THE END
[1] Cutting away the mast is nobly described by poor Falconer.
"'Haste, with your weapons cut the shrouds and stay,
And hew at once the mizen-mast away!'
He said: the attentive sailors on each side,
At his command the trembling cords divide.
Fast by the fated pine bold Rodmond stands,
Th' impatient axe hung gleaming in his hands:
Brandish'd on high, it fell with dreadful sound:
The tall mast groaning, felt the deadly wound."
Shipwreck.
[2] The well is an apartment in a ship's hold, serving to enclose the pumps. It is sounded by dropping a measured iron rod down into it by a long line; hence the increase or diminution of the leaks is easily discovered.
"They sound the well, and, terrible to hear,
Five feet immersed along the line appear;
At either pump they ply the clanking brake,
And turn by turn the ungrateful office take."
Falconer's Shipwreck.
"While on the quivering deck, from van to rear,
Broad surges roll in terrible career,
Rodmond, Arion, and a chosen crew,
This office in the face of death pursue.
The wheel'd artillery o'er the deck to guide,
Rodmond descending, claim'd the weather side.
Fearless of heart, the chief his orders gave,
Fronting the rude attacks of every wave.
Meantime Arion traversing the waist, }
The cordage of the leeward guns embraced, }
And pointed crows beneath the metal placed. }
Watching the roll, their forelocks they withdrew,
And from their beds the reeling cannon threw.
Then from the windward battlements unbound,
Rodmond's associates wheel'd the artillery round;
Then, hurl'd from sounding hinges o'er the side,
Thundering they plunge into the flashing tide."