Eventful task! which last distress requires, And dread of instant death alone inspires; For, while intent the yawning decks to ease, Filled ever and anon with rushing seas, Some fatal billow with recoiling sweep May whirl the helpless wretches in the deep. No season this for counsel or delay; Too soon th’ eventful moments haste away! Here Perseverance, with each help of Art, Must join the boldest efforts of the heart; These only now their misery can relieve, These only now a dawn of safety give. While o’er the quivering deck from van to rear Broad surges roll in terrible career, Rodmond, Arion, and a chosen crew, This office in the face of death pursue; The wheeled artillery o’er the deck to guide, Rodmond descending claimed the weather-side; Fearless of heart, the Chief his orders gave, Fronting the rude assaults of every wave— Like some strong watch-tower nodding o’er the deep, Whose rocky base the foaming waters sweep. Untamed he stood; the stern aërial war Had marked his honest face with many a scar; Meanwhile Arion, traversing the waist, } The cordage of the leeward-guns unbraced, } And pointed crows beneath the metal placed. } Watching the roll, their forelocks they withdrew, And from their beds the reeling cannon threw; Then, from the windward battlements unbound, Rodmond’s associates wheeled th’ artillery round; Pointed with iron fangs, their bars beguile The ponderous arms across the steep defile; Then, hurled from sounding hinges o’er the side, Thundering they plunge into the flashing tide. The ship, thus eased, some little respite finds In this rude conflict of the seas and winds— Such ease Alcides felt, when, clogged with gore, Th’ envenom’d mantle from his side he tore; When, stung with burning pain, he strove too late To stop the swift career of cruel Fate; Yet then his heart one ray of hope procured, Sad harbinger of sevenfold pangs endured— Such, and so short, the pause of woe she found! Cimmerian darkness shades the deep around, Save when the lightnings in terrific blaze Deluge the cheerless gloom with horrid rays; Above, all ether fraught with scenes of woe With grim destruction threatens all below: Beneath, the storm-lashed surges furious rise, And wave uprolled on wave assails the skies; With ever-floating bulwarks they surround The ship, half-swallowed in the black profound. With ceaseless hazard and fatigue opprest, Dismay and anguish every heart possest; For while, with sweeping inundation, o’er The sea-beat ship the booming waters roar, Displaced beneath by her capacious womb, They rage their ancient station to resume; By secret ambushes, their force to prove, Through many a winding channel first they rove;