The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India, an Epic Poem
While these stern, lawless rovers of the deep
Fix on thy native shore a foreign throne,
Before whose steps thy latest race shall groan!"
He spoke; cold horror shook the Moorish priest;
He wakes, but soon reclines in wonted rest:
An airy phantom of the slumb'ring brain
He deem'd the vision; when the fiend again,
With sterner mien, and fiercer accent spoke:
"Oh faithless! worthy of the foreign yoke!
And know'st thou not thy prophet sent by Heav'n,
By whom the Koran's sacred lore was giv'n,
God's chiefest gift to men: and must I leave
The bowers of Paradise, for you to grieve,
For you to watch, while, thoughtless of your woe,
Ye sleep, the careless victims of the foe;
The foe, whose rage will soon with cruel joy,
If unoppos'd, my sacred shrines destroy?
Then, while kind Heav'n th'auspicious hour bestows,
Let ev'ry nerve their infant strength oppose.
When, softly usher'd by the milky dawn,
The sun first rises[536] o'er the daisied lawn,
His silver lustre, as the shining dew
Of radiance mild, unhurt the eye may view:
But, when on high the noon-tide flaming rays
Give all the force of living fire to blaze,
A giddy darkness strikes the conquer'd sight,
That dares, in all his glow, the lord of light.
Such, if on India's soil the tender shoot
Of these proud cedars fix the stubborn root,
Such, shall your power before them sink decay'd.
And India's strength shall wither in their shade."
He spoke; and, instant from his vot'ry's bed
Together with repose, the demon fled;
Again cold horror shook the zealot's frame,
And all his hatred of Messiah's name
Burn'd in his venom'd heart, while, veil'd in night,
Right to the palace sped the demon's flight.
Sleepless the king he found, in dubious thought;
His conscious fraud a thousand terrors brought:
All gloomy as the hour, around him stand,
With haggard looks, the hoary Magi band:[537]
To trace what fates on India's wide domain
Attend the rovers from unheard-of Spain,
Prepar'd, in dark futurity, to prove
The hell-taught rituals of infernal Jove:
Mutt'ring their charms, and spells of dreary sound,
With naked feet they beat the hollow ground;
Blue gleams the altar's flame along the walls,
With dismal, hollow groans the victim falls;
With earnest eyes the priestly band explore
The entrails, throbbing in the living gore.
And lo, permitted by the power divine,
The hov'ring demon gives the dreadful sign.[538]
Here furious War her gleamy falchion draws,
Here lean-ribb'd Famine writhes her falling jaws;
Dire as the fiery pestilential star
Darting his eyes, high on his trophied car,
Stern Tyranny sweeps wide o'er India's ground;
On vulture-wings fierce Rapine hovers round;
Ills after ills, and India's fetter'd might,
Th'eternal yoke.[539] Loud shrieking at the sight,
The starting wizards from the altar fly,
And silent horror glares in ev'ry eye:
Pale stands the monarch, lost in cold dismay,
And, now impatient, waits the ling'ring day.
With gloomy aspect rose the ling'ring dawn,
And dropping tears flow'd slowly o'er the lawn;
The Moorish priest, with fear and vengeance fraught,
Soon as the light appear'd his kindred sought;
Appall'd, and trembling with ungen'rous fear,
In secret council met, his tale they hear;
As, check'd by terror or impell'd by hate,
Of various means they ponder and debate,
Against the Lusian train what arts employ,
By force to slaughter, or by fraud destroy;
Now black, now pale, their bearded cheeks appear,
As boiling rage prevails, or boding fear;
Beneath their shady brows, their eye-balls roll,
Nor one soft gleam bespeaks the gen'rous soul;
Through quiv'ring lips they draw their panting breath.
While their dark fraud decrees the works of death;
Nor unresolv'd the power of gold to try
Swift to the lordly catual's gate they hie.--
Ah, what the wisdom, what the sleepless care
Efficient to avoid the traitor's snare;
What human power can give a king to know
The smiling aspect of the lurking foe!
So let the tyrant plead.[540]--The patriot king
Knows men, knows whence the patriot virtues spring;
From inward worth, from conscience firm and bold,
(Not from the man whose honest name is sold),
He hopes that virtue, whose unalter'd weight
Stands fix'd, unveering with the storms of state.
Lur'd was the regent with the Moorish gold,
And now agreed their fraudful course to hold,
Swift to the king the regent's steps they tread;
The king they found o'erwhelm'd in sacred dread.
The word they take, their ancient deeds relate,
Their ever faithful service of the state;[541]
"For ages long, from shore to distant shore
For thee our ready keels the traffic bore:
For thee we dar'd each horror of the wave;
Whate'er thy treasures boast our labours gave.
And wilt thou now confer our long-earn'd due,
Confer thy favour on a lawless crew?
The race they boast, as tigers of the wold
Bear that proud sway, by justice uncontroll'd.
Yet, for their crimes, expell'd that bloody home,
These, o'er the deep, rapacious plund'rers roam.
Their deeds we know; round Afric's shores they came,
And spread, where'er they pass'd, devouring flame;
Mozambique's towers, enroll'd in sheets of fire,
Blaz'd to the sky, her own funereal pyre.
Imperial Calicut shall feel the same,
And these proud state-rooms feed the funeral flame;
While many a league far round, their joyful eyes
Shall mark old ocean reddening to the skies.
Such dreadful fates, o'er thee, O king, depend,
Yet, with thy fall our fate shall never blend:
Ere o'er the east arise the second dawn
Our fleets, our nation from thy land withdrawn,
In other climes, beneath a kinder reign
Shall fix their port: yet may the threat be vain!
If wiser thou with us thy powers employ,
Soon shall our powers the robber-crew destroy.
By their own arts and secret deeds o'ercome,
Here shall they meet the fate escaped at home."
While thus the priest detain'd the monarch's ear,
His cheeks confess'd the quiv'ring pulse of fear.
Unconscious of the worth that fires the brave,
In state a monarch, but in heart a slave,
He view'd brave VASCO, and his gen'rous train,
As his own passions stamp'd the conscious stain:
Nor less his rage the fraudful regent fir'd;
And valiant GAMA'S fate was now conspir'd.
Ambassadors from India GAMA sought,
And oaths of peace, for oaths of friendship brought;
The glorious tale, 'twas all he wish'd, to tell;
So Ilion's[542] fate was seal'd when Hector fell.
Again convok'd before the Indian throne,
The monarch meets him with a rageful frown;
"And own," he cries, "the naked truth reveal,
Then shall my bounteous grace thy pardon seal.
Feign'd is the treaty thou pretend'st to bring:
No country owns thee, and thou own'st no king.
Thy life, long roving o'er the deep, I know--
A lawless robber, every man thy foe.
And think'st thou credit to thy tale to gain?
Mad were the sov'reign, and the hope were vain,
Through ways unknown, from utmost western shore,
To bid his fleets the utmost east explore.
Great is thy monarch, so thy words declare;
But sumptuous gifts the proof of greatness bear:
Kings thus to kings their empire's grandeur show;
Thus prove thy truth, thus we thy truth allow.
If not, what credence will the wise afford?
What monarch trust the wand'ring seaman's word?
No sumptuous gift thou bring'st.[543]--Yet, though some crime
Has thrown thee, banish'd from thy native clime,
(Such oft of old the hero's fate has been),
Here end thy toils, nor tempt new fates unseen:
Each land the brave man nobly calls his home:
Or if, bold pirates, o'er the deep you roam,
Skill'd the dread storm to brave, O welcome here!
Fearless of death, or shame, confess sincere:
My name shall then thy dread protection be,
My captain thou, unrivall'd on the sea."
Oh now, ye Muses, sing what goddess fir'd
GAMA'S proud bosom, and his lips inspir'd.
Fair Acidalia, love's celestial queen,[544]
The graceful goddess of the fearless mien,
Her graceful freedom on his look bestow'd,
And all collected in his bosom glow'd.
"Sov'reign," he cries, "oft witness'd, well I know
The rageful falsehood of the Moorish foe:
Their fraudful tales, from hatred bred, believ'd,
Thine ear is poison'd, and thine eye deceiv'd.
What light, what shade the courtier's mirror gives,
That light, that shade the guarded king receives.
Me hast thou view'd in colours not mine own,
Yet, bold I promise shall my truth be known.
If o'er the seas a lawless pest I roam,
A blood-stain'd exile from my native home,
How many a fertile shore and beauteous isle,
Where Nature's gifts, unclaim'd, unbounded, smile,
Mad have I left, to dare the burning zone,
And all the horrors of the gulfs unknown
That roar beneath the axle of the world.
Where ne'er before was daring sail unfurl'd!
And have I left these beauteous shores behind,
And have I dar'd the rage of ev'ry wind,
That now breath'd fire, and now came wing'd with frost,
Lur'd by the plunder of an unknown coast?
Not thus the robber leaves his certain prey
For the gay promise of a nameless day.
Dread and stupendous, more than death-doom'd man
Might hope to compass, more than wisdom plan,
To thee my toils, to thee my dangers rise:
Ah! Lisbon's kings behold with other eyes.
Where virtue calls, where glory leads the way,
No dangers move them, and no toils dismay.
Long have the kings of Lusus' daring race
Resolv'd the limits of the deep to trace,
Beneath the morn to ride the furthest waves,
And pierce the farthest shore old Ocean laves.
Sprung from the prince,[545] before whose matchless power
The strength of Afric wither'd as a flower
Never to bloom again, great Henry shone,
Each gift of nature and of art his own;
Bold as his sire, by toils on toils untir'd,
To find the Indian shore his pride aspir'd.
Beneath the stars that round the Hydra shine,
And where fam'd Argo hangs the heav'nly sign,
Where thirst and fever burn on ev'ry gale
The dauntless Henry rear'd the Lusian sail.
Embolden'd by the meed that crown'd his toils,
Beyond the wide-spread shores and num'rous isles,
Where both the tropics pour the burning day,
Succeeding heroes forc'd th' exploring way;
That race which never view'd the Pleiad's car,
That barb'rous race beneath the southern star,
Their eyes beheld.--Dread roar'd the blast--the wave
Boils to the sky, the meeting whirlwinds rave
O'er the torn heav'ns; loud on their awe-struck ear
Great Nature seem'd to call, 'Approach not here!'
At Lisbon's court they told their dread escape,
And from her raging tempests, nam'd the Cape.[546]
'Thou southmost point,' the joyful king exclaim'd,
'Cape of Good Hope, be thou for ever nam'd!
Onward my fleets shall dare the dreadful way,
And find the regions of the infant day.'
In vain the dark and ever-howling blast
Proclaim'd, 'This ocean never shall be past;'
Through that dread ocean, and the tempests' roar,
My king commanded, and my course I bore.
The pillar thus of deathless fame, begun