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Oh, hapless maid! who hear'st the crash Of winds and waves, and see'st in Fancy's eyeO'er thy pale lover's corse the foamy billows dash— Doom'd in his death a thousand deaths to die!
If sleep her burning eye lids close, She sees the youth in some mysterious dream,Breathless and pale, while o'er his ghastly visage flows The life-blood mingling with the briny stream.
She starts with horror, and awakes To list the dying gust with deeper dread—The Spirit of the Storm the troubled air forsakes, As loth to break the silence of the dead!
And ye[1] who lately left this shore, Ah! doom'd no more your native shore to see—Your last faint groans were lost amid the tempest's roar, And your cold stormy bed the wintry sea.
Ye sank the victims of the deep, The cruel, treach'rous deep, and ruthless storm!Far, far beneath its waves on coral beds ye sleep, And sea-green plants enshroud each lifeless form.
- ↑ The Doris, of Lerwick, was lost on the coast of Aberdeen, in the month of February, 1813. Besides the pecuniary loss sustained by many of the inhabitants of the Zetland isles, several gentlemen
