FIRST CANTO:

FIRST CANTO:THE SCENE OF WHICH LIES NEAR THE CITY OF CANDIA.TIME,—ABOUT FOUR DAYS AND AN HALF.

THE SCENE OF WHICH LIES NEAR THE CITY OF CANDIA.

TIME,—ABOUT FOUR DAYS AND AN HALF.

I. Retrospect of the Voyage—Arrival at Candia—State of that Island—Season of the Year described.—II. Character of the Master and his Officers, Albert, Rodmond, and Arion—Palemon, Son to the Owner of the Ship—Attachment of Palemon to Anna, the Daughter of Albert.—III. Noon—Palemon’s History.—IV. Sunset—Midnight—Arion’s Dream—Unmoor by Moonlight—Morning—Sun’s Azimuth taken—Beautiful Appearance of the Ship, as seen by the Natives from the Shore.

THESHIPWRECK

CANTO I.

O bliss supreme: where Virtue’s self can meltWith joys, that guilty Pleasure never felt;Formed to refine the thought with chaste desire,And kindle sweet Affection’s purest fire.DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL, R.A. ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM FINDEN.PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY,OCT. 1, 1819.

O bliss supreme: where Virtue’s self can meltWith joys, that guilty Pleasure never felt;Formed to refine the thought with chaste desire,And kindle sweet Affection’s purest fire.

O bliss supreme: where Virtue’s self can melt

With joys, that guilty Pleasure never felt;

Formed to refine the thought with chaste desire,

And kindle sweet Affection’s purest fire.

DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL, R.A. ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM FINDEN.PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY,OCT. 1, 1819.

I. A ship from Egypt, o’er the deep impelledBy guiding winds, her course for Venice held.Of famed Britannia were the gallant crew,And from that isle her name the vessel drew;The wayward steps of Fortune they pursued,And sought in certain ills imagined good:Though cautioned oft her slippery path to shun,Hope still with promised joys allured them on;And, while they listened to her winning lore,The softer scenes of peace could please no more:Long absent they from friends and native homeThe cheerless ocean were inured to roam;Yet Heaven, in pity to severe distress,Had crowned each painful voyage with success;Still to compensate toils and hazards pastRestored them to maternal plains at last.Thrice had the sun to rule the varying yearAcross the equator rolled his flaming sphere,Since last the vessel spread her ample sailFrom Albion’s coast, obsequious to the gale;She o’er the spacious flood from shore to shoreUnwearying wafted her commercial store;The richest ports of Afric she had viewed,Thence to fair Italy her course pursued;Had left behind Trinacria’s burning isle,And visited the margin of the Nile:And now, that winter deepens round the Pole,The circling voyage hastens to its goal;They, blind to Fate’s inevitable law,No dark event to blast their hope foresaw,But from gay Venice soon expect to steerFor Britain’s coast, and dread no perils near;Inflamed by Hope, their throbbing hearts elateIdeal pleasures vainly antedate,Before whose vivid intellectual rayDistress recedes, and danger melts away:Already British coasts appear to rise,The chalky cliffs salute their longing eyes;Each to his breast, where floods of rapture roll,Embracing strains the mistress of his soul;Nor less o’erjoyed, with sympathetic truth,Each faithful maid expects th’ approaching youth:In distant souls congenial passions glow,And mutual feelings mutual bliss bestow—Such shadowy happiness their thoughts employ,Illusion all, and visionary joy!Thus time elapsed, while o’er the pathless tideTheir ship through Grecian seas the pilots guide.Occasion called to touch at Candia’s shore,Which, blest with favouring winds, they soon explore;The haven enter, borne before the gale,Despatch their commerce, and prepare to sail.Eternal powers! what ruins from afarMark the fell track of desolating war!Here arts and commerce with auspicious reignOnce breathed sweet influence on the happy plain;While o’er the lawn, with dance and festive song,Young Pleasure led the jocund Hours along;In gay luxuriance Ceres too was seenTo crown the vallies with eternal green:For wealth, for valour, courted and revered,What Albion is, fair Candia then appeared.—Ah! who the flight of ages can revoke?}The free-born spirit of her sons is broke,}They bow to Ottoman’s imperious yoke;}No longer Fame their drooping heart inspires,For stern Oppression quenched its genial fires:Though still her fields, with golden harvests crown’d,Supply the barren shores of Greece around,Sharp penury afflicts these wretched isles,There Hope ne’er dawns, and Pleasure never smiles;The vassal wretch contented drags his chain,And hears his famished babes lament in vain;These eyes have seen the dull reluctant soilA seventh year mock the weary labourer’s toil.—No blooming Venus, on the desert shore,Now views with triumph captive gods adore;No lovely Helens now with fatal charmsExcite th’ avenging chiefs of Greece to arms;No fair Penelopes enchant the eye,For whom contending kings were proud to die;Here sullen Beauty sheds a twilight ray,While Sorrow bids her vernal bloom decay;Those charms, so long renowned in classic strains,Had dimly shone on Albion’s happier plains!Now, in the southern hemisphere, the sun,Through the bright Virgin, and the Scales, had run,And on th’ ecliptic wheeled his winding wayTill the fierce Scorpion felt his flaming ray.Four days becalmed the vessel here remains,And yet no hopes of aiding wind obtains;For sickening vapours lull the air to sleep,And not a breeze awakes the silent deep:This, when th’ autumnal equinox is o’er,And Phœbus in the north declines no more,The watchful mariner, whom Heaven informs,Oft deems the prelude of approaching storms.—No dread of storms the master’s soul restrain,A captive fettered to the oar of gain:His anxious heart, impatient of delay,Expects the winds to sail from Candia’s bay,Determined, from whatever point they rise,To trust his fortune to the seas and skies.Thou living ray of intellectual fire,Whose voluntary gleams my verse inspire,Ere yet the deepening incidents prevail,Till roused attention feel our plaintive tale;Record whom chief among the gallant crewTh’ unblest pursuit of fortune hither drew:Can sons of Neptune, generous, brave, and bold,In pain and hazard toil for sordid gold?They can! for gold, too oft with magic art,Can rule the passions and corrupt the heart:This crowns the prosperous villain with applause,To whom in vain sad Merit pleads her cause;This strews with roses Life’s perplexing road,And leads the way to Pleasure’s soft abode;This spreads with slaughtered heaps the bloody plain,And pours adventurous thousands o’er the main.II. The stately ship, with all her daring band,To skilful Albert owned the chief command:Though trained in boisterous elements, his mindWas yet by soft humanity refined;Each joy of wedded love, at home, he knew,Aboard, confest the father of his crew!Brave, liberal, just! the calm domestic sceneHad o’er his temper breathed a gay serene:Him Science taught by mystic lore to traceThe planets wheeling in eternal race!To mark the ship in floating balance held,By earth attracted, and by seas repell’d;Or point her devious track through climes unknown,That leads to every shore and every zone:He saw the moon through Heaven’s blue concave glide,And into motion charm th’ expanding tide,While earth impetuous round her axle rolls,Exalts her watery zone, and sinks the Poles;Light and attraction, from their genial source,He saw still wandering with diminished force;While on the margin of declining dayNight’s shadowy cone reluctant melts away—Inured to peril, with unconquered soul,The chief beheld tempestuous oceans roll;O’er the wild surge when dismal shades preside,His equal skill the lonely bark could guide;His genius, ever for th’ event prepared,Rose with the storm, and all its dangers shared.Rodmond the next degree to Albert bore,A hardy son of England’s farthest shore,Where bleak Northumbria pours her savage trainIn sable squadrons o’er the northern main;That, with her pitchy entrails stored, resort,A sooty tribe, to fair Augusta’s port:Where’er in ambush lurk the fatal sands,They claim the danger, proud of skilful bands;For while with darkling course their vessels sweepThe winding shore, or plough the faithless deep,O’er bar, and shelve, the watery path they soundWith dexterous arm, sagacious of the ground:Fearless they combat every hostile wind,Wheeling in mazy tracks, with course inclined.Expert to moor where terrors line the road,Or win the anchor from its dark abode;But drooping, and relaxed, in climes afar,Tumultuous and undisciplined in war.Such Rodmond was; by learning unrefined,That oft enlightens to corrupt the mind.Boisterous of manners; trained in early youthTo scenes that shame the conscious cheek of truth;To scenes that nature’s struggling voice control,And freeze compassion rising in the soul:Where the grim hell-hounds, prowling round the shore,With foul intent the stranded bark explore;Deaf to the voice of woe, her decks they board,While tardy justice slumbers o’er her sword.Th’ indignant Muse, severely taught to feel,Shrinks from a theme she blushes to reveal.Too oft example, armed with poisons fell,Pollutes the shrine where mercy loves to dwell:Thus Rodmond, trained by this unhallowed crew,The sacred social passions never knew.Unskilled to argue, in dispute yet loud,Bold without caution, without honours proud;In art unschooled, each veteran rule he prized,And all improvement haughtily despised.Yet, though full oft to future perils blind,With skill superior glowed his daring mind,Through snares of death the reeling bark to guide,When midnight shades involve the raging tide.To Rodmond, next in order of command,Succeeds the youngest of our naval band:But what avails it to record a nameThat courts no rank among the sons of fame;Whose vital spring had just began to bloom,When o’er it sorrow spread her sickening gloom?While yet a stripling, oft with fond alarmsHis bosom danced to Nature’s boundless charms;On him fair Science dawned in happier hour,Awakening into bloom young Fancy’s flower:But soon Adversity, with freezing blast,The blossom withered, and the dawn o’ercast.Forlorn of heart, and by severe decreeCondemned reluctant to the faithless sea,With long farewell he left the laurel grove,Where science and the tuneful sisters rove.Hither he wandered, anxious to exploreAntiquities of nations now no more;To penetrate each distant realm unknown,And range excursive o’er th’ untravelled zone:In vain—for rude Adversity’s commandStill on the margin of each famous land,With unrelenting ire his steps opposed,And every gate of hope against him closed.Permit my verse, ye blest Pierian train!To call Arion this ill-fated swain;For like that bard unhappy, on his headMalignant stars their hostile influence shed:Both, in lamenting numbers, o’er the deepWith conscious anguish taught the harp to weep:And both the raging surge in safety boreAmid destruction, panting to the shore:This last, our tragic story from the waveOf dark oblivion, haply, yet may save;With genuine sympathy may yet complain,While sad Remembrance bleeds at every vein.These, chief among the ship’s conducting train,Her path explored along the deep domain;Trained to command, and range the swelling sail,Whose varying force conforms to every gale.Charged with the commerce, hither also cameA gallant youth, Palemon was his name:A father’s stern resentment doomed to prove,He came the victim of unhappy love!His heart for Albert’s beauteous daughter bled,For her a sacred flame his bosom fed:Nor let the wretched slaves of folly scorn,This genuine passion, Nature’s eldest born!’Twas his with lasting anguish to complain,While blooming Anna mourned the cause in vainGraceful of form, by nature taught to please,Of power to melt the female breast with ease;To her Palemon told his tender taleSoft as the voice of summer’s evening gale;His soul, where moral truth spontaneous grew,No guilty wish, no cruel passion knew:Though tremblingly alive to Nature’s laws,Yet ever firm to Honour’s sacred cause;O’erjoyed he saw her lovely eyes relent,The blushing maiden smiled with sweet consent.Oft in the mazes of a neighbouring groveUnheard they breathed alternate vows of love:By fond society their passion grew,Like the young blossom fed with vernal dew;While their chaste souls possessed the pleasing painsThat truth improves, and virtue ne’er restrains.In evil hour th’ officious tongue of fameBetrayed the secret of their mutual flame.With grief and anger struggling in his breast,Palemon’s father heard the tale confest;Long had he listened with Suspicion’s ear,And learnt, sagacious, this event to fear.Too well, fair youth! thy liberal heart he knew,A heart to Nature’s warm impressions true:Full oft his wisdom strove with fruitless toilWith avarice to pollute that generous soil;That soil impregnated with nobler seedRefused the culture of so rank a weed.Elate with wealth in active Commerce won,And basking in the smile of Fortune’s sun;For many freighted ships from shore to shore,Their wealthy charge by his appointment bore;With scorn the parent eyed the lowly shadeThat veiled the beauties of this charming maid.He, by the lust of riches only moved,Such mean connexions haughtily reproved;Indignant he rebuked th’ enamoured boy,The flattering promise of his future joy;He soothed and menaced, anxious to reclaimThis hopeless passion, or divert its aim;Oft led the youth where circling joys delightThe ravished sense, or beauty charms the sight.With all her powers enchanting Music failed,And Pleasure’s syren voice no more prevailed:Long with unequal art, in vain he stroveTo quench th’ ethereal flame of ardent love.The merchant, kindling then with proud disdain,In look, and voice, assumed an harsher strain.In absence now his only hope remained;And such the stern decree his will ordained:Deep anguish, while Palemon heard his doom,Drew o’er his lovely face a saddening gloom;High beat his heart, fast flowed th’ unbidden tear,His bosom heaved with agony severe;In vain with bitter sorrow he repin’d,}No tender pity touched that sordid mind—}To thee, brave Albert! was the charge consign’d.}The stately ship forsaking England’s shoreTo regions far remote Palemon bore.Incapable of change, th’ unhappy youthStill loved fair Anna with eternal truth;Still Anna’s image swims before his sightIn fleeting vision through the restless night;From clime to clime an exile doomed to roam,His heart still panted for its secret home.The moon had circled twice her wayward zone,To him since young Arion first was known;Who wandering here through many a scene renown’d,In Alexandria’s port the vessel found;Where, anxious to review his native shore,He on the roaring wave embarked once more.Oft by pale Cynthia’s melancholy lightWith him Palemon kept the watch of night,In whose sad bosom many a sigh supprestSome painful secret of the soul confest:Perhaps Arion soon the cause divin’d,Though shunning still to probe a wounded mind;He felt the chastity of silent woe,Though glad the balm of comfort to bestow.He with Palemon, oft recounted o’er}The tales of hapless love in ancient lore,}Recalled to memory by th’ adjacent shore:}The scene thus present, and its story known,The lover sighed for sorrows not his own.Thus, though a recent date their friendship bore,Soon the ripe metal own’d the quick’ning ore;For in one tide their passions seemed to roll,By kindred age and sympathy of soul.These o’er th’ inferior naval train preside,The course determine, or the commerce guide:O’er all the rest, an undistinguished crew,Her wing of deepest shade Oblivion drew.III. A sullen languor still the skies opprest,And held th’ unwilling ship in strong arrest:High in his chariot glowed the lamp of day,O’er Ida flaming with meridian ray;Relaxed from toil, the sailors range the shore,Where famine, war, and storm are felt no more;The hour to social pleasure they resign,And black remembrance drown in generous wine.On deck, beneath the shading canvass spread,Rodmond a rueful tale of wonders readOf dragons roaring on th’ enchanted coast;The hideous goblin and the yelling ghost:But with Arion, from the sultry heatOf noon, Palemon sought a cool retreat.—And lo! the shore with mournful prospects crown’d,The rampart torn with many a fatal wound,The ruined bulwark tottering o’er the strand,Bewail the stroke of war’s tremendous hand:What scenes of woe this hapless isle o’erspread!Where late thrice fifty thousand warriors bled.Full twice twelve summers were yon towers assailed,Till barbarous Ottoman at last prevailed;While thundering mines the lovely plains o’erturned,While heroes fell, and domes and temples burned.But now before them happier scenes arise,Elysian vales salute their ravished eyes;Olive, and cedar, formed a grateful shade,Where light, with gay romantic error, strayed:The myrtles here with fond caresses twine,There, rich with nectar, melts the pregnant vine:And lo! the stream, renowned in classic song,Sad Lethe, glides the silent vale along.On mossy banks, beneath the citron grove,The youthful wanderers found a wild alcove;Soft o’er the fairy region languor stole,And with sweet melancholy charmed the soul.Here first Palemon, while his pensive mindFor consolation on his friend reclin’d,In Pity’s bleeding bosom, poured the streamOf Love’s soft anguish, and of grief supreme:“Too true thy words! by sweet remembrance taught,My heart in secret bleeds with tender thought;In vain it courts the solitary shade,By every action, every look betrayed:The pride of generous woe disdains appealTo hearts, that unrelenting frosts congeal;Yet sure, if right Palemon can divine,The sense of gentle pity dwells in thine:Yes! all his cares thy sympathy shall know,And prove the kind companion of his woe.“Albert thou know’st, with skill and science graced;In humble station though by fortune placed,Yet never seaman more serenely braveLed Britain’s conquering squadrons o’er the wave:Where full in view Augusta’s spires are seenWith flowery lawns, and waving woods between,An humble habitation rose, besideWhere Thames meand’ring rolls his ample tide:There live the hope and pleasure of his life,A pious daughter, and a faithful wife:For his return with fond officious careStill every grateful object these prepare:Whatever can allure the smell or sight,Or wake the drooping spirits to delight.“This blooming maid in Virtue’s path to guideTh’ admiring parents all their care applied:Her spotless soul to soft affection trained,No voice untuned, no sickening folly stained:Not fairer grows the lily of the vale,Whose bosom opens to the vernal gale:Her eyes unconscious of their fatal charms,Thrilled every heart with exquisite alarms:Her face, in Beauty’s sweet attraction drest,The smile of maiden innocence exprest;While health, that rises with the new-born day,Breathed o’er her cheek the softest blush of May:Still in her look complacence smiled serene;She moved the charmer of the rural scene!“’Twas at that season, when the fields resumeTheir loveliest hues, arrayed in vernal bloom:Yon ship, rich freighted from th’ Italian shore,To Thames’ fair banks her costly tribute bore:While thus my father saw his ample hoard,From this return, with recent treasures stor’d;Me, with affairs of commerce charg’d, he sent}To Albert’s humble mansion—soon I went!}Too soon, alas! unconscious of th’ event.}There, struck with sweet surprise and silent awe,The gentle mistress of my hopes I saw;There, wounded first by Love’s resistless arms,My glowing bosom throbbed with strange alarms;My ever charming Anna! who aloneCan all the frowns of cruel fate atone;Oh! while all-conscious Memory holds her power,Can I forget that sweetly-painful hour,When from those eyes, with lovely lightning fraught,My fluttering spirits first th’ infection caught?When, as I gazed, my faltering tongue betray’dThe heart’s quick tumults, or refused its aid;While the dim light my ravished eyes forsook,And every limb, unstrung with terror, shook:With all her powers, dissenting Reason stroveTo tame at first the kindling flame of Love:She strove in vain; subdued by charms divine,My soul a victim fell at Beauty’s shrine.Oft from the din of bustling life I strayed,In happier scenes to see my lovely maid;Full oft, where Thames his wandering current leads,We roved at evening hour through flowery meads;There, while my heart’s soft anguish I revealed,To her with tender sighs my hope appealed:While the sweet nymph my faithful tale believed,Her snowy breast with secret tumult heaved;For, trained in rural scenes from earliest youth,Nature was her’s, and innocence, and truth:She never knew the city damsel’s art,Whose frothy pertness charms the vacant heart.—My suit prevail’d! for love informed my tongue,And on his votary’s lips persuasion hung.Her eyes with conscious sympathy withdrew,And o’er her cheek the rosy current flew.Thrice happy hours! where with no dark allayLife’s fairest sunshine gilds the vernal day:For here the sigh, that soft affection heaves,From stings of sharper woe the soul relieves:Elysian scenes! too happy long to last,Too soon a storm the smiling dawn o’ercast:Too soon some demon to my father boreThe tidings, that his heart with anguish tore.My pride to kindle, with dissuasive voiceAwhile he laboured to degrade my choice:Then, in the whirling wave of pleasure, soughtFrom its loved object to divert my thought:With equal hope he might attempt to bindIn chains of adamant the lawless wind;For Love had aimed the fatal shaft too sure,Hope fed the wound, and Absence knew no cure.With alienated look, each art he sawStill baffled by superior Nature’s law.His anxious mind on various schemes revolved,At last on cruel exile he resolved:The rigorous doom was fixed; alas! how vainTo him of tender anguish to complain:His soul, that never Love’s sweet influence felt,By social sympathy could never melt;With stern command to Albert’s charge he gaveTo waft Palemon o’er the distant wave.“The ship was laden and prepared to sail,And only waited now the leading gale:’Twas ours, in that sad period, first to prove,The poignant torments of despairing love;The impatient wish, that never feels repose,Desire, that with perpetual current flows!The fluctuating pangs of hope and fear,Joy distant still, and Sorrow ever near.Thus, while the pangs of thought severer grew,}The western breezes inauspicious blew,}Hastening the moment of our last adieu.}The vessel parted on the falling tide,Yet time one sacred hour to love supplied:The night was silent, and advancing fast,The moon o’er Thames her silver mantle cast;Impatient Hope the midnight path explored,And led me to the nymph my soul adored.Soon her quick footsteps struck my listening ear,She came confest! the lovely maid drew near!But, ah! what force of language can impartTh’ impetuous joy that glowed in either heart:O ye! whose melting hearts are formed to proveThe trembling ecstasies of genuine love;When, with delicious agony, the thoughtIs to the verge of high delirium wrought;Your secret sympathy alone can tellWhat raptures then the throbbing bosom swell:O’er all the nerves what tender tumults roll,While love with sweet enchantment melts the soul.“In transport lost, by trembling hope imprest,The blushing virgin sunk upon my breast,While her’s congenial beat with fond alarms!Dissolving softness! Paradise of charms!Flashed from our eyes, in warm transfusion flewOur blending spirits that each other drew!O bliss supreme! where Virtue’s self can meltWith joys that guilty pleasure never felt;Formed to refine the thought with chaste desire,And kindle sweet Affection’s purest fire.Ah! wherefore should my hopeless love, she cries,While sorrow bursts with interrupting sighs,—For ever destined to lament in vain,Such flattering, fond ideas entertain;My heart through scenes of fair illusion stray’d,To joys, decreed for some superior maid.’Tis mine abandoned to severe distressStill to complain, and never hope redress—Go then, dear youth! thy father’s rage atone,And let this tortured bosom beat alone.The hovering anger yet thou may’st appease!Go then, dear youth! nor tempt the faithless seas.Find out some happier maid, whose equal charmsWith Fortune’s fairer joys, may bless thy arms:Where, smiling o’er thee with indulgent ray,Prosperity shall hail each new-born day:Too well thou know’st good Albert’s niggard fate,Ill fitted to sustain thy father’s hate.Go then, I charge thee by thy generous love,That fatal to my father thus may prove;On me alone let dark affliction fall,Whose heart for thee will gladly suffer all.Then haste thee hence, Palemon, ere too late,Nor rashly hope to brave opposing fate.“She ceased: while anguish in her angel-faceO’er all her beauties showered celestial grace:Not Helen, in her bridal charms arrayed,Was half so lovely as this gentle maid.—O soul of all my wishes! I replied,Can that soft fabric stem Affliction’s tide?Canst thou, bright pattern of exalted truth,To sorrow doom the summer of thy youth,And I, ingrateful! all that sweetness seeConsigned to lasting misery for me?Sooner this moment may th’ Eternal doomPalemon in the silent earth entomb;Attest, thou moon, fair regent of the night!Whose lustre sickens at this mournful sight:By all the pangs divided lovers feel,Which sweet possession only knows to heal:By all the horrors brooding o’er the deep,Where fate, and ruin, sad dominion keep;Though tyrant duty o’er me threatening stands,And claims obedience to her stern commands,Should fortune, cruel or auspicious prove,Her smile, or frown, shall never change my love;My heart, that now must every joy resign,Incapable of change, is only thine.“Oh cease to weep, this storm will yet decay,And the sad clouds of sorrow melt away:While through the rugged path of life we go,All mortals taste the bitter draught of woe.The famed and great, decreed to equal pain,Full oft in splendid wretchedness complain:For this, prosperity, with brighter ray,In smiling contrast gilds our vital day.Thou too, sweet maid! ere twice ten months are o’er}Shall hail Palemon to his native shore,}Where never interest shall divide us more.—}“Her struggling soul, o’erwhelmed with tender grief,Now found an interval of short relief:So melts the surface of the frozen streamBeneath the wintry sun’s departing beam.With cruel haste the shades of night withdrew,And gave the signal of a sad adieu:As on my neck th’ afflicted maiden hung,A thousand racking doubts her spirit wrung;She wept the terrors of the fearful wave,Too oft, alas! the wandering lover’s grave:With soft persuasion I dispelled her fear,And from her cheek beguiled the falling tear,While dying fondness languished in her eyes,She poured her soul to heaven in suppliant sighs:‘Look down with pity, O ye powers above!Who hear the sad complaint of bleeding love;Ye, who the secret laws of fate explore,Alone can tell if he returns no more;Or if the hour of future joy remain,Long-wished atonement of long-suffered pain,Bid every guardian minister attend,And from all ill the much-loved youth defend.’With grief o’erwhelmed we parted twice in vain,And, urged by strong attraction, met again.At last, by cruel fortune torn apartWhile tender passion beat in either heart,Our eyes transfixed with agonizing look,One sad farewell, one last embrace we took.Forlorn of hope the lovely maid I left,Pensive and pale, of every joy bereft:She to her silent couch retired to weep,Whilst I embarked, in sadness, on the deep.”His tale thus closed, from sympathy of griefPalemon’s bosom felt a sweet relief;To mutual friendship thus sincerely true,No secret wish, or fear, their bosoms knew;In mutual hazards oft severely tried,Nor hope, nor danger, could their love divide.Ye tender maids! in whose pathetic soulsCompassion’s sacred stream impetuous rolls,Whose warm affections exquisitely feelThe secret wound you tremble to reveal;Ah! may no wanderer of the stormy mainPour through your breasts the soft delicious bane;May never fatal tenderness approveThe fond effusions of their ardent love:Oh! warned, avoid the path that leads to woe,Where thorns, and baneful weeds, alternate grow:Let them severer stoic nymphs possess,Whose stubborn passions feel no soft distress.Now as the youths returning o’er the plainApproached the lonely margin of the main,First, with attention rouzed, Arion eyedThe graceful lover, formed in Nature’s pride:His frame the happiest symmetry displayed,And locks of waving gold his neck arrayed;In every look the Paphian graces shine,Soft breathing o’er his cheek their bloom divine:With lightened heart he smiled serenely gay,Like young Adonis, or the son of May.Not Cytherea from a fairer swainReceived her apple on the Trojan plain.IV. The Sun’s bright orb, declining all serene,Now glanced obliquely o’er the woodland scene:Creation smiles around; on every sprayThe warbling birds exalt their evening lay:Blithe skipping o’er yon hill, the fleecy trainJoin the deep chorus of the lowing plain;The golden lime, and orange, there were seenOn fragrant branches of perpetual green;The crystal streams that velvet meadows lave,To the green ocean roll with chiding wave.The glassy ocean hushed forgets to roar,But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore;And lo! his surface lovely to beholdGlows in the west, a sea of living gold!While, all above, a thousand liveries gayThe skies with pomp ineffable array.Arabian sweets perfume the happy plains;Above, beneath, around, enchantment reigns!While glowing vesper leads the starry train,And night slow draws her veil o’er land and main,Emerging clouds the azure east invade,And wrap the lucid spheres in gradual shade;While yet the songsters of the vocal grove,With dying numbers tune the soul to love:With joyful eyes th’ attentive master seesTh’ auspicious omens of an eastern breeze.Round the charged bowl the sailors form a ring;By turns recount the wondrous tale, or sing,As love, or battle, hardships of the main,Or genial wine, awake the homely strain:Then some the watch of night alternate keep,The rest lie buried in oblivious sleep.Deep midnight now involves the livid skies,When eastern breezes, yet enervate, rise;The waning moon behind a watery shroudPale glimmered o’er the long protracted cloud;A mighty halo round her silver throne,With parting meteors crossed, portentous shone:This in the troubled sky full oft prevails,Oft deemed a signal of tempestuous gales.While young Arion sleeps, before his sightTumultuous swim the visions of the night:Now, blooming Anna with her happy swainApproached the sacred hymeneal fane;Anon, tremendous lightnings flash between,And funeral pomp, and weeping loves are seen:Now with Palemon, up a rocky steep,Whose summit trembles o’er the roaring deep,With painful step he climbed; while far aboveSweet Anna charmed them with the voice of love:Then sudden from the slippery height they fell,While dreadful yawned, beneath, the jaws of hell.—Amid this fearful trance, a thundering soundHe hears, and thrice the hollow decks rebound;Upstarting from his couch on deck he sprung,Thrice with shrill note the boatswain’s whistle rung:‘All hands unmoor!’ proclaims a boisterous cry;‘All hands unmoor!’ the caverned rocks reply:Roused from repose aloft the sailors swarm,And with their levers soon the windlass arm:The order given, up springing with a bound,}They fix the bars, and heave the windlass round;}At every turn the clanging pauls resound:}Up-torn reluctant from its oozy caveThe ponderous anchor rises o’er the wave.High on the slippery masts the yards ascend,And far abroad the canvass wings extend.Along the glassy plain the vessel glides,While azure radiance trembles on her sides;The lunar rays in long reflection gleam,With silver deluging the fluid stream.Levant and Thracian gales alternate play,Then in th’ Egyptian quarter die away.A calm ensues; adjacent shores they dread,The boats, with rowers manned, are sent ahead;With cordage fastened to the lofty prowAloof to sea the stately ship they tow;The nervous crew their sweeping oars extend,And pealing shouts the shore of Candia rend:Success attends their skill! the danger’s o’er:The port is doubled, and beheld no more.Now morn with gradual pace advanced on high,Whitening with orient beam the twilight sky:She comes not in refulgent pomp arrayed,But frowning stern, and wrapt in sullen shade.Above incumbent mists, tall Ida’s height,Tremendous rock! emerges on the sight;North-east, a league, the isle of Standia bears,And westward, Freschin’s woody cape appears.In distant angles while the transient galesAlternate blow, they trim the flagging sails;The drowsy air attentive to retain,As from unnumbered points it sweeps the main.Now swelling stud-sails on each side extend,Then stay-sails sidelong to the breeze ascend;While all, to court the veering winds, are placedWith yards alternate square, and sharply braced.The dim horizon lowering vapours shroud,And blot the sun yet struggling in the cloud;Through the wide atmosphere condensed with haze,His glaring orb emits a sanguine blaze.The pilots now their azimuth attend,On which all courses, duly formed, depend:The compass placed to catch the rising ray,The quadrant’s shadows studious they survey;Along the arch the gradual index slides,While Phœbus down the vertic circle glides;Now seen on ocean’s utmost verge to swim,He sweeps it vibrant with his nether limb.Thus height, and polar distance are obtained,Then latitude, and declination, gained;In chiliads next th’ analogy is sought,And on the sinical triangle wrought:By this magnetic variance is explored,Just angles known, and polar truth restored.The natives, while the ship departs their land,Ashore with admiration gazing stand.Majestically slow before the breezeShe moved triumphant o’er the yielding seas;Her bottom through translucent waters shone,White as the clouds beneath the blaze of noon;The bending wales their contrast next displayed,All fore and aft in polished jet arrayed.Britannia, riding awful on the prow,Gazed o’er the vassal waves that rolled below:Where’er she moved the vassal waves were seenTo yield obsequious, and confess their queen.Th’ imperial trident graced her dexter hand,Of power to rule the surge like Moses’ wand;Th’ eternal empire of the main to keep,And guide her squadrons o’er the trembling deep.Her left, propitious, bore a mystic shield,Around whose margin rolls the watery field;There her bold genius in his floating carO’er the wild billow hurls the storm of war:And lo! the beasts that oft with jealous rageIn bloody combat met, from age to age,Tamed into union, yoked in Friendship’s chain,Draw his proud chariot round the vanquished main:From the proud margin to the centre grewShelves, rocks, and whirlpools, hideous to the view.Th’ immortal shield from Neptune she received,When first her head above the waters heaved;Loose floated o’er her limbs an azure vest,A figured scutcheon glittered on her breast;There from one parent soil, for ever young,The blooming rose and hardy thistle sprung.Around her head an oaken wreath was seen,Inwove with laurels of unfading green.Such was the sculptured prow; from van to rearTh’ artillery frowned, a black tremendous tier!Embalmed with orient gum, above the waveThe swelling sides a yellow radiance gave.On the broad stern, a pencil warm and bold,That never servile rules of art controll’d,An allegoric tale on high pourtray’d;There a young hero, here a royal maid:Fair England’s genius in the youth exprest,Her ancient foe, but now her friend confest,The warlike nymph with fond regard surveyed;No more his hostile frown her heart dismayed:His look, that once shot terror from afar,Like young Alcides, or the god of war,Serene as summer’s evening skies she saw;Serene, yet firm; though mild, impressing awe:Her nervous arm, inured to toils severe,Brandished th’ unconquered Caledonian spear:The dreadful falchion of the hills she wore,}Sung to the harp in many a tale of yore,}That oft her rivers dyed with hostile gore.}Blue was her rocky shield; her piercing eyeFlashed like the meteors of her native sky;Her crest, high-plumed, was rough with many a scar,And o’er her helmet gleamed the northern star.The warrior youth appeared of noble frame,The hardy offspring of some rustic dame:Loose o’er his shoulders hung the slackened bow,Renowned in song, the terror of the foe!The sword that oft the barbarous North defy’d,The scourge of tyrants! glittered by his side:Clad in refulgent arms in battle won,The George emblazoned on his corselet shone;Fast by his side was seen a golden lyre,Pregnant with numbers of eternal fire;Whose strings unlock the witches’ midnight spell,Or waft rapt fancy through the gulphs of hell:Struck with contagion, kindling fancy hearsThe songs of heaven, the music of the spheres!Borne on Newtonian wing through air she flies,Where other suns to other systems rise.These front the scene conspicuous; overheadAlbion’s proud oak his filial branches spread:While on the sea-beat shore obsequious stood,Beneath their feet, the father of the flood:Here, the bold native of her cliffs above,Perched by the martial maid the bird of Jove;There, on the watch, sagacious of his prey,With eyes of fire, an English mastiff lay;Yonder fair Commerce stretched her winged sail,Here, frowned the god that wakes the living gale.High o’er the poop, the flattering winds unfurledTh’ imperial flag that rules the watery world.Deep blushingArmorsall the tops invest,And warlike trophies either quarter drest:Then towered the masts, the canvass swelled on high,And waving streamers floated in the sky.Thus the rich vessel moves in trim array,Like some fair virgin on her bridal day;Thus, like a swan, she cleaved the watery plain,The pride and wonder of th’ Ægean main.

I. A ship from Egypt, o’er the deep impelled

By guiding winds, her course for Venice held.

Of famed Britannia were the gallant crew,

And from that isle her name the vessel drew;

The wayward steps of Fortune they pursued,

And sought in certain ills imagined good:

Though cautioned oft her slippery path to shun,

Hope still with promised joys allured them on;

And, while they listened to her winning lore,

The softer scenes of peace could please no more:

Long absent they from friends and native home

The cheerless ocean were inured to roam;

Yet Heaven, in pity to severe distress,

Had crowned each painful voyage with success;

Still to compensate toils and hazards past

Restored them to maternal plains at last.

Thrice had the sun to rule the varying year

Across the equator rolled his flaming sphere,

Since last the vessel spread her ample sail

From Albion’s coast, obsequious to the gale;

She o’er the spacious flood from shore to shore

Unwearying wafted her commercial store;

The richest ports of Afric she had viewed,

Thence to fair Italy her course pursued;

Had left behind Trinacria’s burning isle,

And visited the margin of the Nile:

And now, that winter deepens round the Pole,

The circling voyage hastens to its goal;

They, blind to Fate’s inevitable law,

No dark event to blast their hope foresaw,

But from gay Venice soon expect to steer

For Britain’s coast, and dread no perils near;

Inflamed by Hope, their throbbing hearts elate

Ideal pleasures vainly antedate,

Before whose vivid intellectual ray

Distress recedes, and danger melts away:

Already British coasts appear to rise,

The chalky cliffs salute their longing eyes;

Each to his breast, where floods of rapture roll,

Embracing strains the mistress of his soul;

Nor less o’erjoyed, with sympathetic truth,

Each faithful maid expects th’ approaching youth:

In distant souls congenial passions glow,

And mutual feelings mutual bliss bestow—

Such shadowy happiness their thoughts employ,

Illusion all, and visionary joy!

Thus time elapsed, while o’er the pathless tide

Their ship through Grecian seas the pilots guide.

Occasion called to touch at Candia’s shore,

Which, blest with favouring winds, they soon explore;

The haven enter, borne before the gale,

Despatch their commerce, and prepare to sail.

Eternal powers! what ruins from afar

Mark the fell track of desolating war!

Here arts and commerce with auspicious reign

Once breathed sweet influence on the happy plain;

While o’er the lawn, with dance and festive song,

Young Pleasure led the jocund Hours along;

In gay luxuriance Ceres too was seen

To crown the vallies with eternal green:

For wealth, for valour, courted and revered,

What Albion is, fair Candia then appeared.—

Ah! who the flight of ages can revoke?}

The free-born spirit of her sons is broke,}

They bow to Ottoman’s imperious yoke;}

No longer Fame their drooping heart inspires,

For stern Oppression quenched its genial fires:

Though still her fields, with golden harvests crown’d,

Supply the barren shores of Greece around,

Sharp penury afflicts these wretched isles,

There Hope ne’er dawns, and Pleasure never smiles;

The vassal wretch contented drags his chain,

And hears his famished babes lament in vain;

These eyes have seen the dull reluctant soil

A seventh year mock the weary labourer’s toil.—

No blooming Venus, on the desert shore,

Now views with triumph captive gods adore;

No lovely Helens now with fatal charms

Excite th’ avenging chiefs of Greece to arms;

No fair Penelopes enchant the eye,

For whom contending kings were proud to die;

Here sullen Beauty sheds a twilight ray,

While Sorrow bids her vernal bloom decay;

Those charms, so long renowned in classic strains,

Had dimly shone on Albion’s happier plains!

Now, in the southern hemisphere, the sun,

Through the bright Virgin, and the Scales, had run,

And on th’ ecliptic wheeled his winding way

Till the fierce Scorpion felt his flaming ray.

Four days becalmed the vessel here remains,

And yet no hopes of aiding wind obtains;

For sickening vapours lull the air to sleep,

And not a breeze awakes the silent deep:

This, when th’ autumnal equinox is o’er,

And Phœbus in the north declines no more,

The watchful mariner, whom Heaven informs,

Oft deems the prelude of approaching storms.—

No dread of storms the master’s soul restrain,

A captive fettered to the oar of gain:

His anxious heart, impatient of delay,

Expects the winds to sail from Candia’s bay,

Determined, from whatever point they rise,

To trust his fortune to the seas and skies.

Thou living ray of intellectual fire,

Whose voluntary gleams my verse inspire,

Ere yet the deepening incidents prevail,

Till roused attention feel our plaintive tale;

Record whom chief among the gallant crew

Th’ unblest pursuit of fortune hither drew:

Can sons of Neptune, generous, brave, and bold,

In pain and hazard toil for sordid gold?

They can! for gold, too oft with magic art,

Can rule the passions and corrupt the heart:

This crowns the prosperous villain with applause,

To whom in vain sad Merit pleads her cause;

This strews with roses Life’s perplexing road,

And leads the way to Pleasure’s soft abode;

This spreads with slaughtered heaps the bloody plain,

And pours adventurous thousands o’er the main.

II. The stately ship, with all her daring band,

To skilful Albert owned the chief command:

Though trained in boisterous elements, his mind

Was yet by soft humanity refined;

Each joy of wedded love, at home, he knew,

Aboard, confest the father of his crew!

Brave, liberal, just! the calm domestic scene

Had o’er his temper breathed a gay serene:

Him Science taught by mystic lore to trace

The planets wheeling in eternal race!

To mark the ship in floating balance held,

By earth attracted, and by seas repell’d;

Or point her devious track through climes unknown,

That leads to every shore and every zone:

He saw the moon through Heaven’s blue concave glide,

And into motion charm th’ expanding tide,

While earth impetuous round her axle rolls,

Exalts her watery zone, and sinks the Poles;

Light and attraction, from their genial source,

He saw still wandering with diminished force;

While on the margin of declining day

Night’s shadowy cone reluctant melts away—

Inured to peril, with unconquered soul,

The chief beheld tempestuous oceans roll;

O’er the wild surge when dismal shades preside,

His equal skill the lonely bark could guide;

His genius, ever for th’ event prepared,

Rose with the storm, and all its dangers shared.

Rodmond the next degree to Albert bore,

A hardy son of England’s farthest shore,

Where bleak Northumbria pours her savage train

In sable squadrons o’er the northern main;

That, with her pitchy entrails stored, resort,

A sooty tribe, to fair Augusta’s port:

Where’er in ambush lurk the fatal sands,

They claim the danger, proud of skilful bands;

For while with darkling course their vessels sweep

The winding shore, or plough the faithless deep,

O’er bar, and shelve, the watery path they sound

With dexterous arm, sagacious of the ground:

Fearless they combat every hostile wind,

Wheeling in mazy tracks, with course inclined.

Expert to moor where terrors line the road,

Or win the anchor from its dark abode;

But drooping, and relaxed, in climes afar,

Tumultuous and undisciplined in war.

Such Rodmond was; by learning unrefined,

That oft enlightens to corrupt the mind.

Boisterous of manners; trained in early youth

To scenes that shame the conscious cheek of truth;

To scenes that nature’s struggling voice control,

And freeze compassion rising in the soul:

Where the grim hell-hounds, prowling round the shore,

With foul intent the stranded bark explore;

Deaf to the voice of woe, her decks they board,

While tardy justice slumbers o’er her sword.

Th’ indignant Muse, severely taught to feel,

Shrinks from a theme she blushes to reveal.

Too oft example, armed with poisons fell,

Pollutes the shrine where mercy loves to dwell:

Thus Rodmond, trained by this unhallowed crew,

The sacred social passions never knew.

Unskilled to argue, in dispute yet loud,

Bold without caution, without honours proud;

In art unschooled, each veteran rule he prized,

And all improvement haughtily despised.

Yet, though full oft to future perils blind,

With skill superior glowed his daring mind,

Through snares of death the reeling bark to guide,

When midnight shades involve the raging tide.

To Rodmond, next in order of command,

Succeeds the youngest of our naval band:

But what avails it to record a name

That courts no rank among the sons of fame;

Whose vital spring had just began to bloom,

When o’er it sorrow spread her sickening gloom?

While yet a stripling, oft with fond alarms

His bosom danced to Nature’s boundless charms;

On him fair Science dawned in happier hour,

Awakening into bloom young Fancy’s flower:

But soon Adversity, with freezing blast,

The blossom withered, and the dawn o’ercast.

Forlorn of heart, and by severe decree

Condemned reluctant to the faithless sea,

With long farewell he left the laurel grove,

Where science and the tuneful sisters rove.

Hither he wandered, anxious to explore

Antiquities of nations now no more;

To penetrate each distant realm unknown,

And range excursive o’er th’ untravelled zone:

In vain—for rude Adversity’s command

Still on the margin of each famous land,

With unrelenting ire his steps opposed,

And every gate of hope against him closed.

Permit my verse, ye blest Pierian train!

To call Arion this ill-fated swain;

For like that bard unhappy, on his head

Malignant stars their hostile influence shed:

Both, in lamenting numbers, o’er the deep

With conscious anguish taught the harp to weep:

And both the raging surge in safety bore

Amid destruction, panting to the shore:

This last, our tragic story from the wave

Of dark oblivion, haply, yet may save;

With genuine sympathy may yet complain,

While sad Remembrance bleeds at every vein.

These, chief among the ship’s conducting train,

Her path explored along the deep domain;

Trained to command, and range the swelling sail,

Whose varying force conforms to every gale.

Charged with the commerce, hither also came

A gallant youth, Palemon was his name:

A father’s stern resentment doomed to prove,

He came the victim of unhappy love!

His heart for Albert’s beauteous daughter bled,

For her a sacred flame his bosom fed:

Nor let the wretched slaves of folly scorn,

This genuine passion, Nature’s eldest born!

’Twas his with lasting anguish to complain,

While blooming Anna mourned the cause in vain

Graceful of form, by nature taught to please,

Of power to melt the female breast with ease;

To her Palemon told his tender tale

Soft as the voice of summer’s evening gale;

His soul, where moral truth spontaneous grew,

No guilty wish, no cruel passion knew:

Though tremblingly alive to Nature’s laws,

Yet ever firm to Honour’s sacred cause;

O’erjoyed he saw her lovely eyes relent,

The blushing maiden smiled with sweet consent.

Oft in the mazes of a neighbouring grove

Unheard they breathed alternate vows of love:

By fond society their passion grew,

Like the young blossom fed with vernal dew;

While their chaste souls possessed the pleasing pains

That truth improves, and virtue ne’er restrains.

In evil hour th’ officious tongue of fame

Betrayed the secret of their mutual flame.

With grief and anger struggling in his breast,

Palemon’s father heard the tale confest;

Long had he listened with Suspicion’s ear,

And learnt, sagacious, this event to fear.

Too well, fair youth! thy liberal heart he knew,

A heart to Nature’s warm impressions true:

Full oft his wisdom strove with fruitless toil

With avarice to pollute that generous soil;

That soil impregnated with nobler seed

Refused the culture of so rank a weed.

Elate with wealth in active Commerce won,

And basking in the smile of Fortune’s sun;

For many freighted ships from shore to shore,

Their wealthy charge by his appointment bore;

With scorn the parent eyed the lowly shade

That veiled the beauties of this charming maid.

He, by the lust of riches only moved,

Such mean connexions haughtily reproved;

Indignant he rebuked th’ enamoured boy,

The flattering promise of his future joy;

He soothed and menaced, anxious to reclaim

This hopeless passion, or divert its aim;

Oft led the youth where circling joys delight

The ravished sense, or beauty charms the sight.

With all her powers enchanting Music failed,

And Pleasure’s syren voice no more prevailed:

Long with unequal art, in vain he strove

To quench th’ ethereal flame of ardent love.

The merchant, kindling then with proud disdain,

In look, and voice, assumed an harsher strain.

In absence now his only hope remained;

And such the stern decree his will ordained:

Deep anguish, while Palemon heard his doom,

Drew o’er his lovely face a saddening gloom;

High beat his heart, fast flowed th’ unbidden tear,

His bosom heaved with agony severe;

In vain with bitter sorrow he repin’d,}

No tender pity touched that sordid mind—}

To thee, brave Albert! was the charge consign’d.}

The stately ship forsaking England’s shore

To regions far remote Palemon bore.

Incapable of change, th’ unhappy youth

Still loved fair Anna with eternal truth;

Still Anna’s image swims before his sight

In fleeting vision through the restless night;

From clime to clime an exile doomed to roam,

His heart still panted for its secret home.

The moon had circled twice her wayward zone,

To him since young Arion first was known;

Who wandering here through many a scene renown’d,

In Alexandria’s port the vessel found;

Where, anxious to review his native shore,

He on the roaring wave embarked once more.

Oft by pale Cynthia’s melancholy light

With him Palemon kept the watch of night,

In whose sad bosom many a sigh supprest

Some painful secret of the soul confest:

Perhaps Arion soon the cause divin’d,

Though shunning still to probe a wounded mind;

He felt the chastity of silent woe,

Though glad the balm of comfort to bestow.

He with Palemon, oft recounted o’er}

The tales of hapless love in ancient lore,}

Recalled to memory by th’ adjacent shore:}

The scene thus present, and its story known,

The lover sighed for sorrows not his own.

Thus, though a recent date their friendship bore,

Soon the ripe metal own’d the quick’ning ore;

For in one tide their passions seemed to roll,

By kindred age and sympathy of soul.

These o’er th’ inferior naval train preside,

The course determine, or the commerce guide:

O’er all the rest, an undistinguished crew,

Her wing of deepest shade Oblivion drew.

III. A sullen languor still the skies opprest,

And held th’ unwilling ship in strong arrest:

High in his chariot glowed the lamp of day,

O’er Ida flaming with meridian ray;

Relaxed from toil, the sailors range the shore,

Where famine, war, and storm are felt no more;

The hour to social pleasure they resign,

And black remembrance drown in generous wine.

On deck, beneath the shading canvass spread,

Rodmond a rueful tale of wonders read

Of dragons roaring on th’ enchanted coast;

The hideous goblin and the yelling ghost:

But with Arion, from the sultry heat

Of noon, Palemon sought a cool retreat.—

And lo! the shore with mournful prospects crown’d,

The rampart torn with many a fatal wound,

The ruined bulwark tottering o’er the strand,

Bewail the stroke of war’s tremendous hand:

What scenes of woe this hapless isle o’erspread!

Where late thrice fifty thousand warriors bled.

Full twice twelve summers were yon towers assailed,

Till barbarous Ottoman at last prevailed;

While thundering mines the lovely plains o’erturned,

While heroes fell, and domes and temples burned.

But now before them happier scenes arise,

Elysian vales salute their ravished eyes;

Olive, and cedar, formed a grateful shade,

Where light, with gay romantic error, strayed:

The myrtles here with fond caresses twine,

There, rich with nectar, melts the pregnant vine:

And lo! the stream, renowned in classic song,

Sad Lethe, glides the silent vale along.

On mossy banks, beneath the citron grove,

The youthful wanderers found a wild alcove;

Soft o’er the fairy region languor stole,

And with sweet melancholy charmed the soul.

Here first Palemon, while his pensive mind

For consolation on his friend reclin’d,

In Pity’s bleeding bosom, poured the stream

Of Love’s soft anguish, and of grief supreme:

“Too true thy words! by sweet remembrance taught,

My heart in secret bleeds with tender thought;

In vain it courts the solitary shade,

By every action, every look betrayed:

The pride of generous woe disdains appeal

To hearts, that unrelenting frosts congeal;

Yet sure, if right Palemon can divine,

The sense of gentle pity dwells in thine:

Yes! all his cares thy sympathy shall know,

And prove the kind companion of his woe.

“Albert thou know’st, with skill and science graced;

In humble station though by fortune placed,

Yet never seaman more serenely brave

Led Britain’s conquering squadrons o’er the wave:

Where full in view Augusta’s spires are seen

With flowery lawns, and waving woods between,

An humble habitation rose, beside

Where Thames meand’ring rolls his ample tide:

There live the hope and pleasure of his life,

A pious daughter, and a faithful wife:

For his return with fond officious care

Still every grateful object these prepare:

Whatever can allure the smell or sight,

Or wake the drooping spirits to delight.

“This blooming maid in Virtue’s path to guide

Th’ admiring parents all their care applied:

Her spotless soul to soft affection trained,

No voice untuned, no sickening folly stained:

Not fairer grows the lily of the vale,

Whose bosom opens to the vernal gale:

Her eyes unconscious of their fatal charms,

Thrilled every heart with exquisite alarms:

Her face, in Beauty’s sweet attraction drest,

The smile of maiden innocence exprest;

While health, that rises with the new-born day,

Breathed o’er her cheek the softest blush of May:

Still in her look complacence smiled serene;

She moved the charmer of the rural scene!

“’Twas at that season, when the fields resume

Their loveliest hues, arrayed in vernal bloom:

Yon ship, rich freighted from th’ Italian shore,

To Thames’ fair banks her costly tribute bore:

While thus my father saw his ample hoard,

From this return, with recent treasures stor’d;

Me, with affairs of commerce charg’d, he sent}

To Albert’s humble mansion—soon I went!}

Too soon, alas! unconscious of th’ event.}

There, struck with sweet surprise and silent awe,

The gentle mistress of my hopes I saw;

There, wounded first by Love’s resistless arms,

My glowing bosom throbbed with strange alarms;

My ever charming Anna! who alone

Can all the frowns of cruel fate atone;

Oh! while all-conscious Memory holds her power,

Can I forget that sweetly-painful hour,

When from those eyes, with lovely lightning fraught,

My fluttering spirits first th’ infection caught?

When, as I gazed, my faltering tongue betray’d

The heart’s quick tumults, or refused its aid;

While the dim light my ravished eyes forsook,

And every limb, unstrung with terror, shook:

With all her powers, dissenting Reason strove

To tame at first the kindling flame of Love:

She strove in vain; subdued by charms divine,

My soul a victim fell at Beauty’s shrine.

Oft from the din of bustling life I strayed,

In happier scenes to see my lovely maid;

Full oft, where Thames his wandering current leads,

We roved at evening hour through flowery meads;

There, while my heart’s soft anguish I revealed,

To her with tender sighs my hope appealed:

While the sweet nymph my faithful tale believed,

Her snowy breast with secret tumult heaved;

For, trained in rural scenes from earliest youth,

Nature was her’s, and innocence, and truth:

She never knew the city damsel’s art,

Whose frothy pertness charms the vacant heart.—

My suit prevail’d! for love informed my tongue,

And on his votary’s lips persuasion hung.

Her eyes with conscious sympathy withdrew,

And o’er her cheek the rosy current flew.

Thrice happy hours! where with no dark allay

Life’s fairest sunshine gilds the vernal day:

For here the sigh, that soft affection heaves,

From stings of sharper woe the soul relieves:

Elysian scenes! too happy long to last,

Too soon a storm the smiling dawn o’ercast:

Too soon some demon to my father bore

The tidings, that his heart with anguish tore.

My pride to kindle, with dissuasive voice

Awhile he laboured to degrade my choice:

Then, in the whirling wave of pleasure, sought

From its loved object to divert my thought:

With equal hope he might attempt to bind

In chains of adamant the lawless wind;

For Love had aimed the fatal shaft too sure,

Hope fed the wound, and Absence knew no cure.

With alienated look, each art he saw

Still baffled by superior Nature’s law.

His anxious mind on various schemes revolved,

At last on cruel exile he resolved:

The rigorous doom was fixed; alas! how vain

To him of tender anguish to complain:

His soul, that never Love’s sweet influence felt,

By social sympathy could never melt;

With stern command to Albert’s charge he gave

To waft Palemon o’er the distant wave.

“The ship was laden and prepared to sail,

And only waited now the leading gale:

’Twas ours, in that sad period, first to prove,

The poignant torments of despairing love;

The impatient wish, that never feels repose,

Desire, that with perpetual current flows!

The fluctuating pangs of hope and fear,

Joy distant still, and Sorrow ever near.

Thus, while the pangs of thought severer grew,}

The western breezes inauspicious blew,}

Hastening the moment of our last adieu.}

The vessel parted on the falling tide,

Yet time one sacred hour to love supplied:

The night was silent, and advancing fast,

The moon o’er Thames her silver mantle cast;

Impatient Hope the midnight path explored,

And led me to the nymph my soul adored.

Soon her quick footsteps struck my listening ear,

She came confest! the lovely maid drew near!

But, ah! what force of language can impart

Th’ impetuous joy that glowed in either heart:

O ye! whose melting hearts are formed to prove

The trembling ecstasies of genuine love;

When, with delicious agony, the thought

Is to the verge of high delirium wrought;

Your secret sympathy alone can tell

What raptures then the throbbing bosom swell:

O’er all the nerves what tender tumults roll,

While love with sweet enchantment melts the soul.

“In transport lost, by trembling hope imprest,

The blushing virgin sunk upon my breast,

While her’s congenial beat with fond alarms!

Dissolving softness! Paradise of charms!

Flashed from our eyes, in warm transfusion flew

Our blending spirits that each other drew!

O bliss supreme! where Virtue’s self can melt

With joys that guilty pleasure never felt;

Formed to refine the thought with chaste desire,

And kindle sweet Affection’s purest fire.

Ah! wherefore should my hopeless love, she cries,

While sorrow bursts with interrupting sighs,—

For ever destined to lament in vain,

Such flattering, fond ideas entertain;

My heart through scenes of fair illusion stray’d,

To joys, decreed for some superior maid.

’Tis mine abandoned to severe distress

Still to complain, and never hope redress—

Go then, dear youth! thy father’s rage atone,

And let this tortured bosom beat alone.

The hovering anger yet thou may’st appease!

Go then, dear youth! nor tempt the faithless seas.

Find out some happier maid, whose equal charms

With Fortune’s fairer joys, may bless thy arms:

Where, smiling o’er thee with indulgent ray,

Prosperity shall hail each new-born day:

Too well thou know’st good Albert’s niggard fate,

Ill fitted to sustain thy father’s hate.

Go then, I charge thee by thy generous love,

That fatal to my father thus may prove;

On me alone let dark affliction fall,

Whose heart for thee will gladly suffer all.

Then haste thee hence, Palemon, ere too late,

Nor rashly hope to brave opposing fate.

“She ceased: while anguish in her angel-face

O’er all her beauties showered celestial grace:

Not Helen, in her bridal charms arrayed,

Was half so lovely as this gentle maid.—

O soul of all my wishes! I replied,

Can that soft fabric stem Affliction’s tide?

Canst thou, bright pattern of exalted truth,

To sorrow doom the summer of thy youth,

And I, ingrateful! all that sweetness see

Consigned to lasting misery for me?

Sooner this moment may th’ Eternal doom

Palemon in the silent earth entomb;

Attest, thou moon, fair regent of the night!

Whose lustre sickens at this mournful sight:

By all the pangs divided lovers feel,

Which sweet possession only knows to heal:

By all the horrors brooding o’er the deep,

Where fate, and ruin, sad dominion keep;

Though tyrant duty o’er me threatening stands,

And claims obedience to her stern commands,

Should fortune, cruel or auspicious prove,

Her smile, or frown, shall never change my love;

My heart, that now must every joy resign,

Incapable of change, is only thine.

“Oh cease to weep, this storm will yet decay,

And the sad clouds of sorrow melt away:

While through the rugged path of life we go,

All mortals taste the bitter draught of woe.

The famed and great, decreed to equal pain,

Full oft in splendid wretchedness complain:

For this, prosperity, with brighter ray,

In smiling contrast gilds our vital day.

Thou too, sweet maid! ere twice ten months are o’er}

Shall hail Palemon to his native shore,}

Where never interest shall divide us more.—}

“Her struggling soul, o’erwhelmed with tender grief,

Now found an interval of short relief:

So melts the surface of the frozen stream

Beneath the wintry sun’s departing beam.

With cruel haste the shades of night withdrew,

And gave the signal of a sad adieu:

As on my neck th’ afflicted maiden hung,

A thousand racking doubts her spirit wrung;

She wept the terrors of the fearful wave,

Too oft, alas! the wandering lover’s grave:

With soft persuasion I dispelled her fear,

And from her cheek beguiled the falling tear,

While dying fondness languished in her eyes,

She poured her soul to heaven in suppliant sighs:

‘Look down with pity, O ye powers above!

Who hear the sad complaint of bleeding love;

Ye, who the secret laws of fate explore,

Alone can tell if he returns no more;

Or if the hour of future joy remain,

Long-wished atonement of long-suffered pain,

Bid every guardian minister attend,

And from all ill the much-loved youth defend.’

With grief o’erwhelmed we parted twice in vain,

And, urged by strong attraction, met again.

At last, by cruel fortune torn apart

While tender passion beat in either heart,

Our eyes transfixed with agonizing look,

One sad farewell, one last embrace we took.

Forlorn of hope the lovely maid I left,

Pensive and pale, of every joy bereft:

She to her silent couch retired to weep,

Whilst I embarked, in sadness, on the deep.”

His tale thus closed, from sympathy of grief

Palemon’s bosom felt a sweet relief;

To mutual friendship thus sincerely true,

No secret wish, or fear, their bosoms knew;

In mutual hazards oft severely tried,

Nor hope, nor danger, could their love divide.

Ye tender maids! in whose pathetic souls

Compassion’s sacred stream impetuous rolls,

Whose warm affections exquisitely feel

The secret wound you tremble to reveal;

Ah! may no wanderer of the stormy main

Pour through your breasts the soft delicious bane;

May never fatal tenderness approve

The fond effusions of their ardent love:

Oh! warned, avoid the path that leads to woe,

Where thorns, and baneful weeds, alternate grow:

Let them severer stoic nymphs possess,

Whose stubborn passions feel no soft distress.

Now as the youths returning o’er the plain

Approached the lonely margin of the main,

First, with attention rouzed, Arion eyed

The graceful lover, formed in Nature’s pride:

His frame the happiest symmetry displayed,

And locks of waving gold his neck arrayed;

In every look the Paphian graces shine,

Soft breathing o’er his cheek their bloom divine:

With lightened heart he smiled serenely gay,

Like young Adonis, or the son of May.

Not Cytherea from a fairer swain

Received her apple on the Trojan plain.

IV. The Sun’s bright orb, declining all serene,

Now glanced obliquely o’er the woodland scene:

Creation smiles around; on every spray

The warbling birds exalt their evening lay:

Blithe skipping o’er yon hill, the fleecy train

Join the deep chorus of the lowing plain;

The golden lime, and orange, there were seen

On fragrant branches of perpetual green;

The crystal streams that velvet meadows lave,

To the green ocean roll with chiding wave.

The glassy ocean hushed forgets to roar,

But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore;

And lo! his surface lovely to behold

Glows in the west, a sea of living gold!

While, all above, a thousand liveries gay

The skies with pomp ineffable array.

Arabian sweets perfume the happy plains;

Above, beneath, around, enchantment reigns!

While glowing vesper leads the starry train,

And night slow draws her veil o’er land and main,

Emerging clouds the azure east invade,

And wrap the lucid spheres in gradual shade;

While yet the songsters of the vocal grove,

With dying numbers tune the soul to love:

With joyful eyes th’ attentive master sees

Th’ auspicious omens of an eastern breeze.

Round the charged bowl the sailors form a ring;

By turns recount the wondrous tale, or sing,

As love, or battle, hardships of the main,

Or genial wine, awake the homely strain:

Then some the watch of night alternate keep,

The rest lie buried in oblivious sleep.

Deep midnight now involves the livid skies,

When eastern breezes, yet enervate, rise;

The waning moon behind a watery shroud

Pale glimmered o’er the long protracted cloud;

A mighty halo round her silver throne,

With parting meteors crossed, portentous shone:

This in the troubled sky full oft prevails,

Oft deemed a signal of tempestuous gales.

While young Arion sleeps, before his sight

Tumultuous swim the visions of the night:

Now, blooming Anna with her happy swain

Approached the sacred hymeneal fane;

Anon, tremendous lightnings flash between,

And funeral pomp, and weeping loves are seen:

Now with Palemon, up a rocky steep,

Whose summit trembles o’er the roaring deep,

With painful step he climbed; while far above

Sweet Anna charmed them with the voice of love:

Then sudden from the slippery height they fell,

While dreadful yawned, beneath, the jaws of hell.—

Amid this fearful trance, a thundering sound

He hears, and thrice the hollow decks rebound;

Upstarting from his couch on deck he sprung,

Thrice with shrill note the boatswain’s whistle rung:

‘All hands unmoor!’ proclaims a boisterous cry;

‘All hands unmoor!’ the caverned rocks reply:

Roused from repose aloft the sailors swarm,

And with their levers soon the windlass arm:

The order given, up springing with a bound,}

They fix the bars, and heave the windlass round;}

At every turn the clanging pauls resound:}

Up-torn reluctant from its oozy cave

The ponderous anchor rises o’er the wave.

High on the slippery masts the yards ascend,

And far abroad the canvass wings extend.

Along the glassy plain the vessel glides,

While azure radiance trembles on her sides;

The lunar rays in long reflection gleam,

With silver deluging the fluid stream.

Levant and Thracian gales alternate play,

Then in th’ Egyptian quarter die away.

A calm ensues; adjacent shores they dread,

The boats, with rowers manned, are sent ahead;

With cordage fastened to the lofty prow

Aloof to sea the stately ship they tow;

The nervous crew their sweeping oars extend,

And pealing shouts the shore of Candia rend:

Success attends their skill! the danger’s o’er:

The port is doubled, and beheld no more.

Now morn with gradual pace advanced on high,

Whitening with orient beam the twilight sky:

She comes not in refulgent pomp arrayed,

But frowning stern, and wrapt in sullen shade.

Above incumbent mists, tall Ida’s height,

Tremendous rock! emerges on the sight;

North-east, a league, the isle of Standia bears,

And westward, Freschin’s woody cape appears.

In distant angles while the transient gales

Alternate blow, they trim the flagging sails;

The drowsy air attentive to retain,

As from unnumbered points it sweeps the main.

Now swelling stud-sails on each side extend,

Then stay-sails sidelong to the breeze ascend;

While all, to court the veering winds, are placed

With yards alternate square, and sharply braced.

The dim horizon lowering vapours shroud,

And blot the sun yet struggling in the cloud;

Through the wide atmosphere condensed with haze,

His glaring orb emits a sanguine blaze.

The pilots now their azimuth attend,

On which all courses, duly formed, depend:

The compass placed to catch the rising ray,

The quadrant’s shadows studious they survey;

Along the arch the gradual index slides,

While Phœbus down the vertic circle glides;

Now seen on ocean’s utmost verge to swim,

He sweeps it vibrant with his nether limb.

Thus height, and polar distance are obtained,

Then latitude, and declination, gained;

In chiliads next th’ analogy is sought,

And on the sinical triangle wrought:

By this magnetic variance is explored,

Just angles known, and polar truth restored.

The natives, while the ship departs their land,

Ashore with admiration gazing stand.

Majestically slow before the breeze

She moved triumphant o’er the yielding seas;

Her bottom through translucent waters shone,

White as the clouds beneath the blaze of noon;

The bending wales their contrast next displayed,

All fore and aft in polished jet arrayed.

Britannia, riding awful on the prow,

Gazed o’er the vassal waves that rolled below:

Where’er she moved the vassal waves were seen

To yield obsequious, and confess their queen.

Th’ imperial trident graced her dexter hand,

Of power to rule the surge like Moses’ wand;

Th’ eternal empire of the main to keep,

And guide her squadrons o’er the trembling deep.

Her left, propitious, bore a mystic shield,

Around whose margin rolls the watery field;

There her bold genius in his floating car

O’er the wild billow hurls the storm of war:

And lo! the beasts that oft with jealous rage

In bloody combat met, from age to age,

Tamed into union, yoked in Friendship’s chain,

Draw his proud chariot round the vanquished main:

From the proud margin to the centre grew

Shelves, rocks, and whirlpools, hideous to the view.

Th’ immortal shield from Neptune she received,

When first her head above the waters heaved;

Loose floated o’er her limbs an azure vest,

A figured scutcheon glittered on her breast;

There from one parent soil, for ever young,

The blooming rose and hardy thistle sprung.

Around her head an oaken wreath was seen,

Inwove with laurels of unfading green.

Such was the sculptured prow; from van to rear

Th’ artillery frowned, a black tremendous tier!

Embalmed with orient gum, above the wave

The swelling sides a yellow radiance gave.

On the broad stern, a pencil warm and bold,

That never servile rules of art controll’d,

An allegoric tale on high pourtray’d;

There a young hero, here a royal maid:

Fair England’s genius in the youth exprest,

Her ancient foe, but now her friend confest,

The warlike nymph with fond regard surveyed;

No more his hostile frown her heart dismayed:

His look, that once shot terror from afar,

Like young Alcides, or the god of war,

Serene as summer’s evening skies she saw;

Serene, yet firm; though mild, impressing awe:

Her nervous arm, inured to toils severe,

Brandished th’ unconquered Caledonian spear:

The dreadful falchion of the hills she wore,}

Sung to the harp in many a tale of yore,}

That oft her rivers dyed with hostile gore.}

Blue was her rocky shield; her piercing eye

Flashed like the meteors of her native sky;

Her crest, high-plumed, was rough with many a scar,

And o’er her helmet gleamed the northern star.

The warrior youth appeared of noble frame,

The hardy offspring of some rustic dame:

Loose o’er his shoulders hung the slackened bow,

Renowned in song, the terror of the foe!

The sword that oft the barbarous North defy’d,

The scourge of tyrants! glittered by his side:

Clad in refulgent arms in battle won,

The George emblazoned on his corselet shone;

Fast by his side was seen a golden lyre,

Pregnant with numbers of eternal fire;

Whose strings unlock the witches’ midnight spell,

Or waft rapt fancy through the gulphs of hell:

Struck with contagion, kindling fancy hears

The songs of heaven, the music of the spheres!

Borne on Newtonian wing through air she flies,

Where other suns to other systems rise.

These front the scene conspicuous; overhead

Albion’s proud oak his filial branches spread:

While on the sea-beat shore obsequious stood,

Beneath their feet, the father of the flood:

Here, the bold native of her cliffs above,

Perched by the martial maid the bird of Jove;

There, on the watch, sagacious of his prey,

With eyes of fire, an English mastiff lay;

Yonder fair Commerce stretched her winged sail,

Here, frowned the god that wakes the living gale.

High o’er the poop, the flattering winds unfurled

Th’ imperial flag that rules the watery world.

Deep blushingArmorsall the tops invest,

And warlike trophies either quarter drest:

Then towered the masts, the canvass swelled on high,

And waving streamers floated in the sky.

Thus the rich vessel moves in trim array,

Like some fair virgin on her bridal day;

Thus, like a swan, she cleaved the watery plain,

The pride and wonder of th’ Ægean main.

END OF THE FIRST CANTO.

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