The ethereal dome in mournful pomp arrayed,
Now buried lies beneath impervious shade,
Now, flashing round intolerable light,
Redoubles all the horror of the night—
Such terror Sinai's trembling hill o'erspread,
When Heaven's loud trumpet sounded o'er its head:
It seemed the wrathful angel of the wind
Had all the horrors of the skies combined,
And here, to one ill-fated ship opposed,
At once the dreadful magazine disclosed:
And, lo! tremendous o'er the deep he springs,
Th' inflaming sulphur flashing from his wings;
Hark! his strong voice the dismal silence breaks,
Mad chaos from the chains of death awakes:
Loud, and more loud, the rolling peals enlarge,
And blue on deck the fiery tides discharge;
There all aghast the shivering wretches stood,
While chill suspense and fear congealed their blood
Wide burst in dazzling sheets the living flame,
And dread concussion rends th' ethereal flame;
Sick earth convulsive groans from shore to shore.
And nature, shuddering, feels the horrid roar.
FALCONER.
WHAT means upon the waters that red light?
Not bigger than a star it seems:
And, now, 'tis like the bloody moon:
And, now, it shoots in hairy streams
Its light!-Twill reach us soon.
A ship! and all on fire!-hull, yards, and masts! Her sheets are sheets of flame!-she's nearing fast!
And now she rides upright and still,
Shedding a wild and lurid light
Around the cove, or inland hill,
Waking the gloom of night.
All breathes of terror! men, in dumb amaze,
Gaze on each other 'neath the horrid blaze.
It scares the sea-birds from their nest;
They dart and wheel with deafening screams; Now dark, and now their wings and breasts Flash back disastrous gleams.
Oh, Sin! what hast thou done on this fair earth? The world, O Man! is wailing o'er thy birth.
FROST IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS.
OCEAN itself no longer can resist
The binding fury, but, in all its rage
Of tempest taken by the boundless frost,
Is many a fathom to the bottom chained,
And bid to roar no more: a bleak expanse,
Shagged o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void
Of every life, that from the dreary months
Flies conscious southward. Miserable they,
Who, here entangled in the gathering ice,
Take their last look of the descending sun;
While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost,
The long, long night, incumbent o'er their heads,
Falls horrible! Such was the Briton's* fate,
As with first prow (what have not Britons dared?)
He for the passage sought, attempted since
So much in vain, and seeming to be shut
By jealous Nature with eternal bars.
In these fell regions in Arzina caught,
And to the stormy deep his idle ship
Immediate sealed, he with his hapless crew,
Each full exerted at his several task,
Froze into statues; to the cordage glued
The sailor, and the pilot to the helm.
Stupendous monuments upon the seas
Works of Omnipotence, in wondrous forms,
Immovable as mountains in the storms!
Far as Imagination's eye can roll,
One range of Alpine glaciers to the pole,
Flanks the whole eastern coast; and branching wide,
Arches o'er many a league the indignant tide,
That works, and frets, with unavailing flow,
To mine a passage to the beach below;
Thence from its neck that winter yoke to rend,
And down the gulf the crashing fragments send.
There lies a vessel in this realm of frost,
Nor wrecked nor stranded, yet for ever lost;
Its keel embedded in the solid mass;
Its glistening sails appear expanded glass,
The transverse ropes with pearls enormous strung,
The yards with icicles grotesquely hung,
Wrapt in the topmast shrouds there rests a boy,
His old seafaring father's only joy;
Sprung from a race of rovers, ocean-born,
Nursed at the helm, he trod dry land with scorn;
Through fourscore years from port to port he veered,
Quicksand, nor rock, nor foe, nor tempest feared;
Now cast ashore, though like a hulk he lie,
His son at sea is ever in his eye,
And his prophetic thought, from age to age,
Esteems the waves his offspring's heritage :
He ne'er shall know, in his Norwegian cot,
How brief that son's career, how strange his lot;
Writhed round the mast and sepulchred in air,
Him shall no worm devour, no vulture tear;
Congealed to adamant his frame shall last,
Though empires change, till time and tide be past.
MONTGOMERY.
HARK to those sounds! they're from distress at sea: How quick they come! What terrors may
Yes, 'tis a driven vessel: I discern
Lights, signs of terror, gleaming from the stern;
Others behold them too, and from the town
In various parties seamen hurry down;
Their wives pursue, and damsels urged by dread,
Lest men so dear be into danger led;
Their head the gown has hooded, and their call
In this sad night is piercing like the squall;
They feel their kinds of power, and when they meet,
Chide, fondle, weep, dare, threaten, or intreat.
See one poor girl, all terror and alarm,
Has fondly seized upon her lover's arm,
"Thou shalt not venture;" and he answers "No! I will not," still she cries, "Thou shalt not go."
No need of this; not here the stoutest boat Can through such breakers, o'er such billows float, Yet may they view these lights upon the beach, Which yield them hope, whom help can never reach.
From parted clouds the moon her radiance throws On the wild waves, and all the danger shows; But shows them beaming in her shining vest, Terrific splendour! gloom in glory dressed! This for a moment, and then clouds again Hide every beam, and fear and darkness reign.
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