| |
| HAPPY the man who, safe on shore, | |
| Now trims, at home, his evening fire; | |
| Unmoved, he hears the tempests roar, | |
| That on the tufted groves expire: | |
| Alas! on us they doubly fall, | 5 |
| Our feeble bark must bear them all. | |
| |
| Now to their haunts the birds retreat, | |
| The squirrel seeks his hollow tree, | |
| Wolves in their shaded caverns meet, | |
| All, all are bless’d but wretched we— | 10 |
| Foredoom’d a stranger to repose, | |
| No rest the unsettled ocean knows. | |
| |
| While o’er the dark abyss we roam, | |
| Perhaps, whate’er the pilots say, | |
| We saw the sun descend in gloom, | 15 |
| No more to see his rising ray, | |
| But buried low, by far too deep, | |
| On coral beds, unpitied, sleep! | |
| |
| But what a strange, uncoasted strand | |
| Is that, where fate permits no day— | 20 |
| No charts have we to mark that land, | |
| No compass to direct that way. | |
| What pilot shall explore that realm, | |
| What new Columbus take the helm? | |
| |
| While death and darkness both surround, | 25 |
| And tempests rage with lawless power, | |
| Of friendship’s voice I hear no sound, | |
| No comfort in this dreadful hour— | |
| What friendship can in tempests be, | |
| What comfort on this troubled sea? | 30 |
| |
| The bark, accustom’d to obey, | |
| No more the trembling pilots guide; | |
| Alone she gropes her trackless way, | |
| While mountains burst on either side— | |
| Thus, skill and science both must fall; | 35 |
| And ruin is the lot of all. | |
| |
