BALLAD. (Avert yon omen, gracious heaven)

Avert yon omen, gracious heaven, The ugly scud, By rising winds resistless driven, Kisses the flood.

How hard the lot for sailors cast, That they should roam For years, to perish thus at last In sight of home!

For if the coming gale we mourn, A tempest grows, Our vessel's shatter'd so, and torn, That down she goes!

The tempest comes, while meteors red Portentous fly; And now we touch old ocean's bed, Now reach the sky!

On sable wings, in gloomy flight, Fiends seem to wait, To snatch us in this dreadful night, Dark as our fate:

Unless some kind, some pitying pow'r Should interpose, She labours so, within this hour Down she goes.

But see, on rosy pinions borne, O'er the mad deep, Reluctant beams the sorr'wing morn, With us to weep:

Deceitful sorrow, cheerless light, Dreadful to think, The morn is ris'n, in endless night Our hopes to sink!

She splits! she parts!—through sluices driven, The water flows; Adieu ye friends, have mercy heaven! For down she goes!