Saepe etiam spelunca immani aperitur hiatu
Exesa e scopulis, et utrinque foramina pandit,
Hinc atque hinc a ponto ad pontum pervia Phoebo
Cautibus enorme junctis laquearia tecti
Formantur; moles olim ruitura superne.
Fornice sublimi nidos posuere palumbes,
Inque imo stagni posuere cubilia phocae.
Sed, cum saevit hyems, et venti, carcere rupto,
Immensos volvunt fluctus ad culmina montis;
Non obsessae arces, non fulmina vindice dextra
Missa Jovis, quoties inimicus saevit in urbes,
Exaequant sonitum undarum, veniente procella:
Littora littoribus reboant; vicinia late,
Gens assueta mari, et pedibus percurrere rupes,
Terretur tamen, et longe fugit, arva relinquens.
Gramina dum carpunt pendentes rupe capellae,
Vi salientis aquae de summo praecipitantur,
Et dulces animas imo sub gurgite linquunt.
Piscator terra non audet vellere funem;
Sed latet in portu tremebundus, et aera sudum
Haud sperans, Nereum precibus votisque fatigat.
CARBERY ROCKS
TRANSLATED BY DR. DUNKIN
Lo! from the top of yonder cliff, that shrouds
Its airy head amid the azure clouds,
Hangs a huge fragment; destitute of props,
Prone on the wave the rocky ruin drops;
With hoarse rebuff the swelling seas rebound,
From shore to shore the rocks return the sound:
The dreadful murmur Heaven's high convex cleaves,
And Neptune shrinks beneath his subject waves:
For, long the whirling winds and beating tides
Had scoop'd a vault into its nether sides.
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