They cry for aid, and long contend with Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend! he cries; sweep, And down they sink in everlasting sleep. Bereft of power to help, their comrades see The wretched victims die beneath the lee; With fruitless sorrow their lost state be moan; Perhaps a fatal prelude to their own! CAPE COLONNA IN SIGHT. But now Athenian mountains they descry, And o'er the surge Colonna frowns on high. Beside the cape's projecting verge is plac'd A range of columns, long by time defac'd; ing rage, Where waves and rocks a dreadful com bat wage. The sickly heav'n, fermenting with its freight, Still vomit, o'er the main the feverish weight: And now, while wing'd with ruin from on high, Thro' the rent cloud the raging lightnings fly, A flash, quick-glancing on the nerves of light, Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night: THE VESSEL ON THE ROCKS. With mournful look the seamen ey'd the strand, Where death's inexorable jaws expand. Swift from their minds elaps'd all dangers past, As, dumb with terror, they beheld the last. Now, on the trembling shrouds, before, behind, In mute suspense they mount into the wind. The Genius of the deep, on rapid wing, Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan be- The black eventful moment seemed to hind, bring. Touch'd with compassion, gaz'd upon the The fatal Sisters, on the surge before, blind; Yok'd their infernal horses to the prore. And, while around his sad companions The steersmen now receiv'd their last crowd, command He guides th' unhappy victim to the shroud. To wheel the vessel sidelong to the strand: Twelve sailors, on the foremast who de- Such torments agonize the damned breast, While fancy views the mansions of the blest. For Heaven's sweet help their suppliant cries implore; But Heaven, relentless, deigns to help no more ! And now lash'd on by destiny severe, With horror fraught, the dreadful scene drew near ! The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death; Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath! 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. prove. The tottering frame of reason yet sustain ! The heart that bleeds with sorrows all its Nor let this total ruin whirl my brain! So reels, convulsed with agonizing throws, The bleeding bull beneath the murd❜rer's blows. Again she plunges ! hark! a second shock Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock! Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries, 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 heaves on shore alive; The rest a speedier end of anguish knew, The fated victims shuddering cast their And prest the stony beach, a lifeless crew! eyes In wild despair; while yet another stroke, With strong convulsion, rends the solid oak; Till, like the mine, in whose infernal cell The lurking demons of destruction dwell, At length asunder torn her frame divides, And crashing spreads in ruins o'er the tides. O were it mine with tuneful 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, 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 perish'd 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 doom'd to feel, Expired beneath the victor's murdering steel. Then might I with unrivall'd strains de- | Thus with his helpless partners till the last, plore Th' impervious horrors of a leeward shore. As o'er the surge the stooping mainmast hung, Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung: Some, struggling, on a broken crag were 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 benumb'd and feeble, they forego Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below. Sad refuge! Albert hugs the floating mast; His soul could yet sustain the mortal blow, But droops, alas ! beneath superior woe; For now soft 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 ; Some, from the main-yard-arm impetuous By youth and indigence set forth a prey thrown On marble ridges, die without a groan. Three with Palemon on their skill depend, And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend. To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray. While these reflections rack his feeling mind. Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resign'd; weed ! And, as the tumbling waters o'er him And, groaning, cling upon th' elusive roll'd, His outstretch'd arms the master's legs Another billow bursts in boundless roar ! enfold. Arion sinks! and Memory views no more! Ha! total night and horror here preside! Sad Albert feels the dissolution near, And strives in vain his fetter'd limbs to My stunn'd ear tingles to the whizzing He gasps! and sinks amid the vast pro- The wreck, the shores, the dying, and the found. drown'd! Five only left of all the shipwrecked And see! enfeebled by repeated shocks, Those two who scramble on th' adjacent throng, Yet ride the mast which shoreward drives along ; With these Arion still his hold secures, O'er the dire prospect as for life he strives, Alas! these rocks all human skill defy, And now, sore wounded, thou perhaps art tost On these, or in some oozy cavern lost. Thus thought Arion, anxious gazing round rocks, Their faithless hold no longer can retain, They sink o'erwhelm'd, and never rise again! THREE SEAMEN SAVED. Two with Arion yet the mast upbore, That now above the ridges reach'd the shore : Still trembling to descend, they downward With horror pale, and torpid with amaze : below! And life's faint embers now rekindling glow: Awhile they wait th' exhausted wave's retreat, Then climb slow up the beach with hands and feet. In vain, his eyes no more Palemon found. hand, And now a breaking surge, with forceful Still on destruction's brink they shuddering And those yet breathing on the sea-wash'd With pitying sighs their hapless lot de ONE of the least known, but not the least original, contributors to Scottish literature, was Dougal Graham, the skellat bellman of Glasgow. He had somewhat of the grotesque, both in his physical and mental structure; but as a delineator of life in the humble strata in which he moved, he was unsurpassed. His vein in poetry, as to its manner, hardly rises above doggerel; but it is quite original, and in the wake of his genius, as an observer from his own comical point of view. It is as the writer of the raciest and broadest-humoured of Scottish Chap |