While thus his thoughts an anxious council hold,
The raging god a watery mountain roll’d;
Like a black sheet the whelming billows spread,
Burst o’er the float, and thunder’d on his head. 
Planks, beams, disparted fly; the scatter’d wood
Rolls diverse, and in fragments strews the flood. 
So the rude Boreas, o’er the field new-shorn,
Tosses and drives the scatter’d heaps of corn. 
And now a single beam the chief bestrides: 
There poised a while above the bounding tides,
His limbs discumbers of the clinging vest,
And binds the sacred cincture round his breast: 
Then prone an ocean in a moment flung,
Stretch’d wide his eager arms, and shot the seas along. 
All naked now, on heaving billows laid,
Stern Neptune eyed him, and contemptuous said: 

“Go, learn’d in woes, and other foes essay! 
Go, wander helpless on the watery way;
Thus, thus find out the destined shore, and then
(If Jove ordains it) mix with happier men. 
Whate’er thy fate, the ills our wrath could raise
Shall last remember’d in thy best of days.”

This said, his sea-green steeds divide the foam,
And reach high Aegae and the towery dome. 
Now, scarce withdrawn the fierce earth-shaking power,
Jove’s daughter Pallas watch’d the favouring hour. 
Back to their caves she bade the winds to fly;
And hush’d the blustering brethren of the sky. 
The drier blasts alone of Boreas away,
And bear him soft on broken waves away;
With gentle force impelling to that shore,
Where fate has destined he shall toil no more. 
And now, two nights, and now two days were pass’d,
Since wide he wander’d on the watery waste;
Heaved on the surge with intermitting breath,
And hourly panting in the arms of death. 
The third fair morn now blazed upon the main;
Then glassy smooth lay all the liquid plain;
The winds were hush’d, the billows scarcely curl’d,
And a dead silence still’d the watery world;
When lifted on a ridgy wave he spies
The land at distance, and with sharpen’d eyes. 
As pious children joy with vast delight
When a loved sire revives before their sight
(Who, lingering along, has call’d on death in vain,
Fix’d by some demon to his bed of pain,
Till heaven by miracle his life restore);
So joys Ulysses at the appearing shore;
And sees (and labours onward as he sees)
The rising forests, and the tufted trees. 
And now, as near approaching as the sound
Of human voice the listening ear may wound,
Amidst the rocks he heard a hollow roar
Of murmuring surges breaking on the shore;
Nor peaceful port was there, nor winding bay,
To shield the vessel from the rolling sea,
But cliffs and shaggy shores, a dreadful sight! 
All rough with rocks, with foamy billows white. 
Fear seized his slacken’d limbs and beating heart,
As thus he communed with his soul apart;