Roused from repose, aloft the sailors swarm,
And with their levers soon the windlass arm.
The order given, upspringing with a bound
They lodge their bars, and wheel their engine round:
At every turn the clanging pauls resound.
Uptorn reluctant from its oozy cave,
The ponderous anchor rises o'er the wave.
Along their slippery masts the yards ascend,
And high in air the canvas wings extend:
Redoubling cords the lofty canvas guide,
And through inextricable mazes glide.
The lunar rays with long reflection gleam,
To light the vessel o'er the silver stream:
Along the glassy plain serene she glides,
While azure radiance trembles on her sides.
From east to north the transient breezes play;
And in the Egyptian quarter die away.

A calm ensues; they dread the adjacent shore;
The boats with rowers armed are sent before;
With cordage fastened to the lofty prow,
Aloof to sea the stately ship they tow.

The nervous crew their sweeping oars extend;
And pealing shouts the shore of Candia rend.
Success attends their skill; the danger's o'er;
The port is doubled, and beheld no more.

Now morn, her lamp pale glimmering on the sight,
Scattered before her van reluctant night.
She comes not in refulgent pomp arrayed,
But sternly frowning, wrapt in sullen shade.
Above incumbent vapours, Ida's height,
Tremendous rock! emerges on the sight.
North-east the guardian isle of Standia lies,
And westward Freschin's woody capes arise.

With winning postures, now the wanton sails Spread all their snares to charm the inconstant gales.

The swelling stud-sails1 now their wings extend,
Then stay-sails sidelong to the breeze ascend:
While all to court the wandering breeze are placed;
With yards now thwarting, now obliquely braced.
The dim horizon lowering vapours shroud,
And blot the sun, yet struggling in the cloud;
Through the wide atmosphere, condensed with haze,
His glaring orb emits a sanguine blaze.
The pilots now their rules of art apply,
The mystic needle's devious aim to try.
The compass placed to catch the rising ray,2
The quadrant's shadows studious they survey!
Along the arch the gradual index slides,
While Phoebus down the vertic circle glides.
Now, seen on ocean's utmost verge to swim,
He sweeps it vibrant with his nether limb.
Their sage experience thus explores the height,
And polar distance of the source of light;
Then through the chiliad's triple maze they trace
The analogy that proves the magnet's place.
The wayward steel, to truth thus reconciled,
No more the attentive pilot's eye beguiled.

The natives, while the ship departs the land,
Ashore with admiration gazing stand.
Majestically slow, before the breeze,
In silent pomp she marches on the seas.
Her milk-white bottom cast a softer gleam,
While trembling through the green translucent stream.
The wales,3 that close above in contrast shone,
Clasp the long fabric with a jetty zone.

1 Studding-sails are long narrow sails, which are only used in fine weather and fair winds, on the outside of the larger square-sails. Stay-sails are three-cornered sails, which are hoisted up on the stays, when the wind crosses the ship's course either directly or obliquely.

2 The operation of taking the sun's azimuth, in order to discover the eastern or western variation of the magnetical needle. 3 The wales here alluded to are an assemblage of strong planks, which envelop the lower part of the ship's side, 26

Britannia, riding awful on the prow,

*

Gazed o'er the vassal-wave that rolled below:
Where'er she moved, the vassal-waves were seen
To yield obsequious, and confess their queen.
High o'er the poop, the flattering winds unfurled
The imperial flag that rules the watery world.
Deep-blushing armours all the tops invest;
And warlike trophies either quarter drest:
Then towered the masts; the canvas swelled on high;
And waving streamers floated in the sky.
Thus the rich vessel moves in trim array,

Like some fair virgin on her bridal-day.

Thus like a swan she cleaves the watery plain,

The pride and wonder of the Ægean main!

[The ship, having been driven out of her course from Candia, is overtaken by a storm.]

As yet amid this elemental war,

That scatters desolation from afar,

Nor toil, nor hazard, nor distress appear

To sink the seamen with unmanly fear.

Though their firm hearts no pageant honour boast,
They scorn the wretch that trembles at his post;
Who from the face of danger strives to turn,
Indignant from the social hour they spurn.
Though now full oft they felt the raging tide,
In proud rebellion climb the vessel's side,
No future ills unknown their souls appal;
They know no danger, or they scorn it all!
But even the generous spirits of the brave,
Subdued by toil, a friendly respite crave;
A short repose alone their thoughts implore,
Their harassed powers by slumber to restore.
Far other cares the master's mind employ;
Approaching perils all his hopes destroy.
In vain he spreads the graduated chart,
And bounds the distance by the rules of art;
In vain athwart the mimic seas expands
The compasses to circumjacent lands.
Ungrateful task! for no asylum traced,
A passage opened from the watery waste.
Fate seemed to guard with adamantine mound,
The path to every friendly port around.
While Albert thus, with secret doubts dismayed,
The geometric distances surveyed;

On deck the watchful Rodmond cries aloud:
'Secure your lives-grasp every man a shroud!'
Roused from his trance, he mounts with eyes aghast,
When o'er the ship in undulation vast,

*

告

A giant surge down-rushes from on high,
And fore and aft dissevered ruins lie.
Thus the torn vessel felt the enormous stroke;
The boats beneath the thundering deluge broke;
Forth started from their planks the bursting rings,
The extended cordage all asunder springs.
The pilot's fair machinery strews the deck,
And cards and needles swim in floating wreck.
The balanced mizzen, rending to the head,
In streaming ruins from the margin fled.
The sides convulsive shook on groaning beams,
And, rent with labour, yawned the pitchy seams.
They sound the well,1 and terrible to hear!
Five feet immersed along the line appear.
At either pump they ply the clanking brake,"
And turn by turn the ungrateful office take.
Rodmond, Arion, and Palemon, here,
At this sad task all diligent appear.

wherein they are broader and thicker than the rest, and appear somewhat like a range of hoops, which separates the bottom from the upper works.

1 The well is an apartment in the ship's hold, serving to enclose the pumps. It is sounded by dropping a graduated iron rod down into it by a long line. Hence the increase or diminution of the leaks are easily discovered.

2 The brake is the lever or handle of the pump, by which it is wrought.

As some fair castle, shook by rude alarms,
Opposes long the approach of hostile arms;
Grim war around her plants his black array,
And death and sorrow mark his horrid way;
Till in some destined hour, against her wall,
In tenfold rage the fatal thunders fall;
The ramparts crack, the solid bulwarks rend,
And hostile troops the shattered breach ascend;
Her valiant inmates still the foe retard,
Resolved till death their sacred charge to guard:
So the brave mariners their pumps attend,
And help incessant by rotation lend;

But all in vain-for now the sounding cord,
Updrawn, an undiminished depth explored.
Nor this severe distress is found alone;
The ribs oppressed by ponderous cannon groan.
Deep rolling from the watery volume's height,
The tortured sides seem bursting with their weight.
So reels Pelorus, with convulsive throes,
When in his veins the burning earthquake glows;
Hoarse through his entrails roars the infernal flame;
And central thunders rend his groaning frame;
Accumulated mischiefs thus arise,
And fate vindictive all their skill defies;
One only remedy the season gave-

To plunge the nerves of battle in the wave.

From their high platforms thus the artillery thrown,
Eased of their load, the timbers less shall groan;
But arduous is the task their lot requires;
A task that hovering fate alone inspires!
For, while intent the yawning decks to ease,
That ever and anon are drenched with seas,
Some fatal billow, with recoiling sweep,
May whirl the helpless wretches in the deep.
No season this for counsel or delay!
Too soon the eventful moments haste away;
Here perseverance, with each help of art,
Must join the boldest efforts of the heart.
These only now their misery can relieve;
These only now a dawn of safety give;

While o'er the quivering deck, from van to rear,
Broad surges roll in terrible career;
Rodmond, Arion, and a chosen crew,
This office in the face of death pursue.
The wheeled artillery o'er the deck to guide,
Rodmond descending claimed the weather-side.
Fearless of heart, the chief his orders gave,
Fronting the rude assaults of every wave.
Like some strong watch-tower nodding o'er the deep,
Whose rocky base the foaming waters sweep,
Untamed he stood; the stern aërial war
Had marked his honest face with many a scar.
Meanwhile Arion, traversing the waist,1
The cordage of the leeward guns unbraced,
And pointed crows beneath the metal placed.
Watching the roll, their forelocks they withdrew,
And from their beds the reeling cannon threw;
Then, from the windward battlements unbound,
Rodmond's associates wheel the artillery round;
Pointed with iron fangs, their bars beguile
The ponderous arms across the steep defile;
Then hurled from sounding hinges o'er the side,
Thundering, they plunge into the flashing tide.

[The tempest increases, and the dismantled ship passes the island of St George.]

But now Athenian mountains they descry, And o'er the surge Colonna frowns on high. Beside the cape's projecting verge is placed A range of columns long by time defaced;

1 The waist of a ship of this kind is a hollow space of about five feet in depth, contained between the elevations of the quarter-deck and forecastle, and having the upper-deck for its base or platform.

First planted by devotion to sustain,
In elder times, Tritonia's sacred fane.
Foams the wild beach below with maddening rage,
Where waves and rocks a dreadful combat wage.
The sickly heaven, fermenting with its freight,
Still vomits o'er the main the feverish weight:
And now, while winged with ruin from on high,
Through the rent cloud the ragged lightnings fly,
A flash quick glancing on the nerves of light,
Struck the pale helmsman with eternal night:
Rodmond, who heard a piteous groan behind,
Touched with compassion, gazed upon the blind;
And while around his sad companions crowd,
He guides the unhappy victim to the shroud,
'Hie thee aloft, my gallant friend,' he cries;
"Thy only succour on the mast relies.'
The helm, bereft of half its vital force,
Now scarce subdued the wild unbridled course;
Quick to the abandoned wheel Arion came,
The ship's tempestuous sallies to reclaim.
Amazed he saw her, o'er the sounding foam
Upborne, to right and left distracted roam.
So gazed young Phaeton, with pale dismay,
When, mounted on the flaming car of day,
With rash and impious hand the stripling tried
The immortal coursers of the sun to guide.
The vessel, while the dread event draws nigh,
Seems more impatient o'er the waves to fly :
Fate spurs her on. Thus, issuing from afar,
Advances to the sun some blazing star;
And, as it feels the attraction's kindling force,
Springs onward with accelerated force.

With mournful look the seamen eyed the strand,
Where death's inexorable jaws expand;
Swift from their minds elapsed all dangers past,
As, dumb with terror, they beheld the last.
Now on the trembling shrouds, before, behind,
In mute suspense they mount into the wind.
The genius of the deep, on rapid wing,
The black eventful moment seemed to bring.
The fatal sisters, on the surge before,
Yoked their infernal horses to the prore.

The steersmen now received their last command
To wheel the vessel sidelong to the strand.
Twelve sailors, on the foremast who depend,
High on the platform of the top ascend:
Fatal retreat! for while the plunging prow
Immerges headlong in the wave below,
Down-pressed by watery weight the bowsprit
bends,

And from above the stem deep crashing rends.
Beneath her beak the floating ruins lie;
The foremast totters, unsustained on high;
And now the ship, fore-lifted by the sea,
Hurls the tall fabric backward o'er her lee;
While, in the general wreck, the faithful stay
Drags the maintop-mast from its post away.
Flung from the mast, the seamen strive in vain
Through hostile floods their vessel to regain.
The waves they buffet, till, bereft of strength,
O'erpowered, they yield to cruel fate at length.
The hostile waters close around their head,
They sink for ever, numbered with the dead!

Those who remain their fearful doom await,
Nor longer mourn their lost companions' fate.
The heart that bleeds with sorrows all its own,
Forgets the pangs of friendship to bemoan.
Albert and Rodmond and Palemon here,
With young Arion, on the mast appear;
Even they, amid the unspeakable distress,
In every look distracting thoughts confess;
In every vein the refluent blood congeals,
And every bosom fatal terror feels.
Enclosed with all the demons of the main,
They viewed the adjacent shore, but viewed in

And now, lashed on by destiny severe, With horror fraught the dreadful scene drew near! The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death, Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath! In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yore, Would arm the mind with philosophic lore; In vain they'd teach us, at the latest breath, To smile serene amid the pangs of death. Even Zeno's self, and Epictetus old, This fell abyss had shuddered to behold. Had Socrates, for godlike virtue famed, And wisest of the sons of men proclaimed, Beheld this scene of frenzy and distress, His soul had trembled to its last recess ! O yet confirm my heart, ye powers above, This last tremendous shock of fate to prove! The tottering frame of reason yet sustain ! Nor let this total ruin whirl my brain!

In vain the cords and axes were prepared, For now the audacious seas insult the yard; High o'er the ship they throw a horrid shade, And o'er her burst, in terrible cascade. Uplifted on the surge, to heaven she flies, Her shattered top half buried in the skies, Then headlong plunging thunders on the ground, Earth groans, air trembles, and the deeps resound! Her giant bulk the dread concussion feels, And quivering with the wound, in torment reels; So reels, convulsed with agonising throes, The bleeding bull beneath the murderer's blows. Again she plunges; hark! a second shock Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock! Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries, The fated victims shuddering roll their eyes In wild despair; while yet another stroke, With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak: Till, like the mine, in whose infernal cell The lurking demons of destruction dwell, At length asunder torn her frame divides, And crashing spreads in ruin o'er the tides. As o'er the surf the bending mainmast hung, Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung; Some on a broken crag were struggling cast, And there by oozy tangles grappled fast; Awhile they bore the o'erwhelming billows' rage, Unequal combat with their fate to wage; Till all benumbed and feeble, they forego Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below; Some, from the main-yard-arm impetuous thrown On marble ridges, die without a groan; Three with Palemon on their skill depend, And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend; Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride, Then downward plunge beneath the involving tide; Till one, who seems in agony to strive, The whirling breakers heave on shore alive: The rest a speedier end of anguish knew, And pressed the stony beach--a lifeless crew! Next, O unhappy chief! the eternal doom Of heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb: What scenes of misery torment thy view! What painful struggles of thy dying crew! Thy perished hopes all buried in the flood, O'erspread with corses, red with human blood! So pierced with anguish hoary Priam gazed, When Troy's imperial domes in ruin blazed; While he, severest sorrow doomed to feel, Expired beneath the victor's murdering steelThus with his helpless partners to the last, Sad refuge! Albert grasps the floating mast. His soul could yet sustain this mortal blow, But droops, alas! beneath superior woe; For now strong nature's sympathetic chain Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain; His faithful wife, for ever doomed to mourn For him, alas! who never shall return;

6

To black adversity's approach exposed,
With want, and hardships unforeseen enclosed;
His lovely daughter, left without a friend
Her innocence to succour and defend,
By youth and indigence set forth a prey
To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray-
While these reflections rack his feeling mind,
Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resigned,
And, as the tumbling waters o'er him rolled,
His outstretched arms the master's legs infold:
Sad Albert feels their dissolution near,
And strives in vain his fettered limbs to clear,
For death bids every clenching joint adhere.
All faint, to heaven he throws his dying eyes,
And 'Oh, protect my wife and child!' he cries--
The gushing streams roll back the unfinished sound;
He gasps! and sinks amid the vast profound.

ROBERT LLOYD.

By

ROBERT LLOYD, the friend of Cowper and Churchill, was born in London in 1733. His father was under-master at Westminster School. He distinguished himself by his talents at Cambridge, but was irregular in his habits. After completing his education, he became an usher under his father. The wearisome routine of this life soon disgusted him, and he attempted to earn a subsistence by his literary talents. His poem called The Actor attracted some notice, and was the precursor of Churchill's Rosciad. The style is light and easy, and the observations generally correct and spirited. contributing to periodical works as an essayist, a poet, and stage critic, Lloyd picked up a precarious subsistence, but his means were thoughtlessly squandered in company with Churchill and other wits ' upon town.' He brought out two indifferent theatrical pieces, published his poems by subscription, and edited the St James's Magazine, to which Colman, Bonnel Thornton, and others contributed. The magazine failed, and Lloyd was cast into prison for debt. Churchill generously allowed him a guinea a week, as well as a servant; and endeavoured to raise a subscription for the purpose of extricating him from his embarrassments. Churchill died in November 1764. 'Lloyd,' says Mr Southey, 'had been apprised of his danger; but when the news of his death was somewhat abruptly announced to him, as he was sitting at dinner, he was seized with a sudden sickness, and saying: "I shall follow poor Charles," took to his bed, from which he never rose again; dying, if ever man died, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here: Churchill's favourite sister, who is said to have possessed much of her brother's sense, and spirit, and genius, and to have been betrothed to Lloyd, attended him during his illness; and, sinking under the double loss, soon followed her brother and her lover to the grave.' Lloyd, in conjunction with Colman, parodied the Odes of Gray and Mason, and the humour of their burlesques is not tinctured with malignity. Indeed, this unfortunate young poet seems to have been one of the gentlest of witty observers and lively satirists; he was ruined by the friendship of Churchill and the Nonsense Club, and not by the force of an evil nature. The vivacity of his style-which both Churchill and Cowper copied-may be seen from the following short extract:

[The Miseries of a Poet's Life.] The harlot muse, so passing gay, Bewitches only to betray. Though for a while with easy air She smooths the rugged brow of care,