THE STORM, AND MIDNIGHT ENCOUNTER OF A SHIP AT SEA.
Night now has hush'd our crew in soft repose-
The moon, full-orb'd, her silver mantle throws
O'er the blue deep-her splendours quiv'ring play,
Gild our proud bark, and light her on her way:
In such an hour who would not slumber break,
To marvel o'er her meteor-streaming wake.*
In silent pomp the lofty warrior glides-
Her hull, masts, sails, reflected on the tides- 345
Her shadowy counterpart-to our sight,
Blended in stillness-noiseless as the night.
The wake of a ship is the track which she leaves on the sea. It may be seen to a considerable distance behind the stern, as smoother than the rest of the water.
A thing intelligent before the gale
Seems the tall ship-plunging her straining sail-
Some spirit wandering on the billow hoar,
That starts and listens to the wat'ry roar.
With stilly tread now on the gangway's height
The centinel proclaims the watch of night,
And as the bidden seaman strikes the bell,
Then sounds on air the cry of " All is well!"
Now at the helm the steersman lifts his brow
To thee, fair planet, glittering o'er the prow,
And, as he guides his vessel through the main,
Dwells on those friends he sighs to meet again—
That thronging wake alternate hope and fear,
By distance now to memory doubly dear.
Ocean slow heaving to the swelling breeze,
Recalls those nights in equinoctial seas,
What time a ship-boy,* o'er the gilded prow
I loll'd, and chid the talking waves below-
The Author of this Narrative embraced a sea-faring life, and made several voyages to India in his early youth: one in the Worcester, of which Mungo Park was the Surgeon's Mate.
Or strove to count the sparkles of the tide,
Their mimic fires scattering far and wide.
But years bring grief-now as the billows roll,
With voice articulate they melt the soul.
Like tones of friends remember'd o'er the ear
Mournful they fall, and wake the tender tear.
Whither are all my early comrades fled?
No more with jocund shout the sail they spread—
Mute evermore—and blotted from the day,
Like their swift ships they all have pass'd away.
Unknell❜d they sunk-for them no mourners weep,
Their shroud the wave, their sepulchre the deep,
Or if inurn'd, and yet survive their fame,
What is it but the record of a name-
A senseless effigy-a chisell'd bust,
The sculptor's effort to defraud the dust.
Another day is pass'd-but now no more
Our deep sail whitens o'er the billow hoar-
When night returns no more our crew is blest
With golden slumbers, and the dews of rest.
Intent we all beheld the waning day
Depart in clouds that spread a deep dismay-
The voice of wrecking havoc shriek❜d below,
And our dark fate alighted on the prow.
The chief in horror gaz'd-and while around
The still air trembled with a muttering sound— 390 What demon, cried he, of the whirlwind's train, Broods o'er the waters of the darken'd main?
Seamen, aloft! reduce the dangerous sail,
Bare pol'd* our bark must meet th' impending gale.
These portents of the troubled deep I saw
With secret wonder, and with sacred awe,
From our drear deck; and at my elbow stood
Young Talbot, fram'd for scenes of gentler mood,
Who, as his arm round mine in friendship twin'd,
Reveal'd the boding terrors of his mind:
*A ship is said to be under bare poles, when, in a tempest, all her sails being furled, she flies precipitately before it-perhaps, at the rate of twelve knots an hour, surrounded by waves whose heads or tops are blown about with so great violence that you cannot discern the horizon. Haud ignarus loquor!
I dreamt, as in my canvas-cot I lay,
Ere yet the boatswain's pipe announc'd the day,
That I was hurl'd unfathom'd caves to seek,
Where no sound broke the sabbath of the deep.
Around me carcases, a countless crowd,
Some in their hammocks, some without a shroud,
Floated in living tombs, the ocean's scorn,
With unctuous locks, and hollow eyes forlorn.
While speeding down the azure realm were spread
Trunks without heads and limbs, that streaming bled;
Torn from their cearments, the rejected food
Of the voracious monsters of the flood.
Incumbent mermaids trail'd their glossy hair,
But one mermaiden sang a plaintive air,
Who gently o'er me gaz'd with aspect bland,
And gazing wrong'd her bosom with her hand,
Pitied my youth, and with her melting shriek,
Pierc'd the calm caverns of the hollow deep.
The Sisters rose, shook back the streaming tress,
And join'd the doleful wailing of distress.
Then with a voice subdu'd, the weeping throng
Around me wove their melancholy song:
In vain you heaven-ward look with asking eye,
Fond boy! no more will you behold the sky.
Far deeper limits have you yet to seek
Of the exhaustless regions of the deep,
Pass shelving rocks, and distant eddies gain,
And mix with Proteus and his formless train.
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