Or we shall soon eternally repose
From life's long voyage.
The clouds hang thick and heavy o'er the deep,
And heavily, upon the long slow swell,
The vessel labour'd on the labouring sea.
The reef-points rattled on the shivering sail;
At fits the sudden gust howl'd ominous,
Anon with unremitting fury raged;
High roll'd the mighty billows, and the blast
Swept from their sheeted sides the showery foam.
Vain now were all the seamen's homeward hopes,
Vain all their skill! . . we drove before the storm.
'Tis pleasant, by the cheerful hearth, to hear
Of tempests and the dangers of the deep,
And pause at times, and feel that we are safe;
Then listen to the perilous tale again,
And with an eager and suspended soul,
Woo terror to delight us. .. But to hear
The roaring of the raging elements, ..
To know all human skill, all human strength,
Avail not,
to look round, and only see
The mountain wave incumbent with its weight
Of bursting waters o'er the reeling bark,
O God, this is indeed a dreadful thing!
And he who hath endured the horror once
Of such an hour, doth never hear the storm
Howl round his home, but he remembers it,
And thinks upon the suffering mariner.
Onward we drove with unabating force The tempest raged; night added to the storm
New horrors, and the morn arose o'erspread
With heavier clouds. The weary mariners
Call'd on Saint Cyric's aid; and I too placed
My hope on Heaven, relaxing not the while
Our human efforts. Ye who dwell at home,
Ye do not know the terrors of the main !
When the winds blow, ye walk along the shore,
And as the curling billows leap and toss,
Fable that Ocean's mermaid Shepherdess
Drives her white flocks afield, and warns in time
The wary fisherman. Gwenhidwy warn'd
When we had no retreat!
Almost had fail'd me. . . Were the Elements
Confounded in perpetual conflict here,
Sea, Air, and Heaven? Or were we perishing
Where at their source the Floods, for ever thus,
Beneath the nearer influence of the moon
Labour'd in these mad workings? Did the Waters
Here on their outmost circle meet the void,
The verge and brink of Chaos?
Was it indeed a living thing, . . its breath
The ebb and flow of Ocean? and had we
Reach'd the storm rampart of its Sanctuary,
The insuperable boundary, raised to guard
Its mysteries from the eye of man profane ?
Three dreadful nights and days we drove along ; The fourth the welcome rain came rattling down, The wind had fallen, and through the broken cloud Appeared the bright dilating blue of heaven. Embolden'd now, I call'd the mariners: . . Vain were it should we bend a homeward course, Driven by the storm so far; they saw our barks,
For service of that long and perilous way
Disabled, and our food belike to fail.
Silent they heard, reluctant in assent;
Anon, they shouted joyfully, . . I look'd
And saw a bird slow sailing overhead,
His long white pinions by the sunbeam edged
As though with burnish'd silver;
Heard I so sweet a music as his cry!
Yet three days more, and hope more eager now, Sure of the signs of land, weed-shoals, and birds Who flock'd the main, and gentle airs which breathed, Or seem'd to breathe, fresh fragrance from the shore,
On the last evening, a long shadowy line
Skirted the sea; how fast the night closed in !
I stood upon the deck, and watch'd till dawn.
But who can tell what feelings fill'd my heart,
When like a cloud the distant land arose
Grey from the ocean, when we left the ship,
And cleft, with rapid oars, the shallow wave,
And stood triumphant on another world!
THE ATTACK UPON THE WOMEN 1
SILENT and solitary is thy vale,
Caermadoc, and how melancholy now
That solitude and silence! . . Broad noon-day,
And not a sound of human life is there!
The fisher's net, abandon'd in his haste,
Sways idly in the waters; in the tree,
Where its last stroke had pierced, the hatchet hangs :
The birds, beside the mattock and the spade,
Hunt in the new-turn'd mould, and fearlessly
Fly through the cage-work of the imperfect wall ;
Or through the vacant dwelling's open door,
Pass and repass secure.
In Madoc's house,
And on his bed of reeds, Goervyl lies,
1 Madoc is a prisoner in the hands of the hostile Aztecas, when Prince Amalahta, son of Queen Erillyab (a friend to the British, and now a Christian), turns traitor, and attacks the women of the settlement named Caermadoc. Goervyl is sister of Madoc; Mervyn, supposed a page, is the maiden Senena, who has accompanied Madoc in order to be near her lover, Caradoc; Malinal is a young Azteca loyal to the British leader. -ED.
Her face toward the ground. She neither weeps,
Nor sighs, nor groans; too strong her agony
For outward sign of anguish, and for prayer
Too hopeless was the ill; and though, at times,
The pious exclamation pass'd her lips,
Thy will be done! yet was that utterance
Rather the breathing of a broken heart,
Than of a soul resign'd. Mervyn beside,
Hangs over his dear mistress silently,
Having no hope or comfort to bestow,
Nor aught but sobs and unavailing tears.
The women of Caermadoc, like a flock
Collected in their panic, stand around
The house of their lost leader; and they too
Are mute in their despair. Llaian alone
Is absent; wildly hath she wander'd forth
To seek her child, and such the general woe,
That none hath mark'd her absence.
Though unprotected thus, no selfish fear;
The sudden evil had destroyed all thought,
All sense of present danger to themselves,
All foresight.
Yet new terrors! Malinal,
Panting with speed, bursts in, and takes the arms
Of Madoc down. Goervyl, at that sound,
Started in sudden hope; but when she saw
The Azteca, she uttered a faint scream
Of wrongful fear, remembering not the proofs
Of his tried truth, nor recognizing aught
In those known features, save their hostile hue.
But he, by worser fear abating soon
Her vain alarm, exclaim'd, I saw a band
Of Hoamen coming up the straits, for ill,
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