BOOK THE FIFTH.
Such are thy views, DISCOVERY! The great world Rolls to thine eye revealed; to thee the Deep Submits its awful empire; Industry Awakes, and Commerce to the echoing marts From east to west unwearied pours her wealth.
Man walks sublimer; and Humanity, Matured by social intercourse, more high, More animated, lifts her sovereign mien, And waves her golden sceptre.

Yet the heart Asks trembling, is no evil found! Oh, turn, 10 Meek Charity, and drop a human tear For the sad fate of Afric's injured sons, And hide, for ever hide, the sight of chains, Anguish, and bondage! Yes, the heart of man Is sick, and Charity turns pale, to think How soon, for pure religion's holy beam, Dark crimes, that sullied the sweet day, pursued, Like vultures, the Discoverer's ocean tract, Screaming for blood, to fields of rich Peru, Or ravaged Mexico, while Gold more Gold! 20 The caverned mountains echoed, Gold more Gold! Then see the fell-eyed, prowling buccaneer, Grim as a libbard! He his jealous look Turns to the dagger at his belt, his hand By instinct grasps a bloody scymitar, And ghastly is his smile, as o'er the woods He sees the smoke of burning villages Ascend, and thinks ev'n now he counts his spoil.
See thousands destined to the lurid mine, Never to see the sun again; all names 30 Of husband, sire, all tender charities Of love, deep buried with them in that grave, Where life is as a thing long passed; and hope No more its sickly ray, to cheer the gloom, Extends.
Thou, too, dread Ocean, toss thine arms, Exulting, for the treasures and the gems That thy dark oozy realm emblaze; and call The pale procession of the dead, from caves Where late their bodies weltered, to attend 40 Thy kingly sceptre, and proclaim thy might! Lord of the Hurricane! bid all thy winds Swell, and destruction ride upon the surge, Where, after the red lightning flash that shows The labouring ship, all is at once deep night And long suspense, till the slow dawn of day Gleams on the scattered corses of the dead, That strew the sounding shore! Then think of him, Ye who rejoice with those you love, at eve, 50 When winds of winter shake the window-frame, And more endear your fire, oh, think of him, Who, saved alone from the destroying storm, Is cast on some deserted rock; who sees Sun after sun descend, and hopeless hears; At morn the long surge of the troubled main, That beats without his wretched cave; meantime He fears to wake the echoes with his voice, So dread the solitude! Let Greenland's snows 60 Then shine, and mark the melancholy train There left to perish, whilst the cold pale day Declines along the further ice, that binds The ship, and leaves in night the sinking scene.
Sad winter closes on the deep; the smoke Of frost, that late amusive to the eye Rose o'er the coast, is passed, and all is now One torpid blank; the freezing particles Blown blistering, and the white bear seeks her cave.
Ill-fated outcasts, when the morn again 70 Shall streak with feeble beam the frozen waste, Your air-bleached and unburied carcases Shall press the ground, and, as the stars fade off, Your stony eyes glare 'mid the desert snows! These triumphs boast, fell Demon of the Deep! Though never more the universal shriek Of all that perish thou shalt hear, as when The deep foundations of the guilty earth Were shaken at the voice of God, and man Ceased in his habitations; yet the sea 80 Thy might tempestuous still, and joyless rule, Confesses.

Ah! what bloodless shadows throng Ev'n now, slow rising from their oozy beds, From Mete,[188] and those gates of burial That guard the Erythraean; from the vast Unfathomed caverns of the Western main Or stormy Orcades; whilst the sad shell Of poor Arion,[189] to the hollow blast Slow seems to pour its melancholy tones, And faintly vibrate, as the dead pass by.

90 I see the chiefs, who fell in distant lands, The prey of murderous savages, when yells, And shouts, and conch, resounded through the woods.
Magellan and De Solis seem to lead The mournful train.

Shade of Perouse! oh, say Where, in the tract of unknown seas, thy bones Th' insulting surge has swept?
But who is he, Whose look, though pale and bloody, wears the trace Of pure philanthropy?
The pitying sigh 100 Forbid not; he was dear to Britons, dear To every beating heart, far as the world Extends; and my faint faltering touch ev'n now Dies on the strings, when I pronounce thy name, Oh, lost, lamented, generous, hapless Cook! But cease the vain complaint; turn from the shores, Wet with his blood, Remembrance: cast thine eyes Upon the long seas, and the wider world, Displayed from his research.