FRAGMENT.
King Richard in the gray Tower sate,
Captive of Austria’s haughty Lord,
In a strange land, unhonour’d, unexplored,
To felon durance changed his royal state.
Pale was his haggard eye,
And sunk his cheek, to stern captivity
In all—all but in his Lion heart subdued:
He sate in melancholy solitude,
And sadly gazed upon the setting sun,
As down the heavenly road,
That all with purple glow’d,
It wested toward his realm of Albion.
FROM PURCHASE’S PILGRIMAGE,
VERSIFIED AND DESIGNED AS A MOTTO TO “VOYAGES FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A N. W. PASSAGE.”
How shall I admire
Your courage, ye marine Adventurers?
Worthies, beyond all names of worthiness!
Who can endure alike the Sun so long
Present or absent; and without a dread
Encounter foggy mist, tempestuous sleet,
Cold blasts, with snows and hail in th’ frozen air,
And those unequal seas which might amaze
All ears and eyes, yea, and make Neptune’s self
To quake with chilly fear when he beholds:
When his huge Monsters, Icy Isles, disdaining
His sovereignty, and the Sun’s hot violence,
Muster upon those watery plains, for war,
Continual war; and wheresoe’er they rush
Make winds and waves give back, till, in the shock,
Crashing and rending their congealed sides,
They split themselves with their own massiness.