As when the warring winds, from each far pole, Their adverse storms across the concave roll, Thin fleecy vapors thro the expansion run, Veil the blue vault and tremble o'er the sun, Till the dark folding wings together drive, And, ridged with fire and rock'd with thunder, strive; So, hazing thro the void, at first appear White clouds of canvass floating on the air, Then frown the broad black decks, the sails are stay'd, The gaping portholes cast a frightful shade, Flames, triple tier'd, and tides of smoke, arise. And fulminations rock the seas and skies. From van to rear the roaring deluge runs, The storm disgorging from a thousand guns, Each like a vast volcano, spouting wide His hissing hell-dogs o'er the shuddering tide, Whirls high his chainshot, cleaves the mast and strews The shiver'd fragments on the staggering foes; Whose gunwale sides with iron globes are gored, And a wild storm of splinters sweeps the board. Husht are the winds of heaven; no more the gale Breaks the red rolls of smoke nor flaps the sail; A dark dead calm continuous cloaks the glare, And holds the clouds of sulphur on the war, Convolving o'er the space that yawns and shines, With frequent flash, between the laboring lines. Nor sun nor sea nor skyborn lightning gleams, But flaming Phlegethon's asphaltic steams Streak the long gaping gulph; where varying glow Carbonic curls above, blue flakes of fire below. Hither two hostile ships to contact run, Both grappling, board to board and gun to gun; Each thro the adverse ports their contents pour, Rake the lower decks, the interior timbers bore, Drive into chinks the illumined wads unseen, Whose flames approach the unguarded magazine. Above, with shrouds afoul and gunwales mann'd, Thick halberds clash; and, closing hand to hand, The huddling troops, infuriate from despair, Tug at the toils of death, and perish there; Grenados, carcasses their fragments spread, And pikes and pistols strow the decks with dead. Now on the Gallic board the Britons rush, The intrepid Gauls the rash adventurers crush; And now, to vengeance Stung, with frantic air, Back on the British maindeck roll the war. There swells the carnage; all the tar-beat floor Is clogg'd with spatter'd brains and glued with gore; And down the ship's black waist fresh brooks of blood Course o'er their clots, and tinge the sable flood. Till War, impatient of the lingering strife That tires and slackens with the waste of life, Opes with engulphing gape the astonish'd wave, And whelms the combat whole, in one vast grave. For now the imprison'd powder caught the flames, And into atoms whirl'd the monstrous frames Of both the entangled ships; the vortex wide Roars like an Ætna thro the belching tide, And blazing into heaven, and bursting high, Shells, carriages and guns obstruct the sky; Cords, timbers, trunks of men the welkin sweep,