APPENDICE I
MOORE’S POEM
in the Gulf of St-Lawrence, late
in the evening sept. 1804.
See you beneath yon cloud so dark,
Fast gliding along, a gloomy bark ?
Her sails are full, though the wind is till,
And there blows not a breath her sails to fill !
Oh ! what doth that vessel of darkness bear ?
The silent calm of the grave is there,
Save now and again a death-knell rung,
And the flap of the sails with night fog hung.
There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore
Of cold and pitiless Labrador ;
Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost,
Full many a mariner’s bones are tost !
Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck,
And the dim blue fire, that lights her deck,
Doth play on as pale and livid a crew
As ever yet drank the churh-yard dew !
To Deadman’s Isle, in the eye of the blast,
To Deadman’s Isle, she speads her fast,
By skeleton shapes her sails are furléd,
And the hand that steers is not of this world !
Oh ! hurry thee on — oh ! hurry thee on,
Thou terrible bark ! ere the night be gone ;
Nor let morning look on so foul a sight
As would blanch for ever her rosy light !
