'
"He paus'd, in act still further to disclose
A long, a dreary prophecy of woes:
When springing onward, loud my voice resounds,
And midst his rage the threat'ning shade confounds.
"'What art thou, horrid form that rid'st the air?
By Heaven's eternal light, stern fiend, declare.'
His lips he writhes, his eyes far round he throws,
And, from his breast, deep hollow groans arose,
Sternly askance he stood: with wounded pride
And anguish torn, 'In me, behold,' he cried,
While dark-red sparkles from his eyeballs roll'd,
'In me the Spirit of the Cape behold,
That rock, by you the Cape of Tempests nam'd,
By Neptune's rage, in horrid earthquakes fram'd,
When Jove's red bolts o'er Titan's offspring flam'd.
With wide-stretch'd piles I guard the pathless strand,
And Afric's southern mound, unmov'd, I stand:
Nor Roman prow, nor daring Tyrian oar
Ere dash'd the white wave foaming to my shore;
Nor Greece nor Carthage ever spread the sail
On these my seas, to catch the trading gale.
You, you alone have dar'd to plough my main,
And with the human voice disturb my lonesome reign."
"He spoke, and deep a lengthen'd sigh he drew,
A doleful sound, and vanish'd from the view:
The frighten'd billows gave a rolling swell,
And, distant far, prolong'd the dismal yell,
Faint and more faint the howling echoes die,
And the black cloud dispersing, leaves the sky.
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