The Shipwreck by William Falconer — Read

But now Athenian mountains they descry, / And o'er the surge Colonna frowns on high, / Where marble columns, long by time defaced, / Moss-covered, on the lofty Cape are placed; / There reared by fair devotion to sustain / In elder times Tritonia's sacred fane; / The circling beach in murderous form appears, / Decisive goal of all their hopes and fears: / The seamen now in wild amazement see / The scene of ruin rise beneath the lee; / Swift from their minds elapsed all dangers past, / As dumb with terror they behold the last: / 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: / 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 course.