Some, from the Main Yard-Arm impetuous thrown On marble ridges, die without a groan: Three with PALEMON on their skill depend, The whirling Breakers heave on shore alive: 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 steelThus 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, To black Adversity's approach exposed, By youth and indigence set forth a prey To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray- And strives in vain his fettered limbs to clear 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 dic: "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. |