- As the waves, countless, that plough up the deep, [230]
- (Where Eurus reigns vicegerent1 of the sky,
- Whom Rhea2 bore to the bright God of day)
- When furious Auster3 dire commotions stirs:
- These wind, by subtle sap, their secret way,
- Pernicious pioneers! while those invest, [235]
- More firmly daring, in the face of Heaven,
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And win, by regular approach, the Cane.
- ‘GAINST such ferocious, such unnumber’d bands,
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What arts, what arms shall sage experience use?
- SOME bid the planter load the favouring gale, [240]
- With pitch, and sulphur’s suffocating steam:—
- Useless the vapour o’er the Cane-grove flies,
- In curling volumes lost; such feeble arms,
- To man tho’ fatal, not the blast subdue.
- Others again, and better their success, [245]
- Command their slaves each tainted blade to pick
- With care, and burn them in vindictive flames.
VER. 231. Eurus reigns] The East is the centre of the trade-wind in the West-Indies, which veers a few points to the North or South. What Homer4 says of the West-wind, in his islands of the blessed, may more aptly be applied to the trade-winds.
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A person appointed by a king or other ruler to act in his place. ↩︎
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Titan goddess who was the daughter of Gaia and the wife of her brother Kronos. The mother of the second generation of Greek gods, including Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Hades, Hestia, and Poseidon. ↩︎
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Latin name for the south wind. ↩︎
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Greek poet (8th-century BCE), author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. ↩︎