So fierce a shock unable to withstand,
Admits the sea. In at the gaping side
The crowding waves gush with impetuous rage,
Resistless, overwhelming; horrors seize
The mariners; Death in their eyes appears,
They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear, they pray:
(Vain efforts!) still the battering waves rush in,
Implacable, till, deluged by the foam,
The ship sinks foundering in the vast abyss.
John Arbuthnot, celebrated both as a physician and a man of letters, leaves us this bit of nonsense.