed from pole to pole a dazzling light....
But now the star of love beamed forth its ray,
Before the sun, upon the horizon clear,
And visited, as messenger of day,
The earth and spreading sea, with brow to cheer....

And, as it subsides:

The mountains that we saw at first appeared,
In the far view, like clouds and nothing more.

Off the coast of India:

Now o'er the hills broke forth the morning light
Where Ganges' stream is murmuring heard to flow,
Free from the storm and from the first sea's fight,
Vain terror from their hearts is banished now.

His magic island, the Ilha of Venus, could only have been imagined by
a poet who had travelled widely. All the delights of the New World
are there, with the vegetation of Southern Europe added. It is a
poet's triumphant rendering of impressions which the discoverers so
often felt their inability to convey:

From far they saw the island fresh and fair,
Which Venus o'er the waters guiding drove
(E'en as the wind the canvas white doth bear)....
Where the coast forms a bay for resting-place,
Curved and all quiet, and whose shining sand
Is painted with red shells by Venus' hand....
Three beauteous mounts rise nobly to the view,
Lifting with graceful pride their sweeling head,
O'er which enamelled grass adorning grew.
In this delightful lovely island glad,
Bright limpid streams their rushing waters threw
From heights with rich luxuriant verdure clad,
'Midst the white rocks above, their source derive,
The streams sonorous, sweet, and fugitive....
A thousand trees toward heaven their summits raise,
With fruits odoriferous and fair;
The orange in its produce bright displays
The tint that Daphne carried in her hair;
The citron on the ground its branches lays,
Laden with yellow weights it cannot bear;
The beauteous melons, which the whole perfume
The virgin bosom in their form assume.
The forest trees, which on the hills comb