Three dreadful nights and days we drove along ; The fourth, the welcome rain came rattling down: The wind had fallen, and through the broken cloud Appeared the bright dilating blue of heaven. Emboldened now, I called the mariners : . .

Vain were it should we bend a homeward course,
Driven by the storm so far: they saw our barks,
For service of that long and perilous way,
Disabled, and our food belike to fail.

Silent they heard, reluctant in assent;
Anon, they shouted joyfully, . . I looked
And saw a bird slow sailing overhead,

His long white pinions by the sunbeam edged,
As though with burnished silver ; never yet
Heard I so sweet a music as his cry!

Yet three days more, and hope more eager now,
Sure of the signs of land, . . weed-shoals, and birds
Who flocked the main, and gentle airs which breathed,
Or seemed to breathe, fresh fragrance from the shore.
On the last evening, a long shadowy line
Skirted the sea; . . how fast the night closed in !
I stood upon the deck, and watched till dawn.
But who can tell what feelings filled my heart,

When like a cloud the distant land arose

Grey from the ocean, when we left the ship,

And cleft, with rapid oars, the shallow wave,

And stood triumphant on another world !

V.

Lincopa.

MADOC had paused a while; but every eye
Still watched his lips, and every voice was hushed.
Soon as I leapt ashore, pursues the Lord

Of Ocean, prostrate on my face I fell,

Kissed the dear earth, and prayed with thankful tears. Hard by a brook was flowing;

.. never yet, Even from the gold-tipt horn of victory

With harp and song amid my father's hall,
Pledged I so sweet a draught, as lying there,
Beside that streamlet's brink!.. to feel the ground,
To quaff the cool clear water, to inhale

The breeze of land, while fears and dangers past
Recurred and heightened joy, as summer storms
Make the fresh evening lovelier !

To the shore.

The natives thronged; astonished, they beheld
Our winged barks, and gazed in wonderment

On the strange garb and bearded countenance
And skin so white, in all unlike themselves.

I see with what enquiring eyes you ask

What men were they? Of dark-brown colour, tinged
With sunny redness; wild of eye; their brows
So smooth, as never yet anxiety

Nor busy thought had made a furrow there;
Beardless, and each to each of lineaments
So like, they seemed but one great family.
Their loins were loosely cinctured, all beside
Bare to the sun and wind; and thus their limbs
Unmanacled displayed the truest forms

Of strength and beauty: fearless sure they were,
And while they eyed us grasped their spears, as if,
Like Britain's injured but unconquered sons,
They too had known how perilous it was

To see an armëd stranger set his foot

In their free country.

Soon the courteous guise

Of men nor purporting nor fearing ill,

Won confidence; their wild distrustful looks
Assumed a milder meaning; over one

I cast my mantle, on another's head

The velvet bonnet placed, and all was joy.

We now besought for food; at once they read
Our gestures, but I cast a hopeless eye

On mountains, thickets, woods, and marshy plains,
A waste of rank luxuriance all around.

Thus musing to a lake I followed them,
Left when the rivers to their summer course
Withdrew; they scattered on its water drugs
Of such strange potency, that soon the shoals
Cooped there by Nature prodigally kind,
Floated inebriate. As I gazed, a deer

Sprung from the bordering thicket; the true shaft
Scarce with the distant victim's blood had stained
Its point, when instantly he dropt and died,
Such deadly juice imbued it; yet on this
We made our meal unharmed, and I perceived
The wisest leech that ever in our world

Culled herbs of hidden virtue, was to these
Even as an infant.

Sorrowing we beheld

The night come on; but soon did night display
More wonders than it veiled: innumerous tribes
From the wood-cover swarmed, and darkness made
Their beauties visible; one while they streamed
A bright blue radiance upon flowers which closed