These eyes beheld, when with his spacious hand He seiz'd two captives of our Grecian band;Stretch'd on his back, he dash'd against the stones Their broken bodies, and their crackling bones:
With spouting blood the purple pavement swims, While the dire glutton grinds the trembling limbs.
"'Not unreveng'd Ulysses bore their fate, Nor thoughtless of his own unhappy state;For, gorg'd with flesh, and drunk with human wine While fast asleep the giant lay supine, Snoring aloud, and belching from his maw His indigested foam, and morsels raw;We pray; we cast the lots, and then surround The monstrous body, stretch'd along the ground:
Each, as he could approach him, lends a hand To bore his eyeball with a flaming brand.
Beneath his frowning forehead lay his eye;For only one did the vast frame supply-
But that a globe so large, his front it fill'd, Like the sun's disk or like a Grecian shield.
The stroke succeeds; and down the pupil bends:
This vengeance follow'd for our slaughter'd friends.
But haste, unhappy wretches, haste to fly!
Your cables cut, and on your oars rely!
Such, and so vast as Polypheme appears, A hundred more this hated island bears:
Like him, in caves they shut their woolly sheep;Like him, their herds on tops of mountains keep;Like him, with mighty strides, they stalk from steep to steep And now three moons their sharpen'd horns renew, Since thus, in woods and wilds, obscure from view, I drag my loathsome days with mortal fright, And in deserted caverns lodge by night;Oft from the rocks a dreadful prospect see Of the huge Cyclops, like a walking tree:
From far I hear his thund'ring voice resound, And trampling feet that shake the solid ground.
Cornels and salvage berries of the wood, And roots and herbs, have been my meager food.
While all around my longing eyes I cast, I saw your happy ships appear at last.
On those I fix'd my hopes, to these I run;'T is all I ask, this cruel race to shun;What other death you please, yourselves bestow.'