THE ARGUMENT.

I. Reflections on the beneficial influence of poetry. Diffidence of the author.II. Wreck of the mizen-mast cleared away. Ship veers before the wind. Labours hard. Different stations of the Officers. Appearance of the Island of Falconera.-III. Excursion to the adjacent Nations of Greece renowned in Antiquity. Athens. Socrates, Plato, Aristides. Solon. Corinth. Its architecture. Sparta. Leonidas. Invasion by Xerxes. Lycurgus. Epaminondas. Present state of the Spartans. Arcadia. Former happiness and fertility. Its present distress the effect of slavery. Ithaca. Ulysses and Penelope. Argos and Mycæne. Agamemnon. Macronisi. Lemnos. Vulcan. Delos. Apollo and Diana. Troy. Sestos. Leander and Hero. Delphos. Temple of Apollo. Parnassus. The Muses.-IV. Subject resumed. Address to the spirits of the storm. A tempest accompanied with rain, hail, and meteors. Darkness of the night, lightning and thunder. Daybreak. St. George's Cliffs open upon them. The ship in great danger passes the Island of St. George.-V. Land of Athens appears. Helmsman struck blind by lightning. Ship laid broadside to the shore. Bowsprit, foremast, and main topmast carried away. Albert, Rodmond, Arion, and Palemon, strive to save themselves on the wreck of the foremast. The ship parts asunder. Death of Albert and Rodmond. Arion reaches the shore. Finds Palemon expiring on the beach. His dying address to Arion, who is led away by the humane natives.

HEN in a barbarous age, with blood defiled,
The human savage roam'd the gloomy wild;
When sullen Ignorance her flag display'd,
And rapine and revenge her voice obey'd;
Sent from the shores of light, the Muses came

The dark and solitary race to tame,
The war of lawless passions to control,
To melt in tender sympathy the soul;

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The heart's remote recesses to explore,

And touch its springs when prose availed no more:

The kindling spirit caught the empyreal ray,

And glow'd congenial with the swelling lay;
Roused from the chaos of primeval night,
At once fair truth and reason sprung to light.
When great Mæonides, in rapid song,
The thundering tide of battle rolls along,
Each ravish'd bosom feels the high alarms,
And all the burning pulses beat to arms;
Hence, war's terrific glory to display,
Became the theme of every epic lay:

But when his strings with mournful magic tell
What dire distress Laertes' son befel,

The strains meandering through the maze of woe

Bid sacred sympathy the heart o'erflow;

Far through the boundless realms of thought

he springs,

From earth upborne on Pegasean wings,
While distant poets, trembling as they view
His sunward flight, the dazzling track pursue;
His magic voice, that rouses and delights,
Allures and guides to climb Olympian heights.

But I, alas! through scenes bewilder'd stray,
Far from the light of his unerring ray ;
While all unused the wayward path to tread,
Darkling I wander with prophetic dread;
To me in vain the bold Mæonian lyre

Awakes the numbers fraught with living fire,
Full oft indeed that mournful harp of yore
Wept the sad wanderer lost upon the shore;
But o'er that scene the impatient numbers ran,
Subservient only to a nobler plan :

'Tis mine the unravell'd prospect to display,
And chain the events in regular array,

Though hard the task to sing in varied strains,
While all unchanged the tragic theme remains!
Thrice happy, might the secret powers of art
Unlock the latent windings of the heart!—
Might the sad numbers draw compassion's tear
For kindred miseries, oft beheld too near:
For kindred wretches oft in ruin cast

On Albion's strand beneath the wintry blast:
For all the pangs, the complicated woe,
Her bravest sons, her faithful sailors know!
So pity, gushing o'er each British breast,
Might sympathise with Britain's sons distress'd:
For this, my theme through mazes I pursue,
Which nor Mæonides, nor Maro knew.

II. Awhile the mast, in ruins dragg'd behind, Balanced the impression of the helm and wind; The wounded serpent agonized with pain Thus trails his mangled volume on the plain : But now, the wreck dissever'd from the rear, The long reluctant prow began to veer:

While round before the enlarging wind it falls,
"Square fore and aft the yards," the master calls ;
"You timoneers her motion still attend,

For on your steerage all our lives depend:

So steady!2 meet her! watch the blast behind,
And steer her right before the seas and wind."
"Starboard again!" the watchful pilot cries;
"Starboard!" the obedient timoneer replies:

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Then back to port, revolving at command,

The wheel rolls swiftly through each glowing hand.

The ship, no longer foundering by the lee,

Bears on her side the invasions of the sea;

All lonely o'er the desert waste she flies,

Scourged on by surges, storms, and bursting skies:
As when enclosing harponeers assail

In hyperborean seas the slumbering whale,
Soon as their javelins pierce his scaly side,
He groans, he darts impetuous down the tide;
And rack'd all o'er with lacerating pain,

He flies remote beneath the flood in vain

1 The wind is said to enlarge, when it veers from the side towards the stern. To square the yards is, in this place, to haul them directly across the ship's length.

2 Steady! is an order to steer the ship according to the line on which she then advances, without deviating to the right or left.

3 The left side of a ship is called port, in steering, that the helmsman may not mistake larboard for starboard. In all large ships, the tiller (or long bar of timber that is fixed horizontally to the upper end of the rudder) is guided by a wheel, which acts upon it with the powers of a crane or windlass.