Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful strain: His faithful wife, for ever doom'd to mourn For him, alas! who never shall return, To black adversity's approach exposed, With want and hardships unforeseen enclosed; His lovely daughter, left without a friend Her innocence to succour and defend, By youth and indigence set forth a prey To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray-- While these reflections rack his feeling mind, 700 Rodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resign'd; And, as the tumbling waters o'er him roll'd, His outstretch'd arms the master's legs enfold. Sad Albert feels their dissolution near, And strives in vain his fetter'd limbs to clear, For death bids every clenching joint adhere. All faint, to Heaven he throws his dying eyes, And, O protect my wife and child! he cries-- The gushing streams roll back the unfinish'd sound, He gasps! and sinks amid the vast profound. 710 Five only left of all the shipwreck'd throng Yet ride the mast which shoreward drives along; With these Arion still his hold secures, And all assaults of hostile waves endures; O'er the dire prospect as for life he strives, He looks if poor Palemon yet survives-- "Ah! wherefore, trusting to unequal art, Didst thou, incautious! from the wreck depart? Alas! these rocks all human skill defy; 720 Who strikes them once, beyond relief must die: And now sore wounded, thou perhaps art tost On these, or in some oozy cavern lost!" Thus thought Arion; anxious gazing round In vain, his eyes no more Palemon found. The demons of destruction hover nigh, And thick their mortal shafts commission'd fly; When now a breaking surge, with forceful sway, Two, next Arion, furious tears away: Hurl'd on the crags, behold they gasp, they bleed! 730 And, groaning, cling upon the elusive weed; Another billow bursts in boundless roar! Arion sinks! and Memory views no more. Ha! total night and horror here preside, My stunn'd ear tingles to the whizzing tide; It is their funeral knell! and, gliding near, Methinks the phantoms of the dead appear: But, lo! emerging from the watery grave, Again they float incumbent on the wave; Again the dismal prospect opens round,-- 740 The wreck, the shore, the dying and the drown'd! And see! enfeebled by repeated shocks, Those two, who scramble on the adjacent rocks, Their faithless hold no longer can retain, They sink o'erwhelm'd! and never rise again. Two with Arion yet the mast upbore, That now above the ridges reach'd the shore: Still trembling to descend, they downward gaze With horror pale, and torpid with amaze.