ОСТ. 1,1819.

THE SHIPWRECK.

CANTO II.

I. ADIEU! ye pleasures of the sylvan scene,
Where peace, and calm contentment dwell serene:
To me, in vain, on earth's prolific soil

With summer crowned, th' Elysian vallies smile;
To me those happier scenes no joy impart,
But tantalize with hope my aching heart:
Ye tempests! o'er my head congenial roll
To suit the mournful music of my soul;
In black progression, lo, they hover near,
Hail, social horrors! like my fate severe:
Old ocean hail! beneath whose azure zone
The secret deep lies unexplored, unknown.
Approach, ye brave companions of the sea!
And fearless view this awful scene with me.

Ye native guardians of your country's laws!
Ye brave assertors of her sacred cause !
The Muse invites you, judge if she depart,
Unequal, from the thorny rules of art;

In practice trained, and conscious of her power,
She boldly moves to meet the trying hour:
Her voice attempting themes, before unknown
To music, sings distresses all her own.

II. O'er the smooth bosom of the faithless tides,
Propelled by flattering gales, the vessel glides:
Rodmond exulting felt the auspicious wind,
And by a mystic charm its aim confin'd.
The thoughts of home, that o'er his fancy roll,
With trembling joy dilate Palemon's soul;
Hope lifts his heart, before whose vivid ray
Distress recedes, and danger melts away.
Tall Ida's summit now more distant grew,
And Jove's high hill was rising to the view:
When on the larboard quarter they descry
A liquid column towering shoot on high;
The foaming base the angry whirlwinds sweep,
Where curling billows rouse the fearful deep:
Still round, and round, the fluid vortex flies,
Diffusing briny vapours o'er the skies.

This vast phenomenon, whose lofty head,

In Heaven immersed, embracing clouds o'erspread,
In spiral motion first, as seamen deem,

Swells, when the raging whirlwind sweeps the stream.
The swift volution, and th' enormous train,
Let sages versed in Nature's lore explain.
The horrid apparition still draws nigh,
And white with foam the whirling billows fly.
The guns were primed; the vessel northward veers,
Till her black battery on the column bears:

The nitre fired; and, while the dreadful sound
Convulsive shook the slumbering air around,

The watery volume, trembling to the sky,
Burst down a dreadful deluge, from on high!
Th' expanding ocean trembled as it fell,
And felt with swift recoil her surges swell;
But soon, this transient undulation o'er,

The sea subsides, the whirlwinds rage no more.
While southward now th' increasing breezes veer,
Dark clouds incumbent on their wings appear:
Ahead they see the consecrated grove

Of Cyprus, sacred once to Cretan Jove.
The ship beneath her lofty pressure reels,
And to the freshening gale still deeper heels.