The Poetical Works of Joseph Addison

"Were fpatter'd o'er with brains: he lap'd the blood, "And chew'd the tender fleth still warm with life, 80 "That fwell'd and heav'd itself amidst his teeth "As fenfible of pain. Not lefs, mean-while, "Our chief incens'd, and ftudious of revenge, "Plots his destruction, which he thus effects: "The giant, gorg'd with flesh, and wine, and blood, "Lay stretch'd at length and fnoring in his den, 86 "Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'er-charg'd "With purple wine and cruddled gore confus'd: "We gather'd round, and to his single eye, "The fingle eye that in his forehead glar'd "Like a full moon, or a broad burnish'd fhield, "A forky staff we dext'roufly apply'd, "Which in the fpacious focket turning round, 66 Scoop'd out the big round gelly from its orb. "But let me not thus interpofse delays; "Fly, Mortals! fly this curs'd detested race; "A hundred of the same stupendous size, "A hundred Cyclops live among the hills, "Gigantic brotherhood, that stalk along

"With horrid ftrides o'er the high mountains' tops, "Enormous in their gait; I oft' have heard

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"Their voice and tread, oft' feen 'em as they past,

"Sculking and fcowring down, half dead with fear. "Thrice has the moon wafh'd all her orb in light, "Thrice travell'd o'er, in her obscure fojourn, 105

"The realms of Night inglorious, since I've liv'd
"Amidst these woods, gleaning from thorns and
"A wretched fuftenance. "As thus he spoke, [shrubs
We faw defcending from a neighb'ring hill
Blind Polypheme: by weary steps and flow
The groping giant with a trunk of pine,
Explor'd his way; around his woolly flocks
Attended grazing; to the well-known shore
He bent his course, and on the margin stood,
A hideous monster, terrible, deform'd:
Full in the midst of his high front there gap'd
The fpacious hollow where his eyeball roll'd,
A ghaftly orifice; he rins'd the wound,

115

And wash'd away the ftrings and clotted blood
That cak'd within; then stalking thro' the deep 120
He fords the ocean, while the topmost wave

Scarce reaches up his middle fide: we stood
Amaz'd be fure; a fudden horror chill

Ran thro' each nerve, and thrill'd in ev'ry vein,
Till ufing all the force of winds and oars

125

We sped away: he heard us in our course,
And with his outstretch'd arms around him grop'd,
But finding nought within his reach, he rais'd
Such hideous fhouts, that all the ocean fhook;
Ev'n Italy, tho' many a league remote,
In diftant echoes anfwer'd; Ætna roar'd,
Thro' all its inmost winding caverns roar'd.

130

Rous'd with the found, the mighty family
Of one-ey'd brothers haften to the shore,
And gather round the bellowing Polypheme,
A dire affembly we with eager hafte
Work ev'ry one, and from afar behold
A hoft of giants covering all the shore.
7. So ftands a foreft tall of mountain oaks
Advanc'd to mighty growth: the traveller
Hears from the humble valley where he rides
The hollow murmurs of the winds that blow
Amidst the boughs, and at the distance fees
The fhady tops of trees unnumber'd rise,
Aftately prospect, waving in the clouds.