Approved companions of your master’s care!

To you, alas! ’twere fruitless now to tell

Our sad distress, already known too well:

This morn with favouring gales the port we left,

Though now of every flattering hope bereft:

No skill, nor long experience could forecast

Th’ unseen approach of this destructive blast;

These seas, where storms at various seasons blow,

No reigning winds nor certain omens know:

The hour, th’ occasion, all your skill demands,