These seas, where storms at various seasons blow, No reigning winds nor certain omens know-- The hour, the occasion, all your skill demands, A leaky ship, embay'd by dangerous lands! Our bark no transient jeopardy surrounds, Groaning she lies beneath unnumber'd wounds: 620 'Tis ours the doubtful remedy to find, To shun the fury of the seas and wind; For in this hollow swell, with labour sore, Her flank can bear the bursting floods no more. One only shift, though desperate, we must try, And that before the boisterous storm to fly: Then less her sides will feel the surges' power, Which thus may soon the foundering hull devour. 'Tis true the vessel and her costly freight To me consign'd, my orders only wait; 630 Yet, since the charge of every life is mine, To equal votes our counsels I resign-- Forbid it, Heaven! that in this dreadful hour I claim the dangerous reins of purblind power! But should we now resolve to bear away, Our hopeless state can suffer no delay: Nor can we, thus bereft of every sail, Attempt to steer obliquely on the gale; For then, if broaching sideway to the sea, Our dropsied ship may founder by the lee; 640 Vain all endeavours then to bear away, Nor helm, nor pilot, would she more obey." He said, the listening mates with fix'd regard And silent reverence his opinion heard. Important was the question in debate, And o'er their counsels hung impending fate: Rodmond, in many a scene of peril tried, Had oft the master's happier skill descried, Yet now, the hour, the scene, the occasion known, Perhaps with equal right preferr'd his own: 650 Of long experience in the naval art, Blunt was his speech and naked was his heart; Alike to him each climate, and each blast, The first in danger, in retreat the last: Sagacious, balancing the opposed events, From Albert his opinion thus dissents:-- "Too true the perils of the present hour, Where toils succeeding toils our strength o'erpower! Our bark, 'tis true, no shelter here can find, Sore shatter'd by the ruffian seas and wind: 660 Yet where with safety can we dare to scud Before this tempest and pursuing flood? At random driven, to present death we haste, And one short hour perhaps may be our last. Though Corinth's gulf extend along the lee, To whose safe ports appears a passage free, Yet think! this furious unremitting gale Deprives the ship of every ruling sail; And if before it she directly flies, New ills enclose us, and new dangers rise: 670 Here Falconera spreads her lurking snares, There distant Greece her rugged shelves prepares: