Page:Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.djvu/88

To a Lady on her remarkable Preservation in an Hurricane in North-Carolina.

THOUGH thou did'st hear the tempest from afar,
And felt'st the horrors of the wat'ry war,
To me unknown, yet on this peaceful shore
Methinks I hear the storm tumultuous roar,

And how stern Boreas with impetuous hand

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Compell'd the Nereids to usurp the land.
Reluctant rose the daughters of the main,
And flow ascending glided o'er the plain,
Till Æolus in his rapid chariot drove

In gloomy grandeur from the vault above:

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Furious he comes. His winged sons obey
Their frantic fire, and madden all the sea.
The billows rave, the wind's fierce tyrant roars,
And with his thund'ring terrors shakes the shores:

Broken by waves the vessel's frame is rent,

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And strows with planks the wat'ry element.

But