[Footnote 3:  Gonzalo Fernandez, already known by the name of The great Captain.  Granada surrendered on the 2nd of January, 1492.  Columbus set sail on the, 3rd of August following.]

[Footnote 4:  Probably a soldier of fortune.  There were more than one of the name on board.]

CANTO VI. 
The flight of an Angel of Darkness.

War and the Great in War let others sing. 
Havoc and spoil, and tears and triumphing;
The morning-march that flashes to the sun,
The feast of vultures when the day is done;
And the strange tale of many slain for one! 
I sing a Man, amidst his sufferings here,
Who watch’d and serv’d in humbleness and fear;
Gentle to others, to himself severe.

Still unsubdued by Danger’s varying form,
Still, as unconscious of the coming storm,
He look’d elate!  His beard, his mien sublime,
Shadow’d by Age;—­by Age before the time, [Footnote 1]
From many a sorrow borne in many a clime,
Mov’d every heart.  And now in opener skies
Stars yet unnam’d of purer radiance rise! 
Stars, milder suns, that love a shade to cast,
And on the bright wave fling the trembling mast. [Footnote 2]

’Twas the mid hour, when He, whose accents dread
Still wander’d thro’ the regions of the dead,
(MERION, commission’d with his host to sweep
From age to age the melancholy deep)
To elude the seraph-guard that watch’d for man,
And mar, as erst, the Eternal’s perfect plan,
Rose like the Condor, and, at towering height,
In pomp of plumage sail’d, deepening the shades of night. 
Roc of the West! to him all empire giv’n! [z]
Who bears [Footnote 3] Axalhua’s dragon-folds to heav’n; [Footnote 4]
His flight a whirlwind, and, when heard afar,
Like thunder, or the distant din of war! 
   Mountains and seas fled backward as he pass’d
O’er the great globe, by not a cloud o’ercast
From the ANTARCTICK, from the Land of Fire [Footnote 5]
To where ALASKA’S [Footnote 6] wintry wilds retire;
From mines [Footnote 7] of gold, and giant-sons of earth,
To grotts of ice, and tribes of pigmy birth
Who freeze alive, nor, dead, in dust repose,
High-hung in forests to the casing snows.[a]
   Now mid angelic multitudes he flies,
That hourly come with blessings from the skies;
Wings the blue element, and, borne sublime,
Eyes the set sun, gilding each distant clime;
Then, like a meteor, shooting to the main,
Melts into pure intelligence again.

[Footnote 1:  F. Col. c.3.]

[Footnote 2:  Splendour of the nights in a tropical climate.]

[Footnote 3:  Axalhua, or the Emperor.  The name in the Mexican language for the great serpent of America.]

[Footnote 4:  As the Roc of the East is said to have carried off the Elephant.  See Marco Polo.]

[Footnote 5:  Tierra del Fuego.]

[Footnote 6:  Northern extremity of the New World.  See Cook’s last Voyage.]