In the wide void we lose their cheering beams,
Lower and lower still the pole-star gleams.
Till past the limit, where the car of day
Roll'd o'er our heads, and pour'd the downward ray:
We now disprove the faith of ancient lore;
Booetes shining car appears no more.
For here we saw Calisto's[351] star retire
Beneath the waves, unaw'd by Juno's ire.
Here, while the sun his polar journeys takes,
His visit doubled, double season makes;
Stern winter twice deforms the changeful year,
And twice the spring's gay flowers their honours rear.
Now, pressing onward, past the burning zone,
Beneath another heaven and stars unknown,
Unknown to heroes and to sages old,
With southward prows our pathless course we hold:
Here, gloomy night assumes a darker reign,
And fewer stars emblaze the heavenly plain;
Fewer than those that gild the northern pole,
And o'er our seas their glitt'ring chariots roll:
While nightly thus, the lonely seas we brave,
Another pole-star[352] rises o'er the wave:
Full to the south a shining cross[353] appears,
Our heaving breasts the blissful omen cheers:
Seven radiant stars compose the hallow'd sign
That rose still higher o'er the wavy brine.
Beneath this southern axle of the world
Never, with daring search, was flag unfurl'd;
Nor pilot knows if bounding shores are plac'd,
Or, if one dreary sea o'erflow the lonely waste.

While thus our keels still onward boldly stray'd,
Now toss'd by tempests, now by calms delay'd,
To tell the terrors of the deep untried,
What toils we suffer'd, and what storms defied;
What rattling deluges the black clouds pour'd,
What dreary weeks of solid darkness lower'd;
What mountain-surges mountain-surges lash'd,
What sudden hurricanes the canvas dash'd;
What bursting lightnings, with incessant flare,
Kindled, in one wide flame, the burning air;
What roaring thunders bellow'd o'er our head,
And seem'd to shake the reeling ocean's bed:
To tell each horror on the deep reveal'd,
Would ask an iron throat with tenfold vigour steel'd:[354]
Those dreadful wonders of the deep I saw,
Which fill the sailor's breast with sacred awe;
And which the sages, of their learning vain,
Esteem the phantoms of the dreamful brain:
That living fire, by seamen held divine,[355]
Of Heaven's own care in s