Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Africa: Vol. XXIV. 1876–79.
The Spirit of the Cave
By Luís de Camões (c. 1524–1580)Translated by W. J. Mickle
I
Appalled we saw an hideous phantom glare;
High and enormous o’er the flood he towered,
And thwart our way with sullen aspect lowered.
An earthly paleness o’er his cheeks was spread;
Erect uprose his hairs of withered red;
Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose,
Sharp and disjoined, his gnashing teeth’s blue rows;
His haggard beard flowed quivering on the wind,
Revenge and horror in his mien combined;
His clouded front, by withering lightnings scarred,
The inward anguish of his soul declared;
His red eyes glowing from their dusky caves
Shot livid fires; far echoing o’er the waves
His voice resounded, as the caverned shore
With hollow groan repeats the tempest’s roar.
Cold-gliding horrors thrilled each hero’s breast;
Our bristling hair and tottering knees confessed
Wild dread; the while, with visage ghastly wan,
His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began:—
By daring pride, by lust of fame inspired;
Who, scornful of the bowers of sweet repose,
Through these my waves advance your fearless prows,
Regardless of the lengthening watery way,
And all the storms that own my sovereign sway;
Who, mid surrounding rocks and shelves, explore
Where never hero braved my rage before;
Ye sons of Lusus, who with eyes profane
Have viewed the secrets of my awful reign,
Have passed the bounds which jealous Nature drew
To veil her secret shrine from mortal view:
Hear from my lips what direful woes attend,
And bursting soon shall o’er your race descend!
Eternal war my rocks and storms shall wage;
The next proud fleet, that through my drear domain,
With daring search, shall hoist the streaming vane,—
That gallant navy, by my whirlwinds tossed,
And raging seas, shall perish on my coast;
Then he, who first my secret reign descried,
A naked corse wide floating o’er the tide
Shall drive. Unless my heart’s full raptures fail,
O Lusus, oft shalt thou thy children wail;
Each year thy shipwrecked sons shalt thou deplore,
Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore.”
He paused, in act still further to disclose
A long, a dreary prophecy of woes;
When, springing onward, loud my voice resounds,
And midst his rage the threatening shade confounds:
“What art thou, horrid form, that rid’st the air?
By heaven’s eternal light, stern fiend, declare!”
His lips he writhes, his eyes far round he throws,
And from his breast deep, hollow groans arose;
Sternly askance he stood: with wounded pride
And anguish torn, “In me, behold,” he cried,
While dark-red sparkles from his eyeballs rolled,
“In me the Spirit of the Cave behold,—
That rock by you the Cape of Tempests named,
By Neptune’s rage in horrid earthquakes framed,
When Jove’s red bolts o’er Titan’s offspring flamed.
With wide-stretched piles I guard the pathless strand,
And Afric’s southern mound unmoved I stand;
Nor Roman prow, nor daring Tyrian oar,
E’er dashed the white wave foaming to my shore;
Nor Greece nor Carthage ever spread the sail
On these my seas to catch the trading gale;
You, you alone, have dared to plough my main,
And with the human voice disturb my lonesome reign.”
A doleful sound, and vanished from the view;
The frightened billows gave a rolling swell,
And distant far prolonged the dismal yell;
Faint and more faint the howling echoes die,
And the black cloud dispersing leaves the sky.
High to the angel host, whose guardian care
Had ever round us watched, my hands I rear,
And heaven’s dread King implore,—“As o’er our head
The fiend dissolved, an empty shadow, fled;
So may his curses by the winds of heaven
Far o’er the deep, their idle sport, be driven!”