Madoc in Aztlan.

MADOC.

THE SECOND PART

I..

Now go your way, ye gallant company!
God and good Angels guard ye as ye go!
Blow fairly, Winds of Heaven! ye Ocean Waves,
Swell not in anger to that fated fleet !

For not of conquest greedy, nor of gold,

Seek they the distant world. .. Blow fairly, Winds!. Waft, Waves of Ocean, well your blessed load!

Fair blew the Winds, and safely did the Waves.
Bear that beloved charge. It were a tale

Would rouse adventurous courage in a boy,
Making him long to be a mariner,

That he might rove the main, if I should tell
How pleasantly, for many a summer-day,

Over the sunny sea, with wind at will,

Prince Madoc sail'd; and of those happy Isles,

Which had he seen ere that ordained storm
Drove southward his slope course, there he had pitch'd
His tent, and blest his lot that it had fallen
In land so fair; and human blood had reek'd
Daily on Aztlan's cursed altars still.

But other doom was his, more arduous toil
Yet to atchieve, worse danger to endure,
Worse evil to be quell'd, and higher good,
That passeth not away, educed from ill;
Whereof all unforeseeing, yet for all
Of ready heart, he over ocean sails,
Wafted by gentle winds o'er gentle waves,
As if the elements combin❜d to serve

The perfect Prince, by God and man belov'd.
And now how joyfully he views the land,
Skirting, like morning clouds, the dusky sea;
With what a searching eye recals to mind
Foreland, and creek, and cape; how happy now
Up the great river bends at last his way!

No watchman had been station'd on the height
To seek his sails,. . for with Cadwallon's hope
Too much of doubt was blended, and of fear:
Yet thitherward, whene'er he walk'd abroad,
His face, as if instinctively, was turn'd;
And duly morn and eve, Lincoya there,
As if religion led his duteous feet,

Went up to gaze. He on a staff had scor'd
The promis'd moons and days; and many a time,
Counting again its often-told account,

So to beguile impatience, day by day
Smooth'd off with more delight the daily notch.
But now that the appointed time was nigh,
Did that perpetual presence of his hope

Haunt him, and mingle with his sleep, and mar
The natural rest, and trouble him by day,
That all his pleasure was at earliest light
To take his station, and at latest eve,
If he might see the sails, where far away
Through wide savannahs roll'd the silver stream.
Oh then, with what a sudden start his blood
Flow'd from its quicken'd spring, when far away
He spied the glittering topsails! for a while
Distrustful of that happy sight, till now
Slowly he sees them rise, and wind along,