A Shipwreck

[wolfinthewood]

William Falconer's long poem The Shipwreck was a surprise publishing success in 1762. The poem was founded on his experiences as one of a handful of survivors of the wreck of the merchant ship Britannia a few years earlier.

from The Shipwreck

Thus they direct the flying bark before
The impelling floods, that lash her to the shore:
High o'er the poop the audacious seas aspire,
Uproll'd in hills of fluctuating fire;
With labouring throes she rolls on either side,
And dips her gunnels in the yawning tide;
Her joints, unhinged, in palsied languors play,
As ice-flakes part beneath the noontide ray.
The gale howls doleful through the blocks and shrouds,
And big rain pours a deluge from the clouds;
From wintry magazines that sweep the sky,
Descending globes of hail impetuous fly;
High on the masts, with pale and livid rays,
Amid the gloom portentous meteors blaze;
The ethereal gloom in mournful pomp array'd
Now buried lies beneath impervious shade;
Now flashing round intolerable light,
Redoubles all the horror of the night –
Such terror Sinai's trembling hill o'erspread,
When Heaven's loud trumpet sounded o'er its head:
It seem'd, the wrathful Angel of the wind
Had all the horrors of the skies combined,
And here, to one ill-fated ship opposed,
At once the dreadful magazine disclosed;
And, lo! tremendous o'er the deep he springs,
The inflaming sulphur flashing from his wings;
Hark! his strong voice the dismal silence breaks,
Mad chaos from the chains of death awakes:
Loud, and more loud, the rolling peals enlarge,
And blue on deck the fiery tides discharge;
There all aghast the shivering wretches stood,
While chill suspense and fear congeal'd their blood;
Wide bursts in dazzling sheets the living flame,
And dread concussion rends the ethereal frame;
Sick earth convulsive groans from shore to shore,
And nature, shuddering, feels the horrid roar.

Canto III, lines 408–443

William Falconer (born Edinburgh, 1736; lost at sea in the Aurora frigate, 1769)


tag: sea travel

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