'd flame,
And holy rev'rence of Messiah's name.
O, favour'd African, by Heaven's own light
Call'd from the dreary shades of error's night!
What man may dare his seeming ills arraign,
Or what the grace of Heaven's designs explain!
Far didst thou from thy friends a stranger roam,
There wast thou call'd to thy celestial home.[560]

With rustling sound now swell'd the steady sail;
The lofty masts reclining to the gale,
On full-spread wings the navy springs away,
And, far behind them, foams the ocean grey:
Afar the less'ning hills of Gata fly,
And mix their dim blue summits with the sky:
Beneath the wave low sinks the spicy shore,
And, roaring through the tide, each nodding prore
Points to the Cape, great Nature's southmost bound,
The Cape of Tempests, now of Hope renown'd.
Their glorious tale on Lisboa's shore to tell
Inspires each bosom with a rapt'rous swell;
Now through their breasts the chilly tremors glide,
To dare once more the dangers dearly tried.--
Soon to the winds are these cold fears resign'd,
And all their country rushes on the mind;
How sweet to view their native land, how sweet
The father, brother, and the bride to greet!
While list'ning round the hoary parent's board
The wond'ring kindred glow at ev'ry word;
How sweet to tell what woes, what toils they bore,
The tribes, and wonders of each various shore!
These thoughts, the traveller's lov'd reward, employ,
And swell each bosom with unutter'd joy.[561]

The queen of love, by Heaven's eternal grace,
The guardian goddess of the Lusian race;
The queen of love, elate with joy, surveys
Her heroes, happy, plough the wat'ry maze:
Their dreary toils revolving in her thought,
And all the woes by vengeful Bacchus wrought;
These toils, these woes, her yearning cares employ,
To bathe, and balsam in the streams of joy.
Amid the bosom of the wat'ry waste,
Near where the bowers of Paradise were plac'd,[562]
An isle, array'd in all the pride of flowers,
Of fruits, of fountains, and of fragrant bowers,
She means to offer to their homeward prows,
The place of glad repast and sweet repose;
And there, before their raptur'd view, to raise
The heav'n-topp'd column of their deathless praise.

The goddess now ascends her silver car,
(Bright was its hue as love's transl