High to the angel-host, whose guardian care
Had ever round us watch'd, my hands I rear,
And Heaven's dread King implore: 'As o'er our head
The fiend dissolv'd, an empty shadow fled;
So may his curses, by the winds of heav'n,
Far o'er the deep, their idle sport, be driv'n!'"
With sacred horror thrill'd, Melinda's lord
Held up the eager hand, and caught the word.
"Oh, wondrous faith of ancient days," he cries,
"Concealed in mystic lore and dark disguise!
Taught by their sires, our hoary fathers tell,
On these rude shores a giant spectre fell,
What time from heaven the rebel band were thrown:
And oft the wand'ring swain has heard his moan.
While o'er the wave the clouded moon appears
To hide her weeping face, his voice he rears
O'er the wild storm. Deep in the days of yore,
A holy pilgrim trod the nightly shore;
Stern groans he heard; by ghostly spells controll'd,
His fate, mysterious, thus the spectre told:
"'By forceful Titan's warm embrace compress'd,
The rock-ribb'd mother, Earth, his love confess'd:
The hundred-handed giant at a birth,
And me, she bore, nor slept my hopes on earth;
My heart avow'd my sire's ethereal flame;
Great Adamastor, then, my dreaded name.
In my bold brother's glorious toils engaged,
Tremendous war against the gods I waged:
Yet, not to reach the throne of heaven I try,
With mountain pil'd on mountain to the sky;
To me the conquest of the seas befell,
In his green realm the second Jove to quell.
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