| |
| THOUGH thou did’st hear the tempest from afar, | |
| And felt’st the horrors of the wat’ry war, | |
| To me unknown, yet on this peaceful shore | |
| Methinks I hear the storm tumultuous roar, | |
| And how stern Boreas with impetuous hand | 5 |
| Compell’d the Nereids to usurp the land. | |
| Reluctant rose the daughters of the main, | |
| And slow ascending glided o’er the plain, | |
| Till Æolus in his rapid chariot drove | |
| In gloomy grandeur from the vault above: | 10 |
| Furious he comes. His winged sons obey | |
| Their frantic sire, and madden all the sea. | |
| The billows rave, the wind’s fierce tyrant roars, | |
| And with his thund’ring terrors shakes the shores: | |
| Broken by waves the vessel’s frame is rent, | 15 |
| And strows with planks the wat’ry element. | |
| |
| But thee, Maria, a kind Nereid’s shield | |
| Preserv’d from sinking, and thy form upheld: | |
| And sure some heav’nly oracle design’d | |
| At that dread crisis to instruct thy mind | 20 |
| Things of eternal consequence to weigh, | |
| And to thine heart just feelings to convey | |
| Of things above, and of the future doom, | |
| And what the births of the dread world to come. | |
| |
| From tossing seas I welcome thee to land. | 25 |
| “Resign her, Nereid,” ’twas thy God’s command. | |
| Thy spouse late buried, as thy fears conceiv’d, | |
| Again returns, thy fears are all reliev’d: | |
| Thy daughter blooming with superior grace | |
| Again thou see’st, again thine arms embrace; | 30 |
| O come, and joyful show thy spouse his heir, | |
| And what the blessings of maternal care! | |
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