rizon round
Is one volcanic pyre.
The sun is dead, the air is smoke, heaven fire.
Philosophy, how far from thee I stray,
When I cannot explain the marvels of this day!
And now the sea, upborne on clouds the while,
Seems like some ruined pile,
That crumbling down the wind as 'twere a wall,
In dust not foam doth fall.
And struggling through the gloom,
Facing the storm, a mighty ship seeks room
On the open sea, whose rage it seems to court,
Flying the dangerous pity of the port.
The noise, the terror, and that fearful cry,
Give fatal augury
Of the impending stroke. Death hesitates,
For each already dies who death awaits.
With portents the whole atmosphere is rife,
Nor is it all the effect of elemental strife.
The ship is rigged with tempest as it flies.*
It rushes on the lee,
The war is now no longer of the sea;
Upon a hidden rock
It strikes: it breaks as with a thunder shock.
Blood flakes the foam where helpless it is tost.

[footnote] *Hartzenbusch remarks that there is no corresponding rhyme
for this line in the original, and that both the sense and the
versification are defective.--'Comedias de Calderon', t. 2, p. 178.

[The sound of the tempest increases, and voices are heard within.

VOICES WITHIN. We sink! we sink! we're lost!

DEMON [within]. For what I have in hand,
I'll trust this plank to bear me to the land.

CYPRIAN. As scorning the wild wave
One man alone his life attempts to save.
While lurching over, mid the billows' swell,
The great ship sinks to where the Tritons dwell;
There, with its mighty ribs asunder rent,
It lies a corse of the sea, its grave and monument.

[Enter The Demon, dripping with wet, as if escaped from the sea.

DEMON [aside]. For the end I wish to gain
It was of necessity
That upon this sapphire sea
I this fearful storm should feign,
And in form unlike that one
Which in this wild wood I wore,
When I found my deepest lore
By his keener wit outdone,
Come again to assail him here,
Trusting better now to prove
Both his intellect and his love.--
[Aloud.
Earth, loved earth, O mother dear,
From this monster, this wild sea,
Give me shelter in thy arms.

CYPRIAN. Lose, my friend, the dread alarms,