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 doom'd to perish too :
But haply she escapes the dreadful strand,
Tho' 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 confined,
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
V. But now Athenian mountains they descry,
And o'er the surge Colonna frowns on high;
Where marble columns, long by time defaced,
Moss-cover'd on the lofty Cape are placed;
There rear'd by fair devotion to sustain
In 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 wing'd 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,
Touch'd with compassion gazed upon the blind;
And, while around his sad companions crowd,
He guides the 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 the abandon'd 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 fore-mast 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 fore-mast totters, unsustain'd 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 top-mast 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'erpower'd they yield to cruel fate at length;
The burying waters close around their head,
They sink! for ever number'd with the dead.
Those who remain the weather shrouds embrace, Nor longer mourn their lost companions' case; Transfixt with terror at the 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 the 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 view'd the adjacent shore, but view'd 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, Lash'd 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 proclaim'd,
Spectator of such various horrors been,
E'en he had stagger'd at this dreadful scene.
In vain the cords and axes were prepared,
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 founder'd deck o'erwhelming roar,
And foaming, swelling, bound upon the shore.
Swift up the mounting billow now she flies,
Her shatter'd top half-buried in the skies;
Borne o'er a latent reef the hull impends,
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