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 th' 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 prest the stony beach-a lifeless Crew!
Next, O unhappy Chief! th' 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.

DEATHS OF RODMOND, AND ALBERT. 129

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 resign'd;
And, as the tumbling waters o'er him roll'd,
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 clinching 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 th' unfinished sound,
He gasps! and sinks amid the vast profound

K

Five only left of all the shipwrecked throng Yet ride the Mast which shoreward drives along; With these ARION still his hold secures, And all assaults of hostile waves endures : O'er the dire prospect as for life he strives, He looks if poor PALEMON yet survives"Ah wherefore, trusting to unequal art, "Didst thou, incautious! from the Wreck depart? "Alas! these Rocks all human skill defy, "Who strikes them once, beyond relief must die: " And now sore wounded, thou perhaps art tost "On these, or in some oozy Cavern lost:" Thus thought ARION; anxious gazing round In vain, his eyes no more PALEMON foundThe Demons of destruction hover nigh, And thick their mortal Shafts commissioned fly: When now a breaking Surge, with forceful sway, Two, next ARION, furious tears away; Hurled on the Crags, behold they gasp, they bleed! And groaning, cling upon th' elusive Weed; Another Billow bursts in boundless roar! ARION sinks! and MEMORY views no more.