RODMOND, ARION, and a chosen crew,
This office in the face of death pursue;
The wheeled Artillery o'er the deck to guide,
RODMOND descending claimed the weather-side;
Fearless of heart, the CHIEF his orders gave,
Fronting the rude assaults of every wave-
Like some strong Watch-tower nodding o'er the Deep,
Whose rocky base the foaming waters sweep.
Untamed he stood; the stern aërial war
Had marked his honest face with many a scar;
Meanwhile ARION, traversing the Waist,
The cordage of the leeward-guns unbraced,
And pointed crows beneath the Metal placed.
Watching the roll, their forelocks they withdrew,
And from their beds the reeling Cannon threw;
Then, from the windward battlements unbound,
RODMOND's associates wheeled th' artillery round;
Pointed with iron fangs, their bars beguile
The ponderous Arms across the steep defile;
Then, hurled from sounding hinges o'er the side,
Thundering they plunge into the flashing Tide.
The Ship, thus eased, some little respite finds In this rude conflict of the Seas and Winds
Such ease ALCIDES felt, when, clogged with gore,
Th' envenom'd Mantle from his side he tore ;
When, stung with burning pain, he strove too late
To stop the swift career of cruel Fate;
Yet then his heart one ray of Hope procured,
Sad harbinger of sevenfold pangs endured-
Such, and so short, the pause of woe She found!
Cimmerian darkness shades the Deep around,
Save when the lightnings in terrific blaze
Deluge the cheerless gloom with horrid rays:
Above, all Ether fraught with scenes of woe
With grim destruction threatens all below;
Beneath, the storm-lashed Surges furious rise,
And wave uprolled on wave assails the skies;
With ever-floating bulwarks they surround
The Ship, half-swallowed in the black profound.
With ceaseless hazard and fatigue opprest,
Dismay and anguish every heart possest;
For while, with sweeping inundation, o'er
The sea beat Ship the booming Waters roar,
Displaced beneath by her capacious womb,
They rage their ancient station to resume;
By secret ambushes, their force to prove,
Through many a winding channel first they rove;
Till gathering fury, like the fevered blood,
Through her dark veins they roll a rapid flood:
When unrelenting thus the Leaks they found,
The clattering Pumps with clanking strokes resound;
Around each leaping valve, by toil subdued,
The tough bull-hide must ever be renewed:
Their sinking hearts unusual horrors chill,
And down their weary limbs thick dews distil;
No ray of light their dying Hope redeems,
Pregnant with some new woe, each moment teems.
Again the Chief th' instructive Chart extends,
And o'er the figured plane attentive bends;
To him the motion of each orb was known,
That wheels around the Sun's refulgent throne;
But here, alas! his science nought avails,
Skill droops unequal, and experience fails:
The different Traverses, since twilight made,
He on the hydrographic circle laid;
FALCONERA, ST. GEORGE, GARDALOR.
Then, in the graduated Arch contained,
The angle of lee-way, seven points, remained.-
Her place discovered by the rules of art,
Unusual terrors shook the Master's heart,
When, on th' immediate line of drift, he found
The rugged Isle, with rocks and breakers bound,
Of FALCONERA; distant only now
Nine lessening leagues beneath the leeward bow:
For, if on those destructive shallows tost,
The helpless Bark with all her Crew are lost;
As fatal still appears, that danger o'er,
The steep St. GEORGE, and rocky GARDALOR.
With him the Pilots, of their hopeless state,
In mournful consultation, long debate-
Not more perplexing doubts her Chiefs appal
When some proud City verges to her fall,
While ruin glares around, and pale affright
Convenes her Councils in the dead of night.
No blazoned Trophies o'er their Concave spread,
Nor storied Pillars raised aloft their head:
But here the Queen of shade around them threw.
Her dragon wing, disastrous to the view!
Dire was the Scene with whirlwind, hail, and shower;
Black Melancholy ruled the fearful hour:
Beneath, tremendous rolled the flashing Tide,
Where Fate on every billow seemed to ride-
Enclosed with ills, by Peril unsubdued,
Great in distress the Master-Seaman stood!
Skilled to command; deliberate to advise ;
Expert in action; and in council wise—
Thus to his partners, by the Crew unheard,
The dictates of his soul the Chief referred:
"Ye faithful Mates! who all my troubles share, "Approved Companions of your Master's care!
"To you, alas! 'twere fruitless now to tell "Our sad distress, already known too well: "This Morn with favouring gales the Port we left, "Though now of every flattering Hope bereft : "No skill, nor long experience could forecast "Th' unseen approach of this destructive Blast; "These Seas, where Storms at various seasons blow, "No reigning Winds nor certain omens know: "The hour, th' occasion, all your skill demands, "A leaky Ship, embayed by dangerous lands!
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