To whom in vain sad Merit pleads her cause; This strews with roses Life’s perplexing road, And leads the way to Pleasure’s soft abode; This spreads with slaughtered heaps the bloody plain, And pours adventurous thousands o’er the main. II. The stately ship, with all her daring band, To skilful Albert owned the chief command: Though trained in boisterous elements, his mind Was yet by soft humanity refined; Each joy of wedded love, at home, he knew, Aboard, confest the father of his crew! Brave, liberal, just! the calm domestic scene Had o’er his temper breathed a gay serene: Him Science taught by mystic lore to trace The planets wheeling in eternal race! To mark the ship in floating balance held, By earth attracted, and by seas repell’d; Or point her devious track through climes unknown, That leads to every shore and every zone: He saw the moon through Heaven’s blue concave glide, And into motion charm th’ expanding tide, While earth impetuous round her axle rolls, Exalts her watery zone, and sinks the Poles; Light and attraction, from their genial source, He saw still wandering with diminished force; While on the margin of declining day Night’s shadowy cone reluctant melts away— Inured to peril, with unconquered soul, The chief beheld tempestuous oceans roll; O’er the wild surge when dismal shades preside, His equal skill the lonely bark could guide; His genius, ever for th’ event prepared, Rose with the storm, and all its dangers shared. Rodmond the next degree to Albert bore, A hardy son of England’s farthest shore, Where bleak Northumbria pours her savage train In sable squadrons o’er the northern main; That, with her pitchy entrails stored, resort, A sooty tribe, to fair Augusta’s port: Where’er in ambush lurk the fatal sands, They claim the danger, proud of skilful bands; For while with darkling course their vessels sweep The winding shore, or plough the faithless deep, O’er bar, and shelve, the watery path they sound With dexterous arm, sagacious of the ground: Fearless they combat every hostile wind, Wheeling in mazy tracks, with course inclined. Expert to moor where terrors line the road, Or win the anchor from its dark abode; But drooping, and relaxed, in climes afar, Tumultuous and undisciplined in war. Such Rodmond was; by learning unrefined, That oft enlightens to corrupt the mind. Boisterous of manners; trained in early youth To scenes that shame the conscious cheek of truth; To scenes that nature’s struggling voice control, And freeze compassion rising in the soul: Where the grim hell-hounds, prowling round the shore, With foul intent the stranded bark explore; Deaf to the voice of woe, her decks they board, While tardy justice slumbers o’er her sword.