Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away:
But waged with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.
He shouted; nor his friends had failed,
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevailed,
That pitiless perforce
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.
Some succour yet they could afford,
And such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delayed not to bestow;
But he (they knew) nor ship nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
He long survives who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent power
His destiny repelled;
And ever, as the moments flew,
Entreated help, or cried—“ Adieu!”
At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in every blast,
Could catch the sound no more:
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.
No poet wept him; but the page
Of narrative sincere,
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear :
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalise the dead.
ALL was confused, above, beneath, around; All sounds of terror; no distinguished sound Could reach me, now on sweeping surges tost, And then between the rising billows lost;
An undefined sensation stopt my breath; Disordered views and threatening signs of death Met in one moment, and a terror gave—
I cannot paint it to the moving grave.
My thoughts were all distressing, hurried, mixed, On all things fixing, not a moment fixed:
Vague thoughts of instant danger brought their pain,
New hopes of safety banished them again;
Then the swollen billow all these hopes destroyed,
And left me sinking in the mighty void:
Weaker I grew, and grew the more dismayed,
Of aid all hopeless, yet in search of aid;
Struggling awhile upon the wave to keep,
Then, languid, sinking in the yawning deep:
So tost, so lost, so sinking in despair,
I prayed in heart an indirected prayer,
And then once more I gave my eyes to view
The ship now lost, and bade the light adieu!
From my chilled frame the enfeebled spirit fled,
Rose the tall billows round my deepening bed,
Cold seized my heart, thought ceased, and I was
dead.
Brother, I have not-man has not the power To paint the horrors of that life-long hour; Hour!-but of time I knew not-when I found Hope, youth, life, love, and all they promised, drowned;
When all so indistinct, so undefined,
So dark and dreadful, overcame the mind;
When such confusion on the spirit dwelt,
That, feeling much, it knew not what it felt.
Oft in the times when passion strives to reign,
When duty feebly holds the slackened chain,
When reason slumbers, then remembrance draws
This view of death, and folly makes a pause,-
The view o'ercomes the vice, and fear the frenzy
I know there wants not this to make it true,
What danger bids be done, in safety do;
Yet such escapes may make our purpose sure,
Who slights such warning, may be too secure.
"But the escape!"—Whate'er they judged might
Their sinking friend, they cast upon the wave;
Something of these my heaven-directed arm
Unconscious seized, and held as by a charm;
The crew astern beheld me as I swam,
And I am saved-O! let me say
PESTILENCE AT SEA.
WHEN o'er this world, by equinoctial rains Flooded immense, looks out the joyless sun,
And draws the copious steam from swampy fens, Where putrefaction into life ferments,
And breathes destructive myriads; or from woods
Impenetrable shades, recesses foul,
In vapours rank and blue corruption wrapped,
Whose gloomy horrors yet no desperate foot
Has ever dared to pierce; then, wasteful, forth
Walks the dire Power of pestilent disease.
A thousand hideous fiends her course attend,
Sick Nature blasting, and to heartless woe,
And feeble desolation, casting down
The towering hopes and all the pride of man.
Such as, of late, at Carthagena quenched
The British fire. You, gallant VERNON, saw
The miserable scene; you, pitying, saw
To infant weakness sunk the warrior's arm;
Saw the deep-racking pang, the ghastly form,
The lip, pale-quivering, and the beamless eye,
No more with ardour bright: you heard the groans
Of agonising ships from shore to shore;
Heard, nightly plunged amid the sullen waves,
The frequent corse; while on each other fixed,
In sad presage, the blank assistants seemed,
Silent, to ask, whom fate would next demand.
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