THIRD CANTO.

THIRD CANTO.THE SCENE IS EXTENDED FROM THAT PART OF THE ARCHIPELAGO WHICH LIES TEN MILES TO THE NORTHWARD OF FALCONERA, TO CAPE COLONNA IN ATTICA.THE TIME ABOUT SEVEN HOURS,—FROM ONE, UNTIL EIGHT IN THE MORNING.

THE SCENE IS EXTENDED FROM THAT PART OF THE ARCHIPELAGO WHICH LIES TEN MILES TO THE NORTHWARD OF FALCONERA, TO CAPE COLONNA IN ATTICA.

THE TIME ABOUT SEVEN HOURS,—FROM ONE, UNTIL EIGHT IN THE MORNING.

I. The beneficial influence of Poetry in the civilization of Mankind—Diffidence of the Author.—II. Wreck of the Mizen-mast cleared away—Ship put before the Wind—Labours much—Different stations of the Officers—Appearance of the Island of Falconera.—III. Excursion to the adjacent Nations of Greece renowned in Antiquity—Athens—Socrates—Plato—Aristides—Solon—Corinth—Its Architecture—Sparta—Leonidas—Invasion by Xerxes—Lycurgus—Epaminondas—Present state of the Spartans—Arcadia—Former happiness and fertility—Its present distress the effect of Slavery—Ithaca—Ulysses and Penelope—Argos and Mycæne—Agamemnon—Macronisi—Lemnos—Vulcan—Delos—Apollo and Diana—Troy—Sestos—Leander and Hero—Delphos—Temple of Apollo—Parnassus—The Muses.—IV. Subject resumed—Address to the Spirits of the Storm—A Tempest, accompanied with Rain, Hail, and Meteors—Darkness of the Night, Lightning and Thunder—Day-break—St. George’s Cliffs open upon them—The Ship, in great danger, passes the Island of St. George.—V. Land of Athens appears—Helmsman struck blind by Lightning—Ship laid broadside to the Shore—Bowsprit, Foremast, and Main Top-mast carried away—Albert, Rodmond, Arion, and Palemon strive to save themselves on the wreck of the Foremast—The Ship parts asunder—Death of Albert and Rodmond—Arion reaches the Shore—Finds Palemon expiring on the Beach—His dying Address to Arion, who is led away by the humane Natives.

THESHIPWRECK.

CANTO III.

Hadst thou, soft Maiden! in this hour of woeBeheld him writhing from the deadly blow,What force of art, what language could expressThine agony, thine exquisite distress?DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL, R.A. ENGRAVED BY F. ENGLEHEART.PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY,OCT. 1, 1819.

Hadst thou, soft Maiden! in this hour of woeBeheld him writhing from the deadly blow,What force of art, what language could expressThine agony, thine exquisite distress?

Hadst thou, soft Maiden! in this hour of woe

Beheld him writhing from the deadly blow,

What force of art, what language could express

Thine agony, thine exquisite distress?

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

I. When in a barbarous age, with blood defil’d,The human savage roamed the gloomy wild;When sullen Ignorance her flag displayed,And Rapine, and Revenge her voice obeyed;Sent from the shores of light the Muses cameThe dark and solitary race to tame,The war of lawless passions to controul,To melt in tender sympathy the soul;The heart’s remote recesses to explore,And touch its springs when prose availed no more:The kindling spirit caught th’ empyreal ray,And glowed congenial with the swelling lay;Roused from the chaos of primeval night,At once fair Truth and Reason sprung to light.When great Mæonides, in rapid song,The thundering tide of battle rolls along,Each ravished bosom feels the high alarms,And all the burning pulses beat to arms;Hence, War’s terrific glory to display,Became the theme of every epic lay:But when his strings with mournful magic tellWhat dire distress Laertes’ son befel,The strains meand’ring through the maze of woeBid sacred sympathy the heart o’erflow;Far through the boundless realms of thought he springs,From earth upborne on Pegasean wings,While distant poets, trembling as they viewHis sunward flight, the dazzling track pursue;His magic voice that rouses and delights,Allures and guides to climb Olympian heights:But I, alas! through scenes bewildered stray,Far from the light of his unerring ray;While, all unused the wayward path to tread,Darkling I wander with prophetic dread;To me in vain the bold Mæonian lyreAwakes the numbers fraught with living fire;Full oft indeed that mournful harp of yoreWept the sad wanderer lost upon the shore;’Tis true he lightly sketched the bold design,But toils more joyless, more severe are mine;Since o’er that scene his genius swiftly ran,Subservient only to a nobler plan:But I, perplexed in labyrinths of art,Anatomize, and blazon every part;Attempt with plaintive numbers to display,And chain th’ events in regular array;Though hard the task to sing in varied strains,When still unchanged the same sad theme remains;O could it draw compassion’s melting tearFor kindred miseries, oft beheld too near!For kindred wretches, oft in ruin castOn Albion’s strand beneath the wintery blast;For all the pangs, the complicated woe,Her bravest sons, her guardian sailors know;Then every breast should sigh at our distress—This were the summit of my hoped success!For this, my theme through mazes I pursue,Which nor Mæonides, nor Maro knew.II. Awhile the mast, in ruins dragged behind,Balanced th’ impression of the helm and wind;The wounded serpent, agonized with pain,Thus trails his mangled volume on the plain:But now, the wreck dissevered from the rear,The long reluctant prow began to veer;While round before th’ enlarging wind it falls,“Square fore and aft the yards,” the master calls:“You timoneers her motion still attend,For on your steerage all our lives depend:So, steady! meet her! watch the curving prow,And from the gale directly let her go.”“Starboard again!” the watchful pilot cries,“Starboard!” th’ obedient timoneer replies:Then back to port, revolving at command,The wheel rolls swiftly through each glowing hand.The ship no longer, foundering by the lee,Bears on her side the invasions of the sea;All lonely o’er the desert waste she flies,Scourged on by surges, storms, and bursting skies:As when enclosing harpooners assailIn Hyperborean seas the slumb’ring whale,Soon as their javelins pierce his scaly side,He groans, he darts impetuous down the tide;And racked all o’er with lacerating pain,He flies remote beneath the flood in vain—So with resistless haste the wounded shipScuds from pursuing waves along the deep;While, dashed apart by her dividing prow,Like burning adamant the waters glow;Her joints forget their firm elastic tone,Her long keel trembles, and her timbers groan:Upheaved behind her in tremendous heightThe billows frown, with fearful radiance bright:Now quivering o’er the topmost wave she rides,While deep beneath th’ enormous gulf divides;Now launching headlong down the horrid vale,Becalmed, she hears no more the howling gale;Till up the dreadful height again she flies,Trembling beneath the current of the skies:As that rebellious angel, who, from heaven,To regions of eternal pain was driven,When dreadless he forsook the Stygian shoreThe distant realms of Eden to explore;Here, on sulphureous clouds sublime upheaved,With daring wing th’ infernal air he cleaved;There, in some hideous gulf descending prone,Far in the void abrupt of night was known—E’en so she climbs the briny mountain’s height,Then down the black abyss precipitates her flight:The masts, about whose tops the whirlwinds sing,With long vibration round her axle swing.To guide her wayward course amid the gloom,The watchful pilots different posts assume:Albert and Rodmond on the poop appear,There to direct each guiding timoneer;While at the bow the watch Arion keeps,To shun what cruisers wander o’er the deeps:Where’er he moves Palemon still attends,As if on him his only hope depends;While Rodmond, fearful of some neighbouring shore,Cries, ever and anon, ‘Look out afore!’Thus o’er the flood four hours she scudding flew,When Falconera’s rugged cliffs they view,Faintly along the larboard bow descried,As o’er its mountain tops the lightnings glide;High o’er its summit, through the gloom of night,The glimmering watch tower cast a mournful light:In dire amazement rivetted they stand,And hear the breakers lash the rugged strand—But scarce perceived, when past the beam it flies,Swift as the rapid eagle cleaves the skies;That danger past reflects a feeble joy,But soon returning fears their hope destroy;As in th’ Atlantic Ocean, when we findSome alp of ice driv’n southward by the wind,The sultry air all sickening pants around,In deluges of torrid ether drown’d;Till when the floating isle approaches nigh,In cooling tides th’ aërial billows fly:Awhile delivered from the scorching heat,In gentler tides our feverish pulses beat:Such transient pleasure, as they passed this strand,A moment bade their throbbing hearts expand;Th’ illusive meteors of a lifeless fire,Too soon they kindle, and too soon expire.III. Say, Memory! thou, from whose unerring tongueInstructive flows the animated song,What regions now the scudding ship surround?Regions of old through all the world renown’d;That, once the Poet’s theme, the Muses’ boast,Now lie in ruins, in oblivion lost!Did they, whose sad distress these lays deplore,}Unskilled in Grecian, or in Roman lore,}Unconscious pass along each famous shore?}They did: for in this desert, joyless soil,No flowers of genial science deign to smile;Sad ocean’s genius, in untimely hour,Withers the bloom of every springing flower;For native tempests here with blasting breath,Despoil, and doom the vernal buds to death;Here fancy droops, while sullen clouds, and storm,The generous temper of the soul deform:Then, if among the wandering naval train,One stripling, exiled from th’ Aonian plain,Had e’er, entranced in Fancy’s soothing dream,Approached to taste the sweet Castalian stream;(Since those salubrious streams, with power divine,To purer sense the softened soul refine)Sure he, amid unsocial mates immured,To learning lost, severer grief endured;In vain might Phœbus’ ray his mind inspire,Since Fate with torrents quenched the kindling fire:If one this pain of living death possess’d,It dwelt supreme, Arion! in thy breast;When, with Palemon, watching in the nightBeneath pale Cynthia’s melancholy light,You oft recounted those surrounding states,Whose glory Fame with brazen tongue relates.Immortal Athens first, in ruin spread,Contiguous lies at Port Liono’s head;Great source of science! whose immortal nameStands foremost in the glorious roll of Fame;Here god-like Socrates, and Plato shone,And, firm to truth, eternal honour won;The first in Virtue’s cause his life resigned,By Heaven pronounced the wisest of mankind;The last proclaimed the spark of vital fire,The Soul’s fine essence, never could expire;Here Solon dwelt, the philosophic sageThat fled Pisistratus’ vindictive rage;Just Aristides here maintained the cause,Whose sacred precepts shine through Solon’s laws:Of all her towering structures, now aloneSome columns stand, with mantling weeds o’ergrown;The wandering stranger near the port descriesA milk-white lion of stupendous size,Of antique marble; hence the haven’s name,Unknown to modern natives whence it came.Next, in the gulf of Engia, Corinth lies,Whose gorgeous fabrics seemed to strike the skies;Whom, though by tyrant victors oft subdued,Greece, Egypt, Rome, with admiration viewed:Her name, for architecture long renown’d,Spread like the foliage which her pillars crowned;But now, in fatal desolation laid,Oblivion o’er it draws a dismal shade.Then further westward, on Morea’s land,Fair Misitra! thy modern turrets stand:Ah! who, unmoved with secret woe, can tellThat here great Lacedæmon’s glory fell;Here once she flourished, at whose trumpet’s soundWar burst his chains, and nations shook around;Here brave Leonidas from shore to shoreThrough all Achaia bade her thunders roar:He, when imperial Xerxes from afarAdvanced with Persia’s sumless hosts to war,Till Macedonia shrunk beneath his spear,And Greece all shuddered as the chief drew near;He, at Thermopylæ’s decisive plain,Their force opposed with Sparta’s glorious train;Tall Oeta saw the tyrant’s conquered bandsIn gasping millions bleed on hostile lands:Thus vanquished, haughty Asia heard thy name,And Thebes, and Athens, sickened at thy fame;Thy state, supported by Lycurgus’ laws,Gained, like thine arms, superlative applause;E’en great Epaminondas strove in vainTo curb thy spirit with a Theban chain:But ah! how low that free-born spirit now!Thy abject sons to haughty tyrants bow;A false, degenerate, superstitious raceInvest thy region, and its name disgrace.Not distant far, Arcadia’s blest domainsPeloponnesus’ circling shore contains:Thrice happy soil! where still serenely gay,Indulgent Flora breathed perpetual May:Where buxom Ceres bade each fertile fieldSpontaneous gifts in rich profusion yield;Then, with some rural nymph supremely blest,While transport glowed in each enamoured breast,Each faithful shepherd told his tender pain,And sung of sylvan sports in artless strain;Soft as the happy swain’s enchanting layThat pipes among ‘The Shades of Endermay:’Now, sad reverse! Oppression’s iron handEnslaves her natives, and despoils her land;In lawless rapine bred, a sanguine train,With midnight ravage, scour th’ uncultured plain.Westward of these, beyond the Isthmus, liesThe long sought Isle of Ithacus the wise;Where fair Penelope, of him deprived,To guard her honour endless schemes contrived:She, only shielded by her stripling son,Her lord Ulysses long to Ilion gone,Each bold attempt of suitor-kings repell’d,And undefiled her nuptial contract held;True to her vows, and resolutely chaste,Met arts with art, and triumphed at the last.Argos, in Greece forgotten and unknown,Still seems her cruel fortune to bemoan:Argos, whose monarch led the Grecian hostsAcross th’ Ægean main to Dardan coasts:Unhappy prince! who, on a hostile shore,Fatigue, and danger, ten long winters bore;And when to native realms restored at lastTo reap the harvest of thy labours past,There found a perjured friend, and faithless wife,Who sacrificed to impious lust thy life:Fast by Arcadia stretch these desert plains,And o’er the land a gloomy tyrant reigns.Next Macronisi is adjacent seen,Where adverse winds detained the Spartan queen;For whom, in arms combined, the Grecian host,With vengeance fired, invaded Phrygia’s coast;For whom so long they laboured to destroyThe lofty turrets of imperial Troy;Here driven by Juno’s rage, the hapless dame,Forlorn of heart, from ruined Ilion came;The port an image bears of Parian stone,Of ancient fabric, but of date unknown.Due east from this appears th’ immortal shoreThat sacred Phœbus, and Diana bore,Delos! through all th’ Ægean seas renown’d,Whose coast the rocky Cyclades surround;By Phœbus honoured, and by Greece revered,Her hallowed groves e’en distant Persia feared:But now a desert unfrequented land,No human footstep marks the trackless sand.Thence to the north by Asia’s western boundFair Lemnos stands, with rising marble crown’d;Where, in her rage, avenging Juno hurl’dIll-fated Vulcan from th’ ethereal world:There his eternal anvils first he reared;Then, forged by Cyclopean art, appearedThunders that shook the skies with dire alarms,And formed by skill divine, immortal arms;There, with this crippled wretch, the foul disgraceAnd living scandal of th’ empyreal race,In wedlock lived the beauteous Queen of Love;Can such sensations heavenly bosoms move!Eastward of this appears the Dardan shore,That once th’ imperial towers of Ilium bore,Illustrious Troy! renowned in every climeThrough the long records of succeeding time;Who saw protecting gods from heaven descendFull oft thy royal bulwarks to defend:Though chiefs unnumbered in her cause were slain,With Fate the gods, and heroes, fought in vain!That refuge of perfidious Helen’s shame,At midnight was involved in Grecian flame;And now, by Time’s deep ploughshare harrowed o’er,The seat of sacred Troy is found no more:No trace of her proud fabrics now remains,But corn, and vines, enrich her cultured plains;Silver Scamander laves the verdant shore,Scamander, oft o’erflowed with hostile gore.Nor far removed from Ilion’s famous landIn counter-view appears the Thracian strand,Where beauteous Hero, from the turret’s height,Displayed her cresset each revolving night;Whose gleam directed loved Leander o’erThe rolling Hellespont from Asia’s shore:Till in a fated hour, on Thracia’s coast,She saw her lover’s lifeless body tost;Then felt her bosom agony severe,Her eyes, sad gazing, poured th’ incessant tear;O’erwhelmed with anguish, frantic with despair,She beat her swelling breast, and tore her hair;On dear Leander’s name in vain she cried,Then headlong plunged into the parting tide:Th’ exulting tide received the lovely maid,And proudly from the strand its freight convey’d.Far west of Thrace, beyond th’ Ægean main,Remote from ocean lies the Delphic plain:The sacred oracle of Phœbus thereHigh o’er the mount arose, divinely fair!Achaian marble formed the gorgeous pile,August the fabric! elegant its style!On brazen hinges turned the silver doors,And chequered marble paved the polished floors;The roof, where storied tablature appeared,On columns of Corinthian mould was reared;Of shining porphyry the shafts were framed,And round the hollow dome bright jewels flamed:Apollo’s priests, before the holy shrineSuppliant, poured forth their orisons divine;To front the sun’s declining ray ’twas placed,With golden harps and branching laurels graced:Around the fane, engraved by Vulcan’s hand,The sciences and arts were seen to stand;Here Æsculapius’ snake displayed his crest,And burning glories sparkled on his breast;While from his eye’s insufferable light,Disease and death recoiled in headlong flight:Of this great temple, through all time renowned,Sunk in oblivion, no remains are found.Contiguous here, with hallowed woods o’erspread,Renowned Parnassus lifts its honoured head;There roses blossom in eternal spring,And strains celestial feathered warblers sing:Apollo, here, bestows th’ unfading wreath;Here zephyrs aromatic odours breathe;They o’er Castalian plains diffuse perfume,Where round the scene perennial laurels bloom;Fair daughters of the Sun, the sacred Nine!Here wake to ecstasy their harps divine,Or bid the Paphian lute mellifluous play,And tune to plaintive love the liquid lay;Their numbers every mental storm controul,And lull to harmony th’ afflicted soul,With heavenly balm the tortured breast compose,And soothe the agony of latent woes:The verdant shades that Helicon surround,On rosy gales seraphic tunes resound:Perpetual summers crown the happy hours,Sweet as the breath that fans Elysian flowers:Hence pleasure dances in an endless round,And love and joy, ineffable, abound.IV. Stop, wandering thought! methinks I feel their strainsDiffuse delicious languor through my veins:Adieu, ye flow’ry vales, and fragrant scenes,Delightful bowers, and ever vernal greens!Adieu, ye streams! that o’er enchanted groundIn lucid maze th’ Aonian hill surround;Ye fairy scenes! where fancy loves to dwell,And young delight, for ever, oh! farewell!The soul with tender luxury you fill,And o’er the sense Lethean dews distil—Awake, O Memory! from th’ inglorious dream,With brazen lungs resume the kindling theme;Collect thy powers, arouse thy vital fire,Ye spirits of the storm my verse inspire!Hoarse as the whirlwinds that enrage the main,In torrent pour along the swelling strain.Now, through the parting wave impetuous bore,The scudding vessel stemmed th’ Athenian shore;The pilots, as the waves behind her swell,Still with the wheeling stern their force repel;For this assault should either quarter feel,Again to flank the tempest she might reel:The steersmen every bidden turn apply,To right and left, the spokes alternate fly—Thus, when some conquered host retreats in fear,The bravest leaders guard the broken rear;Indignant they retire, and long opposeSuperior armies that around them close;Still shield the flanks, the routed squadrons join,And guide the flight in one continued line:Thus they direct the flying bark beforeTh’ impelling floods, that lash her to the shore:High o’er the poop th’ audacious seas aspire,Uprolled in hills of fluctuating fire;With lab’ring throes she rolls on either side,And dips her gunnels in the yawning tide;Her joints unhinged in palsied languors play,As ice-flakes part beneath the noon-tide ray:The gale howls doleful through the blocks and shrouds,And big rain pours a deluge from the clouds;From wintery magazines that sweep the sky,Descending globes of hail impetuous fly:High on the masts, with pale and livid rays,Amid the gloom portentous meteors blaze;Th’ ethereal dome in mournful pomp array’dNow buried lies beneath impervious shade,Now, flashing round intolerable light,Redoubles all the horror of the night—Such terror Sinai’s trembling hill o’erspread,When Heaven’s loud trumpet sounded o’er its head:It seemed, the wrathful angel of the wind,Had all the horrors of the skies combin’d,And here, to one ill-fated ship opposed,At once the dreadful magazine disclosed:And lo! tremendous o’er the deep he springs,Th’ inflaming sulphur flashing from his wings;Hark! his strong voice the dismal silence breaks,Mad Chaos from the chains of death awakes:Loud, and more loud, the rolling peals enlarge,And blue on deck the fiery tides discharge;There all aghast the shivering wretches stood,While chill suspense and fear congealed their blood;Wide burst in dazzling sheets the living flame,And dread concussion rends th’ ethereal frame;Sick earth convulsive groans from shore to shore,And nature, shuddering, feels the horrid roar.Still the sad prospect rises on my sight,Revealed in all its mournful shade and light;E’en now my ear with quick vibration feelsTh’ explosion burst in strong rebounding peals;Swift through my pulses glides the kindling fire,As lightning glances on th’ electric wire:Yet ah! the languid colours vainly striveTo bid the scene in native hues revive.But lo! at last, from tenfold darkness born,Forth issues o’er the wave the weeping morn:Hail, sacred Vision! who, on orient wings,The cheering dawn of light propitious brings;All nature smiling hailed the vivid rayThat gave her beauties to returning day,All but our ship! which, groaning on the tide,No kind relief, no gleam of hope descried;For now in front her trembling inmates seeThe hills of Greece emerging on the lee—So the lost lover views that fatal morn,On which for ever from his bosom torn,The maid adored resigns her blooming charms,To bless with love some happier rival’s arms;So to Eliza dawned that cruel dayThat tore Æneas from her sight away,That saw him parting never to return,Herself in funeral flames decreed to burn.O yet in clouds, thou genial Source of Light!Conceal thy radiant glories from our sight;Go, with thy smile adorn thy happy plain,And gild the scenes where health and pleasure reign:But let not here, in scorn, thy wanton beamInsult the dreadful grandeur of my theme.While shoreward now the bounding vessel flies,Full in her van St. George’s Cliffs arise;High o’er the rest a pointed crag is seen,That hung projecting o’er a mossy green;Huge breakers on the larboard bow appear,And full a-head its eastern ledges bear:To steer more eastward Albert still commands,And shun, if possible, the fatal strands—Nearer and nearer now the danger grows,And all their skill relentless fates oppose;For while more eastward they direct the prow,Enormous waves the quivering deck o’erflow;While, as she wheels, unable to subdueHer sallies, still they dread her broaching-to:Alarming thought! for now no more a-leeHer trembling side could bear the mountained sea,And if pursuing waves she scuds before,Headlong she runs upon the frightful shore;A shore, where shelves and hidden rocks abound,Where death in secret ambush lurks around:Not half so dreadful to Æneas’ eyesThe Straits of Sicily were seen to rise,When Palinurus from the helm descry’d,The Rocks of Scylla on his eastern side,While in the west, with hideous yawn disclosed,His onward path Charybdis’ gulph opposed;The double danger he alternate viewed,And cautiously his arduous track pursued:Thus, while to right and left destruction lies,Between the extremes the daring vessel flies;With terrible irruption bursting o’erThe marble cliffs, tremendous surges roar;Hoarse thro’ each winding creek the tempest raves,And hollow rocks repeat the groan of waves:Should once the bottom strike this cruel shore,The parting ship that instant is no more;Nor she alone, but with her all the crewBeyond relief are doomed to perish too:But haply she escapes the dreadful strand,Though scarce her length in distance from the land;Swift as the weapon quits the Scythian bow,She cleaves the burning billows with her prow,And forward hurrying with impetuous haste,Borne on the tempest’s wings the isle she past:With longing eyes, and agony of mind,The sailors view this refuge left behind;Happy to bribe with India’s richest oreA safe accession to that barren shore—When in the dark Peruvian mine confin’d,Lost to the cheerful commerce of mankind,The groaning captive wastes his life away,For ever exiled from the realms of day,Not half such pangs his bosom agonizeWhen up to distant light he rolls his eyes!Where the broad sun, in his diurnal wayImparts to all beside his vivid ray,While, all forlorn, the victim pines in vainFor scenes he never shall possess again.V. But now Athenian mountains they descry,And o’er the surge Colonna frowns on high:Where marble columns, long by time defaced,Moss-covered on the lofty cape are placed;There reared by fair devotion to sustainTn elder times Tritonia’s sacred fane;The circling beach in murderous form appears,Decisive goal of all their hopes and fears:The seamen now in wild amazement seeThe scene of ruin rise beneath their lee;Swift from their minds elapsed all dangers past,As dumb with terror they behold the last.And now, while winged with ruin from on high,Through the rent cloud the ragged lightnings fly,A flash, quick glancing on the nerves of light,Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night:Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind,Touched with compassion gazed upon the blind;And, while around his sad companions crowd,He guides th’ unhappy victim to the shroud:‘Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend!’ he cries;‘Thy only succour on the mast relies.’The helm, bereft of half its vital force,Now scarce subdued the wild unbridled course;Quick to th’ abandoned wheel Arion came,The ship’s tempestuous sallies to reclaim:The vessel, while the dread event draws nigh,Seems more impatient o’er the waves to fly;Fate spurs her on!—Thus, issuing from afar,Advances to the sun some blazing star,And, as it feels Attraction’s kindling force,Springs onward with accelerated course.The moment fraught with fate approaches fast!While thronging sailors climb each quivering mast;The ship no longer now must stem the land,And, ‘hard a starboard!’ is the last command:While every suppliant voice to Heaven applies,The prow, swift wheeling, to the westward flies;Twelve sailors, on the foremast who depend,High on the platform of the top ascend,Fatal retreat! for, while the plunging prowImmerges headlong in the wave below,Down prest by watery weight the bowsprit bends,And from above the stem deep-crashing rends:Beneath her bow the floating ruins lie;The foremast totters, unsustained on high;And now the ship, forelifted by the sea,Hurls the tall fabric backward o’er her lee;While, in the general wreck, the faithful stayDrags the main topmast by the cap away:Flung from the mast, the seamen strive in vain,Through hostile floods, their vessel to regain;Weak Hope, alas! they buffet long the wave,And grasp at life though sinking in the grave;Till all exhausted, and bereft of strength,O’erpowered they yield to cruel fate at lengthThe burying waters close around their head,They sink! for ever numbered with the dead.Those who remain the weather shrouds embrace,Nor longer mourn their lost companions’ case;Transfixt with terror at th’ approaching doom,Self pity in their breasts alone has room:Albert, and Rodmond, and Palemon, nearWith young Arion, on the mast appear;E’en they, amid th’ unspeakable distress,In every look distracting thoughts confess,In every vein the refluent blood congeals,And every bosom mortal terror feels;Begirt with all the horrors of the mainThey viewed th’ adjacent shore, but viewed in vain:Such torments in the drear abodes of hell,Where sad despair laments with rueful yell,Such torments agonize the damned breast,That sees remote the mansions of the blest.It comes! the dire Catastrophe draws near,Lashed furious on by destiny severe:The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death,Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath!O yet confirm my heart, ye powers above!This last tremendous shock of fate to prove;The tottering frame of reason yet sustain,Nor let this total havoc whirl my brain:Since I, all trembling in extreme distress,Must still the horrible result express.In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yoreWould arm the mind with philosophic lore;In vain they’d teach us, at the latest breathTo smile serene amid the pangs of death:Immortal Zeno’s self would trembling seeInexorable fate beneath the lee;And Epictetus at the sight, in vainAttempt his stoic firmness to retain;Had Socrates, for godlike virtue famed,And wisest of the sons of men proclaimed,Spectator of such various horrors been,E’en he had staggered at this dreadful scene.In vain the cords and axes were prepar’d,For every wave now smites the quivering yard;High o’er the ship they throw a dreadful shade,Then on her burst in terrible cascade;Across the foundered deck o’erwhelming roar,And foaming, swelling, bound upon the shore.Swift up the mounting billow now she flies,Her shattered top half buried in the skies;Borne o’er a latent reef the hull impends,Then thundering on the marble crags descends:Her ponderous bulk the dire concussion feels,And o’er upheaving surges wounded reels—Again she plunges! hark! a second shockBilges the splitting vessel on the rock.—Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,The fated victims shuddering cast their eyesIn wild despair; while yet another stroke,With strong convulsion rends the solid oak:Ah Heaven!—behold her crashing ribs divide!She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o’er the tide.Oh, were it mine with sacred Maro’s artTo wake to sympathy the feeling heart,Like him, the smooth and mournful verse to dressIn all the pomp of exquisite distress;Then, too severely taught by cruel fate,To share in all the perils I relate,Then might I, with unrivalled strains, deploreTh’ impervious horrors of a leeward shore.As o’er the surf the bending mainmast hung,Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung:Some on a broken crag were struggling cast,And there by oozy tangles grappled fast;Awhile they bore th’ o’erwhelming billows’ rage,Unequal combat with their fate to wage;Till all benumed, and feeble, they foregoTheir slippery hold, and sink to shades below:Some, from the main yard-arm impetuous thrownOn marble ridges, die without a groan:Three with Palemon on their skill depend,And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend;Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride,Then downward plunge beneath th’ involving tide;Till one, who seems in agony to strive,The whirling breakers heave on shore alive:The rest a speedier end of anguish knew,And prest the stony beach a lifeless crew!Next, O unhappy chief! th’ eternal doomOf Heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb:What scenes of misery torment thy view!What painful struggles of thy dying crew!Thy perished hopes all buried in the floodO’erspread with corses, red with human blood!So pierced with anguish hoary Priam gazed,When Troy’s imperial domes in ruin blazed;While he, severest sorrow doomed to feel,Expired beneath the victor’s murdering steel—Thus with his helpless partners to the last,Sad refuge! Albert grasps the floating mast.His soul could yet sustain this mortal blow,But droops, alas! beneath superior woe;For now strong Nature’s sympathetic chainTugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain:His faithful wife, for ever doom’d to mournFor him, alas! who never shall return,To black Adversity’s approach exposed,With want, and hardships unforeseen enclosed;His lovely daughter, left without a friendHer innocence to succour and defend,By youth and indigence set forth a preyTo lawless guilt, that flatters to betray—While these reflections rack his feeling mind,Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resign’d;And, as the tumbling waters o’er him roll’d,His outstretched arms the master’s legs enfold:Sad Albert feels their dissolution near,}And strives in vain his fettered limbs to clear,}For death bids every clenching joint adhere:}All faint, to Heaven he throws his dying eyes,And, ‘Oh, protect my wife and child!’ he cries—The gushing streams roll back th’ unfinished sound,He gasps! and sinks amid the vast profound.Five only left of all the shipwrecked throngYet ride the mast which shoreward drives along;With these Arion still his hold secures,And all assaults of hostile waves endures:O’er the dire prospect as for life he strives,He looks if poor Palemon yet survives—“Ah wherefore, trusting to unequal art,Didst thou, incautious! from the wreck depart!Alas! these rocks all human skill defy;Who strikes them once, beyond relief must die:And now sore wounded, thou perhaps art tostOn these, or in some oozy cavern lost:”Thus thought Arion; anxious gazing roundIn vain, his eyes no more Palemon found.—The demons of destruction hover nigh,And thick their mortal shafts commissioned fly:When now a breaking surge, with forceful sway,Two, next Arion, furious tears away:Hurled on the crags, behold they gasp, they bleed!And groaning, cling upon th’ elusive weed;Another billow bursts in boundless roar!Arion sinks! and Memory views no more.Ha! total night and horror here preside,My stunned ear tingles to the whizzing tide;It is their funeral knell! and gliding nearMethinks the phantoms of the dead appear;But lo! emerging from the watery graveAgain they float incumbent on the wave,Again the dismal prospect opens round,The wreck, the shore, the dying, and the drown’d!And see! enfeebled by repeated shocks,Those two, who scramble on th’ adjacent rocks,Their faithless hold no longer can retain,They sink o’erwhelmed! and never rise again.Two with Arion yet the mast upbore,That now above the ridges reached the shore;Still trembling to descend, they downward gazeWith horror pale, and torpid with amaze:The floods recoil! the ground appears below!And life’s faint embers now rekindling glow;Awhile they wait th’ exhausted waves’ retreat,Then climb slow up the beach with hands and feet.O Heaven! delivered by whose sovereign handStill on destruction’s brink they shuddering stand,Receive the languid incense they bestow,That, damp with death, appears not yet to glow;Totheeeach soul the warm oblation paysWith trembling ardour of unequal praise;In every heart dismay with wonder strives,And hope the sickened spark of life revives,Her magic powers their exiled health restore,Till horror and despair are felt no more.Roused by the blustering tempest of the night,A troop of Grecians mount Colonna’s height;When, gazing down with horror on the flood,Full to their view the scene of ruin stood—The surf with mangled bodies strewed around,And those yet breathing on the sea-washed ground:Though lost to science and the nobler arts,Yet Nature’s lore informed their feeling hearts;Straight down the vale with hastening steps they hied,Th’ unhappy sufferers to assist, and guide.Meanwhile, those three escaped, beneath exploreThe first advent’rous youth who reached the shore:Panting, with eyes averted from the day,Prone, helpless, on the tangly beach he lay.It is Palemon! oh, what tumults rollWith hope and terror in Arion’s soul;‘If yet unhurt he lives again to viewHis friend, and this sole remnant of our crew,With us to travel through this foreign zone,And share the future good or ill unknown?’Arion thus; but ah, sad doom of Fate!That bleeding Memory sorrows to relate;While yet afloat, on some resisting rockHis ribs were dashed, and fractured with the shock:Heart-piercing sight! those cheeks so late array’dIn beauty’s bloom, are pale with mortal shade;Distilling blood his lovely breast o’erspread,And clogged the golden tresses of his head:Nor yet the lungs by this pernicious strokeWere wounded, or the vocal organs broke.Down from his neck, with blazing gems arrayed,Thy image, lovely Anna! hung portrayed;Th’ unconscious figure, smiling all serene,Suspended in a golden chain was seen:Hadst thou, soft maiden! in this hour of woeBeheld him writhing from the deadly blow,What force of art, what language could expressThine agony, thine exquisite distress?But thou, alas! art doomed to weep in vainFor him thine eyes shall never see again.With dumb amazement pale, Arion gazed,And cautiously the wounded youth upraised;Palemon then, with equal pangs opprest,In faltering accents thus his friend addrest:“O rescued from destruction late so nigh,Beneath whose fatal influence doomed I lie;Are we then, exiled to this last retreatOf life, unhappy! thus decreed to meet?Ah! how unlike what yester-morn enjoyed,Enchanting hopes! for ever now destroyed;For wounded, far beyond all healing power,Palemon dies, and this his final hour:By those fell breakers, where in vain I strove,At once cut off from fortune, life, and love!Far other scenes must soon present my sight,That lie deep-buried yet in tenfold night.—Ah! wretched father of a wretched son,Whom thy paternal prudence has undone;How will remembrance of this blinded careBend down thy head with anguish, and despair!Such dire effects from Avarice arise,That, deaf to Nature’s voice, and vainly wise,With force severe endeavours to controulThe noblest passions that inspire the soul.But, O Thou sacred Power! whose law connectsTh’ eternal chain of causes and effects,Let not thy chastening ministers of rageAfflict with sharp remorse his feeble age:And you, Arion! who with these the lastOf all our crew survive the Shipwreck past—Ah! cease to mourn, those friendly tears restrain,Nor give my dying moments keener pain!Since Heaven may soon thy wandering steps restore,When parted hence, to England’s distant shore;Shouldst thou, th’ unwilling messenger of Fate,To him the tragic story first relate;Oh! Friendship’s generous ardour then suppress,Nor hint the fatal cause of my distress;Nor let each horrid incident sustainThe lengthened tale to aggravate his pain:Ah! then remember well my last requestFor her who reigns for ever in my breast;Yet let him prove a father and a friend,The helpless maid to succour and defend—Say, I this suit implored with parting breath,So Heaven befriend him at his hour of death!But, oh! to lovely Anna shouldst thou tellWhat dire untimely end thy friend befel;Draw o’er the dismal scene soft Pity’s veil,And lightly touch the lamentable tale:Say that my love, inviolably true,No change, no diminution ever knew;Lo! her bright image pendent on my neckIs all Palemon rescued from the wreck;Take it! and say, when panting in the waveI struggled life and this alone to save.“My soul, that fluttering hastens to be free,Would yet a train of thoughts impart to thee,But strives in vain; the chilling ice of DeathCongeals my blood, and choaks the stream of breath;Resigned, she quits her comfortless abodeTo course that long, unknown, eternal road—O sacred Source of ever-living Light!Conduct the weary wanderer in her flight;Direct her onward to that peaceful shore,Where peril, pain, and death prevail no more.“When thou some tale of hapless love shalt hear,That steals from Pity’s eye the melting tear;Of two chaste hearts, by mutual passion joined,To absence, sorrow, and despair consigned;Oh! then, to swell the tides of social woeThat heal th’ afflicted bosom they o’erflow,While Memory dictates, this sad Shipwreck tell,And what distress thy wretched friend befel:Then, while in streams of soft compassion drown’d,The swains lament, and maidens weep around;While lisping children, touched with infant fear,With wonder gaze, and drop th’ unconscious tear;Oh! then this moral bid their souls retain,All thoughts of happiness on earth are vain!”The last faint accents trembled on his tongue,That now inactive to the palate clung;His bosom heaves a mortal groan—he dies!And shades eternal sink upon his eyes.As thus defaced in death Palemon lay,Arion gazed upon the lifeless clay;Transfixed he stood, with awful terror filled,While down his cheek the silent drops distilled:“O ill-starred votary of unspotted truth!Untimely perished in the bloom of youth;Should e’er thy friend arrive on Albion’s land,He will obey, though painful, thy command;His tongue the dreadful story shall display,And all the horrors of this dismal day:Disastrous day! what ruin hast thou bred,What anguish to the living and the dead!How hast thou left the widow all forlorn;And ever doomed the orphan child to mourn,Through Life’s sad journey hopeless to complain:Can sacred Justice these events ordain?But, O my soul! avoid that wondrous mazeWhere Reason, lost in endless error, strays;As through this thorny vale of life we run,Great Cause of all Effects,Thy will be done!”Now had the Grecians on the beach arrived,To aid the helpless few who yet survived:While passing, they behold the waves o’erspreadWith shattered rafts and corses of the dead;Three still alive, benumbed and faint they find,In mournful silence on a rock reclined:The generous natives, moved with social pain,The feeble strangers in their arms sustain;With pitying sighs their hapless lot deplore,And lead them trembling from the fatal shore.

I. When in a barbarous age, with blood defil’d,

The human savage roamed the gloomy wild;

When sullen Ignorance her flag displayed,

And Rapine, and Revenge her voice obeyed;

Sent from the shores of light the Muses came

The dark and solitary race to tame,

The war of lawless passions to controul,

To melt in tender sympathy the soul;

The heart’s remote recesses to explore,

And touch its springs when prose availed no more:

The kindling spirit caught th’ empyreal ray,

And glowed congenial with the swelling lay;

Roused from the chaos of primeval night,

At once fair Truth and Reason sprung to light.

When great Mæonides, in rapid song,

The thundering tide of battle rolls along,

Each ravished bosom feels the high alarms,

And all the burning pulses beat to arms;

Hence, War’s terrific glory to display,

Became the theme of every epic lay:

But when his strings with mournful magic tell

What dire distress Laertes’ son befel,

The strains meand’ring through the maze of woe

Bid sacred sympathy the heart o’erflow;

Far through the boundless realms of thought he springs,

From earth upborne on Pegasean wings,

While distant poets, trembling as they view

His sunward flight, the dazzling track pursue;

His magic voice that rouses and delights,

Allures and guides to climb Olympian heights:

But I, alas! through scenes bewildered stray,

Far from the light of his unerring ray;

While, all unused the wayward path to tread,

Darkling I wander with prophetic dread;

To me in vain the bold Mæonian lyre

Awakes the numbers fraught with living fire;

Full oft indeed that mournful harp of yore

Wept the sad wanderer lost upon the shore;

’Tis true he lightly sketched the bold design,

But toils more joyless, more severe are mine;

Since o’er that scene his genius swiftly ran,

Subservient only to a nobler plan:

But I, perplexed in labyrinths of art,

Anatomize, and blazon every part;

Attempt with plaintive numbers to display,

And chain th’ events in regular array;

Though hard the task to sing in varied strains,

When still unchanged the same sad theme remains;

O could it draw compassion’s melting tear

For kindred miseries, oft beheld too near!

For kindred wretches, oft in ruin cast

On Albion’s strand beneath the wintery blast;

For all the pangs, the complicated woe,

Her bravest sons, her guardian sailors know;

Then every breast should sigh at our distress—

This were the summit of my hoped success!

For this, my theme through mazes I pursue,

Which nor Mæonides, nor Maro knew.

II. Awhile the mast, in ruins dragged behind,

Balanced th’ impression of the helm and wind;

The wounded serpent, agonized with pain,

Thus trails his mangled volume on the plain:

But now, the wreck dissevered from the rear,

The long reluctant prow began to veer;

While round before th’ enlarging wind it falls,

“Square fore and aft the yards,” the master calls:

“You timoneers her motion still attend,

For on your steerage all our lives depend:

So, steady! meet her! watch the curving prow,

And from the gale directly let her go.”

“Starboard again!” the watchful pilot cries,

“Starboard!” th’ obedient timoneer replies:

Then back to port, revolving at command,

The wheel rolls swiftly through each glowing hand.

The ship no longer, foundering by the lee,

Bears on her side the invasions of the sea;

All lonely o’er the desert waste she flies,

Scourged on by surges, storms, and bursting skies:

As when enclosing harpooners assail

In Hyperborean seas the slumb’ring whale,

Soon as their javelins pierce his scaly side,

He groans, he darts impetuous down the tide;

And racked all o’er with lacerating pain,

He flies remote beneath the flood in vain—

So with resistless haste the wounded ship

Scuds from pursuing waves along the deep;

While, dashed apart by her dividing prow,

Like burning adamant the waters glow;

Her joints forget their firm elastic tone,

Her long keel trembles, and her timbers groan:

Upheaved behind her in tremendous height

The billows frown, with fearful radiance bright:

Now quivering o’er the topmost wave she rides,

While deep beneath th’ enormous gulf divides;

Now launching headlong down the horrid vale,

Becalmed, she hears no more the howling gale;

Till up the dreadful height again she flies,

Trembling beneath the current of the skies:

As that rebellious angel, who, from heaven,

To regions of eternal pain was driven,

When dreadless he forsook the Stygian shore

The distant realms of Eden to explore;

Here, on sulphureous clouds sublime upheaved,

With daring wing th’ infernal air he cleaved;

There, in some hideous gulf descending prone,

Far in the void abrupt of night was known—

E’en so she climbs the briny mountain’s height,

Then down the black abyss precipitates her flight:

The masts, about whose tops the whirlwinds sing,

With long vibration round her axle swing.

To guide her wayward course amid the gloom,

The watchful pilots different posts assume:

Albert and Rodmond on the poop appear,

There to direct each guiding timoneer;

While at the bow the watch Arion keeps,

To shun what cruisers wander o’er the deeps:

Where’er he moves Palemon still attends,

As if on him his only hope depends;

While Rodmond, fearful of some neighbouring shore,

Cries, ever and anon, ‘Look out afore!’

Thus o’er the flood four hours she scudding flew,

When Falconera’s rugged cliffs they view,

Faintly along the larboard bow descried,

As o’er its mountain tops the lightnings glide;

High o’er its summit, through the gloom of night,

The glimmering watch tower cast a mournful light:

In dire amazement rivetted they stand,

And hear the breakers lash the rugged strand—

But scarce perceived, when past the beam it flies,

Swift as the rapid eagle cleaves the skies;

That danger past reflects a feeble joy,

But soon returning fears their hope destroy;

As in th’ Atlantic Ocean, when we find

Some alp of ice driv’n southward by the wind,

The sultry air all sickening pants around,

In deluges of torrid ether drown’d;

Till when the floating isle approaches nigh,

In cooling tides th’ aërial billows fly:

Awhile delivered from the scorching heat,

In gentler tides our feverish pulses beat:

Such transient pleasure, as they passed this strand,

A moment bade their throbbing hearts expand;

Th’ illusive meteors of a lifeless fire,

Too soon they kindle, and too soon expire.

III. Say, Memory! thou, from whose unerring tongue

Instructive flows the animated song,

What regions now the scudding ship surround?

Regions of old through all the world renown’d;

That, once the Poet’s theme, the Muses’ boast,

Now lie in ruins, in oblivion lost!

Did they, whose sad distress these lays deplore,}

Unskilled in Grecian, or in Roman lore,}

Unconscious pass along each famous shore?}

They did: for in this desert, joyless soil,

No flowers of genial science deign to smile;

Sad ocean’s genius, in untimely hour,

Withers the bloom of every springing flower;

For native tempests here with blasting breath,

Despoil, and doom the vernal buds to death;

Here fancy droops, while sullen clouds, and storm,

The generous temper of the soul deform:

Then, if among the wandering naval train,

One stripling, exiled from th’ Aonian plain,

Had e’er, entranced in Fancy’s soothing dream,

Approached to taste the sweet Castalian stream;

(Since those salubrious streams, with power divine,

To purer sense the softened soul refine)

Sure he, amid unsocial mates immured,

To learning lost, severer grief endured;

In vain might Phœbus’ ray his mind inspire,

Since Fate with torrents quenched the kindling fire:

If one this pain of living death possess’d,

It dwelt supreme, Arion! in thy breast;

When, with Palemon, watching in the night

Beneath pale Cynthia’s melancholy light,

You oft recounted those surrounding states,

Whose glory Fame with brazen tongue relates.

Immortal Athens first, in ruin spread,

Contiguous lies at Port Liono’s head;

Great source of science! whose immortal name

Stands foremost in the glorious roll of Fame;

Here god-like Socrates, and Plato shone,

And, firm to truth, eternal honour won;

The first in Virtue’s cause his life resigned,

By Heaven pronounced the wisest of mankind;

The last proclaimed the spark of vital fire,

The Soul’s fine essence, never could expire;

Here Solon dwelt, the philosophic sage

That fled Pisistratus’ vindictive rage;

Just Aristides here maintained the cause,

Whose sacred precepts shine through Solon’s laws:

Of all her towering structures, now alone

Some columns stand, with mantling weeds o’ergrown;

The wandering stranger near the port descries

A milk-white lion of stupendous size,

Of antique marble; hence the haven’s name,

Unknown to modern natives whence it came.

Next, in the gulf of Engia, Corinth lies,

Whose gorgeous fabrics seemed to strike the skies;

Whom, though by tyrant victors oft subdued,

Greece, Egypt, Rome, with admiration viewed:

Her name, for architecture long renown’d,

Spread like the foliage which her pillars crowned;

But now, in fatal desolation laid,

Oblivion o’er it draws a dismal shade.

Then further westward, on Morea’s land,

Fair Misitra! thy modern turrets stand:

Ah! who, unmoved with secret woe, can tell

That here great Lacedæmon’s glory fell;

Here once she flourished, at whose trumpet’s sound

War burst his chains, and nations shook around;

Here brave Leonidas from shore to shore

Through all Achaia bade her thunders roar:

He, when imperial Xerxes from afar

Advanced with Persia’s sumless hosts to war,

Till Macedonia shrunk beneath his spear,

And Greece all shuddered as the chief drew near;

He, at Thermopylæ’s decisive plain,

Their force opposed with Sparta’s glorious train;

Tall Oeta saw the tyrant’s conquered bands

In gasping millions bleed on hostile lands:

Thus vanquished, haughty Asia heard thy name,

And Thebes, and Athens, sickened at thy fame;

Thy state, supported by Lycurgus’ laws,

Gained, like thine arms, superlative applause;

E’en great Epaminondas strove in vain

To curb thy spirit with a Theban chain:

But ah! how low that free-born spirit now!

Thy abject sons to haughty tyrants bow;

A false, degenerate, superstitious race

Invest thy region, and its name disgrace.

Not distant far, Arcadia’s blest domains

Peloponnesus’ circling shore contains:

Thrice happy soil! where still serenely gay,

Indulgent Flora breathed perpetual May:

Where buxom Ceres bade each fertile field

Spontaneous gifts in rich profusion yield;

Then, with some rural nymph supremely blest,

While transport glowed in each enamoured breast,

Each faithful shepherd told his tender pain,

And sung of sylvan sports in artless strain;

Soft as the happy swain’s enchanting lay

That pipes among ‘The Shades of Endermay:’

Now, sad reverse! Oppression’s iron hand

Enslaves her natives, and despoils her land;

In lawless rapine bred, a sanguine train,

With midnight ravage, scour th’ uncultured plain.

Westward of these, beyond the Isthmus, lies

The long sought Isle of Ithacus the wise;

Where fair Penelope, of him deprived,

To guard her honour endless schemes contrived:

She, only shielded by her stripling son,

Her lord Ulysses long to Ilion gone,

Each bold attempt of suitor-kings repell’d,

And undefiled her nuptial contract held;

True to her vows, and resolutely chaste,

Met arts with art, and triumphed at the last.

Argos, in Greece forgotten and unknown,

Still seems her cruel fortune to bemoan:

Argos, whose monarch led the Grecian hosts

Across th’ Ægean main to Dardan coasts:

Unhappy prince! who, on a hostile shore,

Fatigue, and danger, ten long winters bore;

And when to native realms restored at last

To reap the harvest of thy labours past,

There found a perjured friend, and faithless wife,

Who sacrificed to impious lust thy life:

Fast by Arcadia stretch these desert plains,

And o’er the land a gloomy tyrant reigns.

Next Macronisi is adjacent seen,

Where adverse winds detained the Spartan queen;

For whom, in arms combined, the Grecian host,

With vengeance fired, invaded Phrygia’s coast;

For whom so long they laboured to destroy

The lofty turrets of imperial Troy;

Here driven by Juno’s rage, the hapless dame,

Forlorn of heart, from ruined Ilion came;

The port an image bears of Parian stone,

Of ancient fabric, but of date unknown.

Due east from this appears th’ immortal shore

That sacred Phœbus, and Diana bore,

Delos! through all th’ Ægean seas renown’d,

Whose coast the rocky Cyclades surround;

By Phœbus honoured, and by Greece revered,

Her hallowed groves e’en distant Persia feared:

But now a desert unfrequented land,

No human footstep marks the trackless sand.

Thence to the north by Asia’s western bound

Fair Lemnos stands, with rising marble crown’d;

Where, in her rage, avenging Juno hurl’d

Ill-fated Vulcan from th’ ethereal world:

There his eternal anvils first he reared;

Then, forged by Cyclopean art, appeared

Thunders that shook the skies with dire alarms,

And formed by skill divine, immortal arms;

There, with this crippled wretch, the foul disgrace

And living scandal of th’ empyreal race,

In wedlock lived the beauteous Queen of Love;

Can such sensations heavenly bosoms move!

Eastward of this appears the Dardan shore,

That once th’ imperial towers of Ilium bore,

Illustrious Troy! renowned in every clime

Through the long records of succeeding time;

Who saw protecting gods from heaven descend

Full oft thy royal bulwarks to defend:

Though chiefs unnumbered in her cause were slain,

With Fate the gods, and heroes, fought in vain!

That refuge of perfidious Helen’s shame,

At midnight was involved in Grecian flame;

And now, by Time’s deep ploughshare harrowed o’er,

The seat of sacred Troy is found no more:

No trace of her proud fabrics now remains,

But corn, and vines, enrich her cultured plains;

Silver Scamander laves the verdant shore,

Scamander, oft o’erflowed with hostile gore.

Nor far removed from Ilion’s famous land

In counter-view appears the Thracian strand,

Where beauteous Hero, from the turret’s height,

Displayed her cresset each revolving night;

Whose gleam directed loved Leander o’er

The rolling Hellespont from Asia’s shore:

Till in a fated hour, on Thracia’s coast,

She saw her lover’s lifeless body tost;

Then felt her bosom agony severe,

Her eyes, sad gazing, poured th’ incessant tear;

O’erwhelmed with anguish, frantic with despair,

She beat her swelling breast, and tore her hair;

On dear Leander’s name in vain she cried,

Then headlong plunged into the parting tide:

Th’ exulting tide received the lovely maid,

And proudly from the strand its freight convey’d.

Far west of Thrace, beyond th’ Ægean main,

Remote from ocean lies the Delphic plain:

The sacred oracle of Phœbus there

High o’er the mount arose, divinely fair!

Achaian marble formed the gorgeous pile,

August the fabric! elegant its style!

On brazen hinges turned the silver doors,

And chequered marble paved the polished floors;

The roof, where storied tablature appeared,

On columns of Corinthian mould was reared;

Of shining porphyry the shafts were framed,

And round the hollow dome bright jewels flamed:

Apollo’s priests, before the holy shrine

Suppliant, poured forth their orisons divine;

To front the sun’s declining ray ’twas placed,

With golden harps and branching laurels graced:

Around the fane, engraved by Vulcan’s hand,

The sciences and arts were seen to stand;

Here Æsculapius’ snake displayed his crest,

And burning glories sparkled on his breast;

While from his eye’s insufferable light,

Disease and death recoiled in headlong flight:

Of this great temple, through all time renowned,

Sunk in oblivion, no remains are found.

Contiguous here, with hallowed woods o’erspread,

Renowned Parnassus lifts its honoured head;

There roses blossom in eternal spring,

And strains celestial feathered warblers sing:

Apollo, here, bestows th’ unfading wreath;

Here zephyrs aromatic odours breathe;

They o’er Castalian plains diffuse perfume,

Where round the scene perennial laurels bloom;

Fair daughters of the Sun, the sacred Nine!

Here wake to ecstasy their harps divine,

Or bid the Paphian lute mellifluous play,

And tune to plaintive love the liquid lay;

Their numbers every mental storm controul,

And lull to harmony th’ afflicted soul,

With heavenly balm the tortured breast compose,

And soothe the agony of latent woes:

The verdant shades that Helicon surround,

On rosy gales seraphic tunes resound:

Perpetual summers crown the happy hours,

Sweet as the breath that fans Elysian flowers:

Hence pleasure dances in an endless round,

And love and joy, ineffable, abound.

IV. Stop, wandering thought! methinks I feel their strains

Diffuse delicious languor through my veins:

Adieu, ye flow’ry vales, and fragrant scenes,

Delightful bowers, and ever vernal greens!

Adieu, ye streams! that o’er enchanted ground

In lucid maze th’ Aonian hill surround;

Ye fairy scenes! where fancy loves to dwell,

And young delight, for ever, oh! farewell!

The soul with tender luxury you fill,

And o’er the sense Lethean dews distil—

Awake, O Memory! from th’ inglorious dream,

With brazen lungs resume the kindling theme;

Collect thy powers, arouse thy vital fire,

Ye spirits of the storm my verse inspire!

Hoarse as the whirlwinds that enrage the main,

In torrent pour along the swelling strain.

Now, through the parting wave impetuous bore,

The scudding vessel stemmed th’ Athenian shore;

The pilots, as the waves behind her swell,

Still with the wheeling stern their force repel;

For this assault should either quarter feel,

Again to flank the tempest she might reel:

The steersmen every bidden turn apply,

To right and left, the spokes alternate fly—

Thus, when some conquered host retreats in fear,

The bravest leaders guard the broken rear;

Indignant they retire, and long oppose

Superior armies that around them close;

Still shield the flanks, the routed squadrons join,

And guide the flight in one continued line:

Thus they direct the flying bark before

Th’ impelling floods, that lash her to the shore:

High o’er the poop th’ audacious seas aspire,

Uprolled in hills of fluctuating fire;

With lab’ring throes she rolls on either side,

And dips her gunnels in the yawning tide;

Her joints unhinged in palsied languors play,

As ice-flakes part beneath the noon-tide ray:

The gale howls doleful through the blocks and shrouds,

And big rain pours a deluge from the clouds;

From wintery magazines that sweep the sky,

Descending globes of hail impetuous fly:

High on the masts, with pale and livid rays,

Amid the gloom portentous meteors blaze;

Th’ ethereal dome in mournful pomp array’d

Now buried lies beneath impervious shade,

Now, flashing round intolerable light,

Redoubles all the horror of the night—

Such terror Sinai’s trembling hill o’erspread,

When Heaven’s loud trumpet sounded o’er its head:

It seemed, the wrathful angel of the wind,

Had all the horrors of the skies combin’d,

And here, to one ill-fated ship opposed,

At once the dreadful magazine disclosed:

And lo! tremendous o’er the deep he springs,

Th’ inflaming sulphur flashing from his wings;

Hark! his strong voice the dismal silence breaks,

Mad Chaos from the chains of death awakes:

Loud, and more loud, the rolling peals enlarge,

And blue on deck the fiery tides discharge;

There all aghast the shivering wretches stood,

While chill suspense and fear congealed their blood;

Wide burst in dazzling sheets the living flame,

And dread concussion rends th’ ethereal frame;

Sick earth convulsive groans from shore to shore,

And nature, shuddering, feels the horrid roar.

Still the sad prospect rises on my sight,

Revealed in all its mournful shade and light;

E’en now my ear with quick vibration feels

Th’ explosion burst in strong rebounding peals;

Swift through my pulses glides the kindling fire,

As lightning glances on th’ electric wire:

Yet ah! the languid colours vainly strive

To bid the scene in native hues revive.

But lo! at last, from tenfold darkness born,

Forth issues o’er the wave the weeping morn:

Hail, sacred Vision! who, on orient wings,

The cheering dawn of light propitious brings;

All nature smiling hailed the vivid ray

That gave her beauties to returning day,

All but our ship! which, groaning on the tide,

No kind relief, no gleam of hope descried;

For now in front her trembling inmates see

The hills of Greece emerging on the lee—

So the lost lover views that fatal morn,

On which for ever from his bosom torn,

The maid adored resigns her blooming charms,

To bless with love some happier rival’s arms;

So to Eliza dawned that cruel day

That tore Æneas from her sight away,

That saw him parting never to return,

Herself in funeral flames decreed to burn.

O yet in clouds, thou genial Source of Light!

Conceal thy radiant glories from our sight;

Go, with thy smile adorn thy happy plain,

And gild the scenes where health and pleasure reign:

But let not here, in scorn, thy wanton beam

Insult the dreadful grandeur of my theme.

While shoreward now the bounding vessel flies,

Full in her van St. George’s Cliffs arise;

High o’er the rest a pointed crag is seen,

That hung projecting o’er a mossy green;

Huge breakers on the larboard bow appear,

And full a-head its eastern ledges bear:

To steer more eastward Albert still commands,

And shun, if possible, the fatal strands—

Nearer and nearer now the danger grows,

And all their skill relentless fates oppose;

For while more eastward they direct the prow,

Enormous waves the quivering deck o’erflow;

While, as she wheels, unable to subdue

Her sallies, still they dread her broaching-to:

Alarming thought! for now no more a-lee

Her trembling side could bear the mountained sea,

And if pursuing waves she scuds before,

Headlong she runs upon the frightful shore;

A shore, where shelves and hidden rocks abound,

Where death in secret ambush lurks around:

Not half so dreadful to Æneas’ eyes

The Straits of Sicily were seen to rise,

When Palinurus from the helm descry’d,

The Rocks of Scylla on his eastern side,

While in the west, with hideous yawn disclosed,

His onward path Charybdis’ gulph opposed;

The double danger he alternate viewed,

And cautiously his arduous track pursued:

Thus, while to right and left destruction lies,

Between the extremes the daring vessel flies;

With terrible irruption bursting o’er

The marble cliffs, tremendous surges roar;

Hoarse thro’ each winding creek the tempest raves,

And hollow rocks repeat the groan of waves:

Should once the bottom strike this cruel shore,

The parting ship that instant is no more;

Nor she alone, but with her all the crew

Beyond relief are doomed to perish too:

But haply she escapes the dreadful strand,

Though scarce her length in distance from the land;

Swift as the weapon quits the Scythian bow,

She cleaves the burning billows with her prow,

And forward hurrying with impetuous haste,

Borne on the tempest’s wings the isle she past:

With longing eyes, and agony of mind,

The sailors view this refuge left behind;

Happy to bribe with India’s richest ore

A safe accession to that barren shore—

When in the dark Peruvian mine confin’d,

Lost to the cheerful commerce of mankind,

The groaning captive wastes his life away,

For ever exiled from the realms of day,

Not half such pangs his bosom agonize

When up to distant light he rolls his eyes!

Where the broad sun, in his diurnal way

Imparts to all beside his vivid ray,

While, all forlorn, the victim pines in vain

For scenes he never shall possess again.

V. But now Athenian mountains they descry,

And o’er the surge Colonna frowns on high:

Where marble columns, long by time defaced,

Moss-covered on the lofty cape are placed;

There reared by fair devotion to sustain

Tn elder times Tritonia’s sacred fane;

The circling beach in murderous form appears,

Decisive goal of all their hopes and fears:

The seamen now in wild amazement see

The scene of ruin rise beneath their lee;

Swift from their minds elapsed all dangers past,

As dumb with terror they behold the last.

And now, while winged with ruin from on high,

Through the rent cloud the ragged lightnings fly,

A flash, quick glancing on the nerves of light,

Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night:

Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind,

Touched with compassion gazed upon the blind;

And, while around his sad companions crowd,

He guides th’ unhappy victim to the shroud:

‘Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend!’ he cries;

‘Thy only succour on the mast relies.’

The helm, bereft of half its vital force,

Now scarce subdued the wild unbridled course;

Quick to th’ abandoned wheel Arion came,

The ship’s tempestuous sallies to reclaim:

The vessel, while the dread event draws nigh,

Seems more impatient o’er the waves to fly;

Fate spurs her on!—Thus, issuing from afar,

Advances to the sun some blazing star,

And, as it feels Attraction’s kindling force,

Springs onward with accelerated course.

The moment fraught with fate approaches fast!

While thronging sailors climb each quivering mast;

The ship no longer now must stem the land,

And, ‘hard a starboard!’ is the last command:

While every suppliant voice to Heaven applies,

The prow, swift wheeling, to the westward flies;

Twelve sailors, on the foremast who depend,

High on the platform of the top ascend,

Fatal retreat! for, while the plunging prow

Immerges headlong in the wave below,

Down prest by watery weight the bowsprit bends,

And from above the stem deep-crashing rends:

Beneath her bow the floating ruins lie;

The foremast totters, unsustained on high;

And now the ship, forelifted by the sea,

Hurls the tall fabric backward o’er her lee;

While, in the general wreck, the faithful stay

Drags the main topmast by the cap away:

Flung from the mast, the seamen strive in vain,

Through hostile floods, their vessel to regain;

Weak Hope, alas! they buffet long the wave,

And grasp at life though sinking in the grave;

Till all exhausted, and bereft of strength,

O’erpowered they yield to cruel fate at length

The burying waters close around their head,

They sink! for ever numbered with the dead.

Those who remain the weather shrouds embrace,

Nor longer mourn their lost companions’ case;

Transfixt with terror at th’ approaching doom,

Self pity in their breasts alone has room:

Albert, and Rodmond, and Palemon, near

With young Arion, on the mast appear;

E’en they, amid th’ unspeakable distress,

In every look distracting thoughts confess,

In every vein the refluent blood congeals,

And every bosom mortal terror feels;

Begirt with all the horrors of the main

They viewed th’ adjacent shore, but viewed in vain:

Such torments in the drear abodes of hell,

Where sad despair laments with rueful yell,

Such torments agonize the damned breast,

That sees remote the mansions of the blest.

It comes! the dire Catastrophe draws near,

Lashed furious on by destiny severe:

The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death,

Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath!

O yet confirm my heart, ye powers above!

This last tremendous shock of fate to prove;

The tottering frame of reason yet sustain,

Nor let this total havoc whirl my brain:

Since I, all trembling in extreme distress,

Must still the horrible result express.

In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yore

Would arm the mind with philosophic lore;

In vain they’d teach us, at the latest breath

To smile serene amid the pangs of death:

Immortal Zeno’s self would trembling see

Inexorable fate beneath the lee;

And Epictetus at the sight, in vain

Attempt his stoic firmness to retain;

Had Socrates, for godlike virtue famed,

And wisest of the sons of men proclaimed,

Spectator of such various horrors been,

E’en he had staggered at this dreadful scene.

In vain the cords and axes were prepar’d,

For every wave now smites the quivering yard;

High o’er the ship they throw a dreadful shade,

Then on her burst in terrible cascade;

Across the foundered deck o’erwhelming roar,

And foaming, swelling, bound upon the shore.

Swift up the mounting billow now she flies,

Her shattered top half buried in the skies;

Borne o’er a latent reef the hull impends,

Then thundering on the marble crags descends:

Her ponderous bulk the dire concussion feels,

And o’er upheaving surges wounded reels—

Again she plunges! hark! a second shock

Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock.—

Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,

The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes

In wild despair; while yet another stroke,

With strong convulsion rends the solid oak:

Ah Heaven!—behold her crashing ribs divide!

She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o’er the tide.

Oh, were it mine with sacred Maro’s art

To wake to sympathy the feeling heart,

Like him, the smooth and mournful verse to dress

In all the pomp of exquisite distress;

Then, too severely taught by cruel fate,

To share in all the perils I relate,

Then might I, with unrivalled strains, deplore

Th’ impervious horrors of a leeward shore.

As o’er the surf the bending mainmast hung,

Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung:

Some on a broken crag were struggling cast,

And there by oozy tangles grappled fast;

Awhile they bore th’ o’erwhelming billows’ rage,

Unequal combat with their fate to wage;

Till all benumed, and feeble, they forego

Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below:

Some, from the main yard-arm impetuous thrown

On marble ridges, die without a groan:

Three with Palemon on their skill depend,

And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend;

Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride,

Then downward plunge beneath th’ involving tide;

Till one, who seems in agony to strive,

The whirling breakers heave on shore alive:

The rest a speedier end of anguish knew,

And prest the stony beach a lifeless crew!

Next, O unhappy chief! th’ eternal doom

Of Heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb:

What scenes of misery torment thy view!

What painful struggles of thy dying crew!

Thy perished hopes all buried in the flood

O’erspread with corses, red with human blood!

So pierced with anguish hoary Priam gazed,

When Troy’s imperial domes in ruin blazed;

While he, severest sorrow doomed to feel,

Expired beneath the victor’s murdering steel—

Thus with his helpless partners to the last,

Sad refuge! Albert grasps the floating mast.

His soul could yet sustain this mortal blow,

But droops, alas! beneath superior woe;

For now strong Nature’s sympathetic chain

Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain:

His faithful wife, for ever doom’d to mourn

For him, alas! who never shall return,

To black Adversity’s approach exposed,

With want, and hardships unforeseen enclosed;

His lovely daughter, left without a friend

Her innocence to succour and defend,

By youth and indigence set forth a prey

To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray—

While these reflections rack his feeling mind,

Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resign’d;

And, as the tumbling waters o’er him roll’d,

His outstretched arms the master’s legs enfold:

Sad Albert feels their dissolution near,}

And strives in vain his fettered limbs to clear,}

For death bids every clenching joint adhere:}

All faint, to Heaven he throws his dying eyes,

And, ‘Oh, protect my wife and child!’ he cries—

The gushing streams roll back th’ unfinished sound,

He gasps! and sinks amid the vast profound.

Five only left of all the shipwrecked throng

Yet ride the mast which shoreward drives along;

With these Arion still his hold secures,

And all assaults of hostile waves endures:

O’er the dire prospect as for life he strives,

He looks if poor Palemon yet survives—

“Ah wherefore, trusting to unequal art,

Didst thou, incautious! from the wreck depart!

Alas! these rocks all human skill defy;

Who strikes them once, beyond relief must die:

And now sore wounded, thou perhaps art tost

On these, or in some oozy cavern lost:”

Thus thought Arion; anxious gazing round

In vain, his eyes no more Palemon found.—

The demons of destruction hover nigh,

And thick their mortal shafts commissioned fly:

When now a breaking surge, with forceful sway,

Two, next Arion, furious tears away:

Hurled on the crags, behold they gasp, they bleed!

And groaning, cling upon th’ elusive weed;

Another billow bursts in boundless roar!

Arion sinks! and Memory views no more.

Ha! total night and horror here preside,

My stunned ear tingles to the whizzing tide;

It is their funeral knell! and gliding near

Methinks the phantoms of the dead appear;

But lo! emerging from the watery grave

Again they float incumbent on the wave,

Again the dismal prospect opens round,

The wreck, the shore, the dying, and the drown’d!

And see! enfeebled by repeated shocks,

Those two, who scramble on th’ adjacent rocks,

Their faithless hold no longer can retain,

They sink o’erwhelmed! and never rise again.

Two with Arion yet the mast upbore,

That now above the ridges reached the shore;

Still trembling to descend, they downward gaze

With horror pale, and torpid with amaze:

The floods recoil! the ground appears below!

And life’s faint embers now rekindling glow;

Awhile they wait th’ exhausted waves’ retreat,

Then climb slow up the beach with hands and feet.

O Heaven! delivered by whose sovereign hand

Still on destruction’s brink they shuddering stand,

Receive the languid incense they bestow,

That, damp with death, appears not yet to glow;

Totheeeach soul the warm oblation pays

With trembling ardour of unequal praise;

In every heart dismay with wonder strives,

And hope the sickened spark of life revives,

Her magic powers their exiled health restore,

Till horror and despair are felt no more.

Roused by the blustering tempest of the night,

A troop of Grecians mount Colonna’s height;

When, gazing down with horror on the flood,

Full to their view the scene of ruin stood—

The surf with mangled bodies strewed around,

And those yet breathing on the sea-washed ground:

Though lost to science and the nobler arts,

Yet Nature’s lore informed their feeling hearts;

Straight down the vale with hastening steps they hied,

Th’ unhappy sufferers to assist, and guide.

Meanwhile, those three escaped, beneath explore

The first advent’rous youth who reached the shore:

Panting, with eyes averted from the day,

Prone, helpless, on the tangly beach he lay.

It is Palemon! oh, what tumults roll

With hope and terror in Arion’s soul;

‘If yet unhurt he lives again to view

His friend, and this sole remnant of our crew,

With us to travel through this foreign zone,

And share the future good or ill unknown?’

Arion thus; but ah, sad doom of Fate!

That bleeding Memory sorrows to relate;

While yet afloat, on some resisting rock

His ribs were dashed, and fractured with the shock:

Heart-piercing sight! those cheeks so late array’d

In beauty’s bloom, are pale with mortal shade;

Distilling blood his lovely breast o’erspread,

And clogged the golden tresses of his head:

Nor yet the lungs by this pernicious stroke

Were wounded, or the vocal organs broke.

Down from his neck, with blazing gems arrayed,

Thy image, lovely Anna! hung portrayed;

Th’ unconscious figure, smiling all serene,

Suspended in a golden chain was seen:

Hadst thou, soft maiden! in this hour of woe

Beheld him writhing from the deadly blow,

What force of art, what language could express

Thine agony, thine exquisite distress?

But thou, alas! art doomed to weep in vain

For him thine eyes shall never see again.

With dumb amazement pale, Arion gazed,

And cautiously the wounded youth upraised;

Palemon then, with equal pangs opprest,

In faltering accents thus his friend addrest:

“O rescued from destruction late so nigh,

Beneath whose fatal influence doomed I lie;

Are we then, exiled to this last retreat

Of life, unhappy! thus decreed to meet?

Ah! how unlike what yester-morn enjoyed,

Enchanting hopes! for ever now destroyed;

For wounded, far beyond all healing power,

Palemon dies, and this his final hour:

By those fell breakers, where in vain I strove,

At once cut off from fortune, life, and love!

Far other scenes must soon present my sight,

That lie deep-buried yet in tenfold night.—

Ah! wretched father of a wretched son,

Whom thy paternal prudence has undone;

How will remembrance of this blinded care

Bend down thy head with anguish, and despair!

Such dire effects from Avarice arise,

That, deaf to Nature’s voice, and vainly wise,

With force severe endeavours to controul

The noblest passions that inspire the soul.

But, O Thou sacred Power! whose law connects

Th’ eternal chain of causes and effects,

Let not thy chastening ministers of rage

Afflict with sharp remorse his feeble age:

And you, Arion! who with these the last

Of all our crew survive the Shipwreck past—

Ah! cease to mourn, those friendly tears restrain,

Nor give my dying moments keener pain!

Since Heaven may soon thy wandering steps restore,

When parted hence, to England’s distant shore;

Shouldst thou, th’ unwilling messenger of Fate,

To him the tragic story first relate;

Oh! Friendship’s generous ardour then suppress,

Nor hint the fatal cause of my distress;

Nor let each horrid incident sustain

The lengthened tale to aggravate his pain:

Ah! then remember well my last request

For her who reigns for ever in my breast;

Yet let him prove a father and a friend,

The helpless maid to succour and defend—

Say, I this suit implored with parting breath,

So Heaven befriend him at his hour of death!

But, oh! to lovely Anna shouldst thou tell

What dire untimely end thy friend befel;

Draw o’er the dismal scene soft Pity’s veil,

And lightly touch the lamentable tale:

Say that my love, inviolably true,

No change, no diminution ever knew;

Lo! her bright image pendent on my neck

Is all Palemon rescued from the wreck;

Take it! and say, when panting in the wave

I struggled life and this alone to save.

“My soul, that fluttering hastens to be free,

Would yet a train of thoughts impart to thee,

But strives in vain; the chilling ice of Death

Congeals my blood, and choaks the stream of breath;

Resigned, she quits her comfortless abode

To course that long, unknown, eternal road—

O sacred Source of ever-living Light!

Conduct the weary wanderer in her flight;

Direct her onward to that peaceful shore,

Where peril, pain, and death prevail no more.

“When thou some tale of hapless love shalt hear,

That steals from Pity’s eye the melting tear;

Of two chaste hearts, by mutual passion joined,

To absence, sorrow, and despair consigned;

Oh! then, to swell the tides of social woe

That heal th’ afflicted bosom they o’erflow,

While Memory dictates, this sad Shipwreck tell,

And what distress thy wretched friend befel:

Then, while in streams of soft compassion drown’d,

The swains lament, and maidens weep around;

While lisping children, touched with infant fear,

With wonder gaze, and drop th’ unconscious tear;

Oh! then this moral bid their souls retain,

All thoughts of happiness on earth are vain!”

The last faint accents trembled on his tongue,

That now inactive to the palate clung;

His bosom heaves a mortal groan—he dies!

And shades eternal sink upon his eyes.

As thus defaced in death Palemon lay,

Arion gazed upon the lifeless clay;

Transfixed he stood, with awful terror filled,

While down his cheek the silent drops distilled:

“O ill-starred votary of unspotted truth!

Untimely perished in the bloom of youth;

Should e’er thy friend arrive on Albion’s land,

He will obey, though painful, thy command;

His tongue the dreadful story shall display,

And all the horrors of this dismal day:

Disastrous day! what ruin hast thou bred,

What anguish to the living and the dead!

How hast thou left the widow all forlorn;

And ever doomed the orphan child to mourn,

Through Life’s sad journey hopeless to complain:

Can sacred Justice these events ordain?

But, O my soul! avoid that wondrous maze

Where Reason, lost in endless error, strays;

As through this thorny vale of life we run,

Great Cause of all Effects,Thy will be done!”

Now had the Grecians on the beach arrived,

To aid the helpless few who yet survived:

While passing, they behold the waves o’erspread

With shattered rafts and corses of the dead;

Three still alive, benumbed and faint they find,

In mournful silence on a rock reclined:

The generous natives, moved with social pain,

The feeble strangers in their arms sustain;

With pitying sighs their hapless lot deplore,

And lead them trembling from the fatal shore.

THESHIPWRECK.

ELEGY.

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