Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 5.djvu/635

CANTO I.] IX.

The arctic Sun rose broad above the wave;

The breeze now sank, now whispered from his cave;

As on the Æolian harp, his fitful wings

Now swelled, now fluttered o'er his Ocean strings.

With slow, despairing oar, the abandoned skiff

Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce seen cliff,

Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main:

That boat and ship shall never meet again!

But 'tis not mine to tell their tale of grief,

Their constant peril, and their scant relief;

Their days of danger, and their nights of pain;

Their manly courage even when deemed in vain;

The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son

Known to his mother in the skeleton;

The ills that lessened still their little store,

And starved even Hunger till he wrung no more;

The varying frowns and favours of the deep,

That now almost ingulfs, then leaves to creep

With crazy oar and shattered strength along

The tide that yields reluctant to the strong;

The incessant fever of that arid thirst

Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst

Above their naked bones, and feels delight

In the cold drenching of the stormy night,

And from the outspread canvass gladly wrings

A drop to moisten Life's all-gasping springs;

The savage foe escaped, to seek again

More hospitable shelter from the main;

The ghastly Spectres which were doomed at last