Now it freshens, set the braces,
Quick the topsail sheets let go ; Luff, boys, luff! don't make wry faces, Up your topsails nimbly clew.
Round us roars the tempest louder, Think what fear our minds inthralls! Harder yet, it yet blows harder,
Now again the boatswain calls.
The topsail yard point to the wind, boys,
See all clear to reef each course;
Let the fore sheet go, don't mind, boys,
Though the weather should be worse.
Fore and aft the sprit-sail yard get,
Reef the mizzen, see all clear;
Hands up each preventive brace set!
Man the fore yard, cheer, lads, cheer!
Now the dreadful thunder 's roaring
Peal on peal contending clash,
On our heads fierce rain falls pouring,
In our eyes blue lightnings flash.
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was still as she might be ;
Her sails from heaven received no motion;
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flowed over the Inchcape rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape bell.
The holy abbot of Aberbrothok
Had floated that bell on the Inchcape rock;
On the waves of the storm it floated and swung,
And louder and louder its warning rung.
When the rock was hid by the tempest's swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And blessed the priest of Aberbrothok.
"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar? For yonder, methinks, should be the shore. Now where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish we could hear the Inchcape bell."
They hear no sound; the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along;
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,
Alas! it is the Inchcape rock!
Sir Ralph, the rover, tore his hair;
He beat himself in wild despair.
The waves rush in on every side;
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
O sailor-boy! sailor-boy! never again
Shall home, love, or kindred thy wishes repay; Unblessed and unhonored, down deep in the main, Full many a fathom, thy frame shall decay.
No tomb shall e'er plead to remembrance for thee, Orredeem form or fame from the merciless surge, But the white foam of waves shall thy windingsheet be,
And winds in the midnight of winter thy dirge!
On a bed of green sea-flowers thy limbs shall be laid,
Around thy white bones the red coral shall
Eight hundred of the brave, Whose courage well was tried. Had made the vessel heel,
And laid her on her side.
A land-breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was overset ;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.
Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone; His last sea-fight is fought, His work of glory done.
It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock; She sprang no fatal leak; She ran upon no rock.
His sword was in its sheath;
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.
Weigh the vessel up,
Once dreaded by our foes! And mingle with our cup
The tear that England owes.
Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again,
Full charged with England's thunder, And plough the distant main.
But Kempenfelt is gone;
His victories are o'er;
And he and his eight hundred
Shall plough the wave no more.
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims, shuddering, roll their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke,
With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak;
Till like the mine, in whose infernal cell
The lurking demons of destruction dwell,
At length asunder torn her frame divides,
And, crashing, spreads in ruin o'er the tides.
O, were it mine with tuneful Maro's art
To wake to sympathy the feeling heart ;
Like him the smooth and mournful verse to dress
In all the pomp of exquisite distress,
Then too severely taught by cruel fate,
To share in all the perils I relate,
Then might I, with unrivalled strains deplore
The impervious horrors of a leeward shore!
As o'er the surge the stooping mainmast hung,
Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung;
Some, struggling, on a broken crag were cast,
And there by oozy tangles grappled fast.
Awhile they bore the o'erwhelming billows' rage,
Unequal combat with their fate to wage;
Till, all benumbed and feeble, they forego
Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below.
Some, from the main-yard-arm impetuous thrown
On marble ridges, die without a groan.
Three with Palemon on their skill depend,
And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend.
Now on the mountain wave on high they ride,
Then downward plunge beneath the involving
tide,
Till one, who seems in agony to strive,
The whirling breakers heave on shore alive;
The rest a speedier end of anguish knew,
And prest the stony beach, a lifeless crew!
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