Shipwreck

Shipwreck

Some hoisted out the boats, and there was one That begged Pedrillo for an absolution, Who told him to be damn'd,—in his confusion.

• • Byron—Don Juan. Canto II. St. 44.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—

 Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave,—

Then some leap'd overboard with fearful yell,

 As eager to anticipate their grave.

• • Byron—Don Juan. Canto II. St. 52.

Again she plunges! hark! a second shock Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock; Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries, The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes In wild despair; while yet another stroke With strong convulsion rends the solid oak: Ah Heaven!—behold her crashing ribs divide! She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide.

• • Falconer—Shipwreck. Canto III. L. 642.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,

 Through the whistling sleet and snow,

Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept

 Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

• • Longfellow—The Wreck of the Hesperus. St. 15.

Naufragium sibi quisque facit.

 Each man makes his own shipwreck.

• • Lucanus—Pharsalia. I. 499.

Through the black night and driving rain A ship is struggling, all in vain, To live upon the stormy main;—

   Miserere Domine!

• • Adelaide A. Procter—The Storm.

 But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale,
 And in the distant ray what glimmering sail
 Bends to the storm?—Now sinks the note of fear!

Ah? wretched mariners!—no more shall day Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way!

• • Mrs. Radcliffe—Mysteries of Udolpho. Shipwreck.

• O, I have suffer'd

With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.

• • Tempest. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 5.

A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigged, Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats Instinctively have quit it.

• • Tempest. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 146.

 Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But one of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the rocks.

• • Bernard Shaw—Heartbreak House. Act III.

 Improbe Neptunum accusat, qui iterum naufragium facit.
 He wrongly accuses Neptune, who makes shipwreck a second time.

• • Syrus. Gellius. 17. 14; Macrobius—Satires. II. 7.

Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto.

 Here and there they are seen swimming in the vast flood.

• • Vergil—Æneid. I. 118.

Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost.

• • Wordsworth—To the Lady Fleming.