'Twas when the seas were roaring
With hollow blasts of wind,
A damsel lay deploring
All on a rock reclined.
Wide o'er the foaming billows
She cast a wistful look;
Her head was crown'd with willows
That trembled o'er the brook.
Twelve months are gone and over,
And nine long tedious days;
Why didst thou, venturous lover—
Why didst thou trust the seas?
Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean,
And let my lover rest;
Ah! what's thy troubled motion
To that within my breast?
The merchant robb'd of pleasure,
Sees tempests in despair;
But what's the loss of treasure
To losing of my dear?
Should you some coast be laid on,
Where gold and diamonds grow,
You'd find a richer maiden,
But none that loves you so.
How can they say that Nature
Has nothing made in vain;
Why, then, beneath the water
Should hideous rocks remain?
No eyes the rocks discover
That lurk beneath the deep,
To wreck the wandering lover,
And leave the maid to weep?
All melancholy lying,
Thus wail'd she for her dear;
Repay'd each blast with sighing,
Each billow with a tear;
When o'er the white wave stooping,
His floating corpse she spy'd;
Then, like a lily drooping,
She bow'd her head, and died.
A Ballad, from the “What d'ye call it?”
“What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or, rather, Swift's, Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and Gay's, in the What d'ye call it? ‘'Twas when the seas were roaring’? I have been well informed, that they all contributed.”—Cowper to Unwin, 1783.
“Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favourites, in the order they are named, in his first reading, till he was about twelve years old.”—Pope (Spence's Anecdotes).
“Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in Hollands, wholesale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make English verses when very young. He was pretty difficult in being pleased; and used often to send him back to new turn them. ‘These are not good rhimes;’ for that was my husband's word for verses.”—Pope's Mother (Spence).
“I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an Epic Poem when about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes, and some of the neighbouring islands; and the poem opened under water with a description of the Court of Neptune.”—Pope (ibid.).