And lo! his surface, lovely to behold!
Glows in the west, a sea of living gold!
While, all above, a thousand liveries gay
The skies with pomp ineffable array.
Arabian sweets perfume the happy plains:
Above, beneath, around enchantment reigns!
While yet the shades, on time's eternal scale,
With long vibration deepen o'er the vale;
While yet the songsters of the vocal grove
With dying numbers tune the soul to love,
With joyful eyes the attentive master sees
The auspicious omens of an eastern breeze.
Now radiant Vesper leads the starry train,
And night slow draws her veil o'er land and main;
Round the charged bowl the sailors form & ring;
By turns recount the wondrous tale, or sing;
As love or battle, hardships of the main,
Or genial wine, awake their homely strain :
Then some the watch of night alternate keep,
The rest lie buried in oblivious sleep.
Appearance of the Ship on the Shores of Greece.
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 casts a softer gleam,
While trembling through the green translucent stream.
The wales, (1) that close above in contrast shone,
Clasp the long fabric with a jetty zone.
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! (2)
Cape Colonna-The Storm and Wreck.
But now Athenian mountains they descry,
And o'er the surge Colonna frowns on high.
1 The wales here alluded to are an assemblage of strong planks, which envelop the lower part of the ship's side. 2 In the Pope controversy (1821), Mr. Bowles quoted Lord Byron's beautiful image of the ship in the Corsair:
That seems to walk the waves a thing of life!
But Mr. Bowles himself had some years before written a fine description of a ship on her way:
That like a stately swan, in conscious pride
Breaks beautiful the rising surge, and throws
The gathered waves back. and seems to move
A living thing upon its lucid way.
Streaming in lovely glory to the morn.
Beside the cape's projecting verge is placed
A range of columns long by time defaced;
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 clapsed 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'orpowered, 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 vain.
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 steel-
Thus 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;
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, the friend of Cowper and Churchill, was born in London in 1733. His father was under-master at Westminster School. He distinguished bimself 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. By 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 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 smoothes the rugged brow of care,
And laps the mind in flowery dreams,
With Fancy's transitory gleams;
Fond of the nothings she bestows,
We wake at last to real woes.
Through every age, in every place,
Consider well the poet's case;
By turns protected and caressed,
Defamed, dependent, and distressed.
The joke of wits, the bane of slaves,
The curse of fools, the butt of knaves;
Too proud to stoop for servile ends,
To lacquey rogues or flatter friends;
With prodigality to give,
Too careless of the means to live;
The bubble fame intent to gain,
And yet too lazy to maintain;
He quits the world he never prized,
Pitied by few, by more despised,
And, lost to friends, oppressed by foes,
Sinks to the nothing whence he rose.
O glorious trade! for wit's a trade,
Where men are ruined more than made!
Let crazy Lee, neglected Gay,
The shabby Otway, Dryden gray,
Those tuneful servants of the Nine-
Not that I blend their names with mine-
Repeat their lives, their works, their
And teach the world some useful shame.
But bad as the life of a hackney poet and critic seems to have been in Lloyd's estimation, the situation of a school-usher was as little to be desired, and so thought Goldsmith:
Wretchedness of a School-usher.
Were I at once empowered to shew
My utmost vengeance on my foe,
To punish with extremest rigour,
I could inflict no penance bigger,
Than, using him as learnings tool,
To make him usher of a school.
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