A bark that but rode from her moorings at morning, 'Neath bright sunny skies, and prosperous gales, With streamlet and banner, in beauty adorning Her tapering masts and snowy white sails,
Now rolls in the trough of the tempest-plowed surges! A wreck! madly urged to a rocky bound shore; Where from the dark jaws of wild ocean emerges, To fear-stricken hearts its ominous roar
Her sails are in ribbons, her banners in tatters! Her masts are afloat from the perilous wreck, And now o'er the billows the Tempest Fiend scatters With one mighty effort her hurricane deck!
The voice of the clarion-toned captain is ringing, Above the hoarse murmuring roar of the surge, And an echoing voice, seems sepulchrally flinging, Far back o'er the waves, for the vessel, a dirge.
And now the doomed vessel is beating and crashing, With violence on the dark, rough, rugged rocks; And the tempest-tossed surge, while resistlessly dashing Around her, each effort to save her but mocks.
The lightnings play luridly, fiercely above her, Illuming with horror the wind-cloven waves! Displaying the wreck, as their flashes discover, The victims despairingly gaze on their graves.
For forked and furious, the fiery flung flashes, Gleam o'er the sad wreck like a funeral pyre; And louder and louder each thunder clap crashes. The air in a roar! the billows on fire!
The heart-anguished cries o'er the pitiless waters, Are borne on the blast of the thunder-rocked air, As husbands and wives, as sons and as daughters, Unite in a wild shrieking wail of despair.
But now from the moss covered fisherman's dwelling, The Life-Boat is manned by the chivalrous brave! Though the wild howling storm of the tempest is swelling, They'll peril their own lives, the wrecked ones to save.
And now to the merciless surges they launch her, And back she is flung to the white-pebbled beach! Now cleaves the wild surf, for never a stauncher, Or braver crew mounted a deadlier breach.