Now borne impetuous o'er the boiling deeps, Her course to Attic shores the vessel keeps: The pilots, as the waves behind her swell, Still with the wheeling stern their force repel. For this assault should either quarter feel, Again to flank the tempest she might reel. The steersmen every bidden turn apply; To right and left the spokes alternate fly. Thus when some conquer'd host retreats in fear, The bravest leaders guard the broken rear; Indignant they retire, and long oppose Superior armies that around them close;
Still shield the flanks; the routed squadrons join;
And guide the flight in one embodied line:
So they direct the flying bark before
Th' impelling floods that lash her to the shore.
As some benighted traveller, through the shade,
Explores the devious path with heart dismay'd;
While prowling savages behind him roar,
And yawning pits and quagmires lurk before-
High o'er the poop th' audacious seas aspire,
Uproll'd in hills of fluctuating fire.
As some fell conqueror, frantic with success,
Sheds o'er the nations ruin and distress;
So, while the wat'ry wilderness he roams,
Incens'd to sevenfold rage the tempest foams;
And o'er the trembling pines, above, below,
Shrill through the cordage howls, with notes of woe.
Now thunders, wafted from the burning zone,
Growl from afar a deaf and hollow groan!
The ship's high battlements, to either side
For ever rocking, drink the briny tide:
Her joints unhing'd, in palsied languors play,
As ice dissolves beneath the noon-tide ray.
The skies, asunder torn, a deluge pour;
The impetuous hail descends in whirling shower.
High on the masts, with pale and livid rays,
Amid the gloom portentous meteors blaze.
Th' ethereal dome, in mournful pomp array'd,
Now lurks behind impenetrable shade;
Now, flashing round intolerable light,
Redoubles all the terrors of the night.
Such terror Sinai's quaking hill o'erspread,
When Heaven's loud trumpet sounded o'er its head.
It seem'd the wrathful angel of the wind
Had all the horrors of the skies combin'd;
And here, to one ill-fated ship oppos'd,
At once the dreadful magazine disclos'd.
And lo! tremendous o'er the deep he springs,
Th'enflaming sulphur flashing from his wings!—
Hark! his strong voice the dreadful silence breaks;
Mad chaos from the chains of death awakes!
Loud and more loud the rolling peals enlarge,
And blue on deck their blazing sides discharge:
There all aghast the shivering wretches stood,
While chill suspense and fear congeal'd their blood.
Now in a deluge bursts the living flame,
And dread concussion rends th' ethereal frame;
Sick earth convulsive groans from shore to shore,
And nature shuddering feels the horrid roar.
Still the sad prospect rises on my sight,
Reveal'd in all its mournful shade and light.
Swift through my pulses glides the kindling fire,
As lightning glances on th' electric wire.
But ah! the force of numbers strives in vain,
The glowing scene unequal to sustain.
But lo! at last from tenfold darkness born,
Forth issues o'er the wave the weeping morn.
Hail, sacred vision! who, on orient wing,
The cheering dawn of light propitious bring!
All nature smiling, hail'd the vivid ray,
That gave her beauties to returning day:
All but our ship, that, groaning on the tide,
No kind relief, no gleam of hope descry'd.
For now in front her trembling inmates see
The hills of Greece emerging on the lee.
So the lost lover views that fatal morn,
On which, for ever from his bosom torn,
The nymph ador'd resigns her blooming charms,
To bless with love some happier rival's arms.
So to Eliza dawn'd that cruel day,
That tore Æneas from her arms away;
That saw him parting, never to return,
Herself in funeral flames decreed to burn.
O yet in clouds, thou genial source of light,
Conceal thy radiant glories from our sight!
Go, with thy smile adorn the happy plain,
And gild the scenes where health and pleasure reign:
But let not here, in scorn, thy wanton beam
Insult the dreadful grandeur of my theme!
While shoreward now the bounding vessel flies,
Full in her van St. George's cliffs arise:
High o'er the rest a pointed crag is seen,
That hung projecting o'er a mossy green.
Nearer and nearer now the danger grows,
And all their skill relentless fates oppose.
to induce the reader to desire a more intimate acquaintance with the amiable and graceful poet. He wrote also a series of Moral Eclogues and Oriental Ecloguesand in these we think he failed. He had evidently caught the infection at that period so perilous to genius; and laboured to mix up rural images and characters with names, events, and personages utterly foreign to them. Collins had, in some degree, succeeded in so wild an experiment; but even his higher powers of mind were insufficient to render popular a plan so incongruous. In his own time it was startling to find a Quaker among the sons of song; and it may be that this circumstance added somewhat to the popularity he obtained. Apart from this consideration, however, his merits will be readily acknowledged; his poems will be admired by all to whom the gentler virtues are dear, and who derive their greatest enjoyments from true and natural descriptions of objects.
not too wise nor good, For human nature's daily food."
That on each other seem to throng,
And mix in many a varied form;
While, bursting now and then between,
The moon's dim misty orb is seen,
And casts faint glimpses on the green.
Beneath the blast the forests bend,
And thick the branchy ruin lies,
And wide the shower of foliage flies;
The lake's black waves in tumult blend,
Revolving o'er and o'er and o'er,
And foaming on the rocky shore,
Whose caverns echo to their roar.
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