Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.”
“HE SINKS INTO THY DEPTHS WITH BUBBLING GROAN,
WITHOUT A GRAVE, UNKNELLED, UNCOFFINED, AND UNKNOWN.”
The poet par excellence of the sea, partly on account of the literary merits of his production, but more by reason of his technical correctness, was William Falconer, the author of “The Shipwreck,” on the title pages of all the older editions of which he is described simply as “a sailor.” His poem, which is in three cantos, was founded on actual incidents in a shipwreck from which himself and but two or three of the crew were saved. Again, in 1769 he embarked on board the Aurora frigate on a venture to the East Indies, but from the time the ship left the Cape of Good Hope no information was ever received of her, and she is believed to have foundered with all hands, including the poet. Falconer, although a disciple of the Muse, wrote a political satire, entitled, “The Demagogue;” while his Marine Dictionary is, in its revised form, a recognised authority to-day. The poem on which his fame rests is remarkable for the absolute correctness of its details. Take, for example, the following passage, which could not have been written by a landsman-poet:—
“A squall, deep lowering, blots the southern sky,
Before whose boisterous breath the waters fly.
Its weight the topsails can no more sustain—
Reef topsails, reef! the boatswain calls again!
The haliards and top-bow-lines soon are gone;