[Footnote 1:  A species of bat in S. America; which refreshes by the gentle agitation of its wings, while it sucks the blood of the sleeper, turning his sleep into death.  Ulloa.]

[Footnote 2:  Euripides in Alcest. v. 255.]

[Footnote 3:  Ps. civ. 3.]

[Footnote 4:  The same language had been addressed to Isabella.  F..Cpl. c 15.]

[Footnote 5:  His miraculous escape, in early life, during a sea-fight off the coast of Portugal.  Ibid. c. 5.]

[Footnote 6:  He used to affirm, that he stood in need of God’s particular assistance; like Moses, when he led forth the people of Israel, who forbore to lay violent hands upon him, because of the miracles which God wrought by his means.  ‘So,’ said the Admiral, ’did it happen to me on that voyage.’  F. Columbus, c. 19.——­’ And so easily,’ says a Commentator, ’are the workings of the Evil one overcome by the power of God!’]

[Footnote 7:  This denunciation, fulfilled as it appears to be in the eleventh canto, may remind the reader of the Harpy’s in Virgil.  AEn.  III v. 247.]

CANTO VIII. 
Land discovered.

Twice in the zenith blaz’d the orb of light;
No shade, all sun, insufferably bright! 
Then the long line found rest [Footnote 1]—­in coral groves
Silent and dark, where the sea-lion roves:—­
And all on deck, kindling to life again,
Sent forth their anxious spirits o’er the main. 
“Oh whence, as wafted from Elysium, whence
These perfumes, strangers to the raptur’d sense? 
These boughs of gold, and fruits of heav’nly hue,
Tinging with vermeil light the billows blue? 
And (thrice, thrice blessed is the eye that spied,
The hand that snatch’d it sparkling in the tide) [g]
Whose cunning carv’d this vegetable bowl,
Symbol of social rites, and intercourse of soul?”
Such to their grateful ear the gush of springs,
Who course the ostrich, as away she wings;
Sons of the desert! who delight to dwell
Mid kneeling camels round the sacred well. 
The sails were furl’d:  [Footnote 2] with many a melting close,
Solemn and slow the evening anthem rose,
Rose to the Virgin. [h] ’Twas the hour of day,
When setting suns o’er summer-seas display
A path of glory, opening in the west
To golden climes, and islands of the blest;
And human voices, on the silent air,
Went o’er the waves in songs of gladness there! 
   Chosen of Men! [i] ’twas thine, at noon of night,
First from the prow to hail the glimmering light; [Footnote 3]
(Emblem of Truth divine, whose secret ray
Enters the soul, and makes the darkness day!)
“PEDRO!  RODRIGO! [Footnote 4] there, methought, it shone! 
There—­in the west! and now, alas, ’tis gone!—­
’Twas all a dream! we gaze and gaze in vain! 
—­But mark and speak not, there it comes again! 
It moves!—­what form unseen, what being there
With torch-like lustre fires the murky air? 
His instincts, passions, say, how like our own? 
Oh! when will day reveal a world unknown?”