Oh fly these shores, unfurl the gather’d sail,
Lo, heaven, thy guide, commands the rising gale;
Hark, loud it rustles, see, the gentle tide
Invites thy prows; the winds thy lingering chide.
Here such dire welcome is for thee prepared
As × Diomed’s unhappy strangers shared;
His hapless guests at silent midnight bled,
On their torn limbs his snorting coursers fed.
Oh, fly, or here with strangers blood
Busiris’ altars thou shalt find renew’d:
Amidst his slaughter’d guests his altars stood
Obscene with gore, and bark’d with human blood:
Then thou, beloved of heaven, my counsel hear;
Right by the coast thine onward journey steered, [continued]
× Diomede, a tyrant of Thrace, who fed his horses with human flesh; a thing, says the grave Castera, presque incroyable, almost incredible. Busiris was a king of Egypt, who sacrificed strangers.