Amid this hollow, how ill-judged! how vain!
Our sea-breach’d vessel can no longer bear
The floods, that o’er her burst in dread career;
The labouring hull already seems half-filled
With water through an hundred leaks distilled;
Thus drenched by every wave, her riven deck,
Stript, and defenceless, floats a naked wreck;
At every pitch th’ o’erwhelming billows bend
Beneath their load the quivering bowsprit’s end;
A fearful warning! since the masts on high