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Rh 'Tis not the palm that Mnestheus seeks:

No hope of victory fires his cheeks:

Yet O that thought!—but conquer they

To whom great Neptune wills the day:

Not to be last—make that your aim,

And triumph by averting shame.'

Onward with vehement zeal they bound:

Beneath them vanishes the ground:

The mailed ship labours with their blows:

Thick pantings all their members shake,

And parching heats their dry lips bake,

While sweat in torrents flows.

Thus as they struggle, fortune's freak

Accords them the success they seek:

For while Sergestus, blindly rash,

Drives to the rock his vessel's head

And strives the perilous pass to thread,

On jutting crags behold him dash!

Loud crash the oars with shivering shock:

The wedged prow hangs upon the rock.

With shout and scream upstart the crew,

Condemned to halt where late they flew:

Ply steel-tipped poles and pointed staves,

And pick the crushed oars from the waves.

But joyous Mnestheus, made more keen

By vantage offering unforeseen,

With all his oars in rapid play

And winds to waft him on his way,

Darts forth into the shelving tides,

And o'er the sea's broad bosom glides.

So all at once a startled dove,

Who builds her nest in rocky cove,

Bursts forth, and in her wild affright

Loud flaps her fluttering wings for flight: