Lies ever fruitless, save that by the shore

The hardy Nasamon plucks a scanty grass.
Unclothed their race, and living on the woes

Worked by the cruel Syrtes on mankind;
For spoilers are they of the luckless ships

Cast on the shoals: and with the world by wrecks
Their only commerce.

Here at Cato's word
His soldiers passed, in fancy from the winds

That sweep the sea secure: here on them fell
Smiting with greater strength upon the shore,

Than on the ocean, Auster's tempest force,
And yet more fraught with mischief: for no crags

Repelled his strength, nor lofty mountains tamed
His furious onset, nor in sturdy woods

He found a bar; but free from reining hand,
Raged at his will o'er the defenceless earth.

Nor did he mingle dust and clouds of rain
In whirling circles, but the earth was swept

And hung in air suspended, till amazed
The Nasamon saw his scanty field and home

Reft by the tempest, and the native huts
From roof to base were hurried on the blast.

Not higher, when some all-devouring flame
Has seized upon its prey, in volumes dense

Rolls up the smoke, and darkens all the air.
Then with fresh might he fell upon the host

Of marching Romans, snatching from their feet
The sand they trod. Had Auster been enclosed

In some vast cavernous vault with solid walls
And mighty barriers, he had moved the world

Upon its ancient base and made the lands
To tremble: but the facile Libyan soil

By not resisting stood, and blasts that whirled
The surface upwards left the depths unmoved.

Helmet and shield and spear were torn away
By his most violentbreath, and borne aloft

Through all the regions of the boundless sky;
Perchance a wonder in some distant land,

Where men may fear the weapons from the heaven
There falling, as the armour of the gods,

Nor deem them ravished from a soldier's arm.
'Twas thus on Numa by the sacred fire

Those shields descended which our chosen priests (14)
Bear on their shoulders; from some warlike race

By tempest rapt, to be the prize of Rome.
Fearing the storm prone fell the host to earth

Winding their garments tight, and with clenched hands
Gripping the earth: for not their weight alone

Withstood the tempest which upon their frames
Piled mighty heaps, and their recumbent limbs

Buried in sand. At length they struggling rose
Back to their feet, when lo! around them stood,

Forced by the storm, a growing bank of earth
Which held them motionless. And from afar

Where walls lay prostrate, mighty stones were hurled,
Thus piling ills on ills in wondrous form:

No dwellings had they seen, yet at their feet
Beheld the ruins. All the earth was hid

In vast envelopment, nor found they guide
Save from the stars, which as in middle deep

Flamed o'er them wandering: yet some were hid
Beneath the circle of the Libyan earth

Which tending downwards hid the Northern sky.
When warmth dispersed the tempest-driven air,

And rose upon the earth the flaming day,
Bathed were their limbs in sweat, but parched and dry

Their gaping lips; when to a scanty spring
Far off beheld they came, whose meagre drops

All gathered in the hollow of a helm
They offered to their chief. Caked were their throats

With dust, and panting; and one little drop
Had made him envied. "Wretch, and dost thou deem

Me wanting in a brave man's heart?" he cried,
"Me only in this throng? And have I seemed

Tender, unfit to bear the morning heat?
He who would quench his thirst 'mid such a host,

Doth most deserve its pangs." Then in his wrath
Dashed down the helmet, and the scanty spring,

Thus by their leader spurned, sufficed for all.
Now had they reached that temple which possess

Sole in all Libya, th' untutored tribes
Of Garamantians. Here holds his seat

(So saith the story) a prophetic Jove,
Wielding no thunderbolts, nor like to ours,

The Libyan Hammen of the curved horn.
No wealth adorns his fane by Afric tribes

Bestowed, nor glittering hoard of Eastern gems.
Though rich Arabians, Ind and Ethiop

Know him alone as Jove, still is he poor
Holding his shrine by riches undefiled

Through time, and god as of the olden days
Spurns all the wealth of Rome. That here some god

Dwells, witnesses the only grove
That buds in Libya -- for that which grows

Upon the arid dust which Leptis parts
From Berenice, knows no leaves; alone

Hammon uprears a wood; a fount the cause
Which with its waters binds the crumbling soil.

Yet shall the Sun when poised upon the height
Strike through the foliage: hardly can the tree

Protect its trunk, and to a little space
His rays draw in the circle of the shade.

Here have men found the spot where that high band
Solstitial divides in middle sky (15)

The zodiac stars: not here oblique their course,
Nor Scorpion rises straighter than the Bull,

Nor to the Scales does Ram give back his hours,
Nor does Astraea bid the Fishes sink

More slowly down: but watery Capricorn
Is equal with the Crab, and with the Twins

The Archer; neither does the Lion rise
Above Aquarius. But the race that dwells

Beyond the fervour of the Libyan fires
Sees to the South that shadow which with us

Falls to the North: slow Cynosure sinks (16)
For them below the deep; and, dry with us,

The Wagon plunges; far from either pole,
No star they know that does not seek the main,

But all the constellations in their course
Whirl to their vision through the middle sky.

Before the doors the Eastern peoples stood
Seeking from horned Jove to know their fates:

Yet to the Roman chief they yielded place,
Whose comrades prayed him to entreat the gods