Written on passing Deadman's Island in the Gulf of St-Lawrence, late in the evening sept. 1804.
Oh ! What doth that vessel of
darkness bear?
The silent calm of the grave is there,
Save now and again a death-knell rung,
And the flap of the sails with
night fog hung.
There lieth a wrech on the dismal shore
Of cold and pitiless Labrador;
Where, under the moon, upon mounts of
frost,
Full many a mariner's bones are tost !
Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck,
and the dim blue fire, that lights her
deck,
Doth play on as pale and livid a crew
As ever yet drank the churh-yard dew !
To Deadman's Isle, in the eye of the blast,
To Deadman's Isle, she speads her fast.
By skeleton shapes her sails are furled,
And the hand that steers is not of this
world !
Oh ! hurry thee on - Oh ! hurry thee on,
thou terrible bark ! ere the night be gone;
Nor let morning look on so foul a
sight
As would blanch for ever her rosy light !