Part 2 / Act 5 — THE WRECK OF THE JOHN AND AGNES SLOOP OF NEWCASTLE, AT TYNE SANDS, NEAR DUNBAR, ON THE NIGHT OF SATURDAY THE 9TH NOVEMBER, 1816.
Reading edition
The moon has reach’d her midnight watch in heaven,
And veils her pensive face, afraid to view
The gathering tempest, while upon my couch,
Listening the hollow cadence of the storm,
I count the lazy hours; and meditate
Upon the sailor’s dark and wayward lot.
O ’tis a fearful night for those whose friends
Rock on the stormy wave. Winds howl—seas roar!
And the lone maid, in weeping solitude,
Pines for her lost Palemon on the deep;
Who, ‘numb’d with cold, hangs on the pulpy shrouds,
And thinks how grateful were his Anna’s arms
In such an hour. Then musing Fancy strays
To some drear mansion, tott’ring near the beach,
Where the wind, howling through the gaping chinks,
Startles the babe upon its mother’s breast!—
The mother wakes—and closer clasps her husband!
382Then lisps a prayer of silent thankfulness
That he is not a sailor. ’Tis a night
Might freeze the stoutest heart. Such was the gale
When gallant Beaver, on these iron shores,
Beheld his warriors perish, as the day
Closed fearful o’er them, and the rough rocks sawed
The Fox’s[23] keel asunder; she who braved
The fire and triple vengeance of La Hogue,
Less dreadful than the storm. Alas! for him
Whose bark careers amidst the pathless seas,
The sport of winds and waves!—The helmsman bends
To shun the spray, sent by the shooting wave,
That skims athwart the deck. But hark! loud shouts
Come echoing through the streets; and now I hear
The car, deep laden, rattling on the causeway;
List! was the sound deceitful, fancy-form’d,
To agonize the ear?—O, gracious God!
Again the shout is heard,—again—again!
“A ship’s ashore!” each hoarse loud voice proclaims.
And, lo! majestically, along the streets,
The life-boat thunders on the trembling wain:
383Heaven’s delegate! to snatch the mariner
From death’s wide-yawning gulf.—A hardy tar,
(Who Pythias-like, had nearly barter’d life
To save his friend,) had brought the dreadful news
Of their disaster. The small vessel lay
Grounded upon the spacious sands of Tyne,
Near where the river meets the Forth’s embrace
Westward of old Dunbar. With bilged stern
She, broadside, met the seas, that sounding swept
The groaning deck. Her lost sails flutter’d wide
In idle rage: so have we often spied
The sea-bird dallying on the ocean’s foam.
The boatmen gain’d the strand. A shout of joy
Came from the fainting crew. The treach’rous sands
Awhile had staid their progress,—but not long;
For all impediments were swept away
Before advent’rous Laing,—the seaman’s friend!
The hero of these shores! How oft, Dunbar!
Thy sons have seen him, in the darkest hour
Of danger, snatch the victim from the wave.[24]
And now the life-boat beat the chafing surf
Like some tall swan, in sweeping majesty,
384Then rested by the ship, when, one by one,
The solitary remnants of the crew
Came leaping in. One hapless sailor hung
Suspended from the shrouds, where he was lash’d,
In frozen speechlessness that must not break!
For all the surgeon’s skill was tried in vain.
Another tar, the second in command,
Had sought to gain the beach, and luckless sank
Into a briny grave.—But where are they
For whom our Pythias braved the stormy surge?
A brother and a sister he had left
Wild clinging to the mast; and barter’d life
To save them from destruction. Now, alas!
Those lips are mute for ever that had blest him!
Those hands are cold that waved a last adieu!
For ’midst despairing moments, one dread wave,
That swelling rose, burst thundering on the deck,
And sent them shrieking to the depths below
Ere they could say farewell!—O God! that sight
Had mov’d cold apathy. But do not weep,
Ye fond relations of this fated crew;
For life’s dim page is darkly character’d,
And could we with prescient eye divine
The wars we have to wage—the storms to buffet!—
We’d heave an envious sigh o’er those who rest,
Whom death has ransom’d from the ills to come!
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