Large and more large the threatening rocks appear, And every billow brings their fate more near.

Steep PURBECK's chalky cliffs, whose welcome fight

So oft have fill'd the bofom with delight,

When, as from hoftile coafts and diftant fkies 1
The wave-worn mariner, returning, fpies
Their well-known fummits with exulting eyes,
Renews each scene with thoughts domeftic dear,
And wets the cheek with joy's o'er raptur'd tear,
Now in the dreadful garb of terror drefs'd

Freeze life's warm tide, and chill the fhuddering

breaft;

And the lov'd fhore that life, that freedom gave, Now finks her fons beneath the whelming wave.

So JASON's infant race, a fuppliant train, Around their frantic mother cling in vain,

Hang on the parent bofom that fupplied
Their earlieft nurture with it's milky tide;
On all their pangs fhe fmiles with favage joy,
And her own hands her hated race deftroy.

Full on the fhore the giddy veffel drives,
And the rude fhock her folid timbers rives,
The lashing wave her batter'd planks divides,
And o'er her deck the fea refiftlefs rides.-

Say fhall no voice in pitying ftrains relate
The hardy mariner's. untimely fate,

Who oft BRITANNIA's ftreaming flag unfurl'd
To the wild inmates of the Southern world,
Or with bold prow the hoftile fleet explor'd
When louder than the furge the battle roar'd?
Yes! yes! to them the forrowing Mufe fhall pay
The votive tribute of a mournful lay:

Yet

Yet while fhe pours the unavailing tear

Some tranfient gleams the night of horror chear.
For fcenes that frequent fhapes of Death impart
Arm the firm breast, and steel the manly heart;
And he who oft has feen his ghaftly form
Glare in the fight, and thunder in the storm,
Will with bold arm his tyrant force engage,
And while he combats mitigates his rage.

Not fuch the means to check the awful doom When Youth and Beauty meet the watery tomb: Where thofe mild graces partial Nature gave

To footh the labors of the wife, and brave,
Soften'd by all that fond affiduous care

Which every bofom gives the young, and fair,

Each kind attention warm affection pays,

The Parent's fondnefs, and the Lover's praife,

M 3

Teach

Teach Senfibility's refiftlefs glow

To raife each fear, and double every woe.

Say how fhall they, whofe eye's averted fight Shrinks trembling from the phantom of affright, While Art inventive fkreens each lovely form

Or from the fultry ray, or chilling ftorm;

Say how fhall they with gentle bofoms brave

The rushing torrent of the delug'd wave,

Where Death's pale fhape in heighten'd terrors

drefs'd

Strikes icy horror through the firmest breast?

What language can describe, what colors fhew,

Each varied form of terror and of woe?

With pallid features, and difhevell'd hair,

In all the agony of dumb despair,

Here on the deck the wretched victim lies,

And views approaching death with lifted eyes.

Here

Here piercing cries drown'd by the founding main

Invoke an absent mother's aid in vain.

Here ftony fear arrests the laboring breath,

And dread, anticipates the ftroke of death.
This on the crew her eye attentive throws

To try
And fee fupreme in forrow and diftrefs

if hope one diftant ray bestows.

The wretched fire his trembling daughters prefs,

Now down his cheeks the streaming torrents roll, And fpeak the bitter anguish of his foul;

And now parental care his face beguiles,

And hides his heartfelt pangs in tranfient fimiles, Throws a faint funfhine o'er the brow of care; And gilds with hope the horror of despair.Heavens that foul-piercing fhrick!-the con

flict's o'er,

Hufh'd are their cries, their bofoms beat no more;