The shipwreck E-Book

William Falconer

• Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

William Falconer'Äôs "The Shipwreck" is a masterful narrative that intricately weaves the harrowing tale of maritime disaster with profound reflections on human resilience and the struggles against nature. Drawing on his own experiences as a sailor, Falconer employs a vivid and lyrical prose style, rich in descriptive imagery, evoking the tempestuousness of the sea and the psychological turmoil of the shipwrecked. Set within the broader literary context of 18th-century Romanticism, the novel explores themes of survival, isolation, and the interplay between man and the elemental forces of the ocean, serving as both an adventure tale and a cautionary myth. Falconer, who was himself a sailor, was profoundly influenced by the shipwreck of the "HMS Ramilies", which he encountered firsthand, and his deep understanding of nautical life imbues the narrative with authenticity. His background informs not only the technical aspects of seafaring depicted in the book but also the emotional depth of the characters who face the dire consequences of nature'Äôs fury. These insights shed light on Falconer'Äôs profound appreciation of the fragility of life and the spirit to endure adversity. This groundbreaking work is highly recommended for readers who appreciate literary narratives that explore the intersection of nature, human experience, and existential reflection. "The Shipwreck" stands as a compelling testament to the universal themes of survival and human tenacity, making it an essential read for enthusiasts of maritime literature and those seeking a deeper understanding of the human condition in the face of overwhelming odds.

Leseprobe

William Falconer

The shipwreck

Published by Good Press, 2023

[email protected]

EAN 4066339528024

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION.

FIRST CANTO

ARGUMENT.

CANTO I.

SECOND CANTO

ARGUMENT.

CANTO II.

THIRD CANTO.

ARGUMENT.

CANTO III.

OCCASIONAL ELEGY, IN WHICH THE PRECEDING NARRATIVE IS CONCLUDED.

INTRODUCTION.

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While jarring interests wake the world to arms,

And fright the peaceful vale with dire alarms,

While Albion bids th’ avenging thunder roll

Along her vassal deep from pole to pole;

Sick of the scene, where war with ruthless hand

Spreads desolation o’er the bleeding land;

Sick of the tumult, where the trumpet’s breath

Bids ruin smile, and drowns the groan of death;

’Tis mine, retired beneath this cavern hoar,

That stands all lonely on the sea-beat shore,

Far other themes of deep distress to sing

Than ever trembled from the vocal string;

A scene from dumb Oblivion to restore,

To Fame unknown, and new to epic lore:

Where hostile elements conflicting rise,

And lawless surges swell against the skies,

Till Hope expires, and Peril and Dismay

Wave their black ensigns on the watery way.

Immortal train! who guide the maze of song,

To whom all science, arts, and arms belong,

Who bid the trumpet of eternal Fame

Exalt the warrior’s and the poet’s name,

Or in lamenting elegies express

The varied pang of exquisite distress;

If e’er with trembling hope I fondly strayed

In life’s fair morn beneath your hallowed shade,

To hear the sweetly mournful lute complain,

And melt the heart with ecstasy of pain,

Or listen to the enchanting voice of love,

While all Elysium warbled through the grove;

Oh! by the hollow blast that moans around,

That sweeps the wild harp with a plaintive sound;

By the long surge that foams through yonder cave,

Whose vaults remurmur to the roaring wave;

With living colours give my verse to glow,

The sad memorial of a Tale of Woe!

The fate, in lively sorrow, to deplore

Of wanderers shipwrecked on a leeward shore.

Alas! neglected by the sacred Nine,

Their suppliant feels no genial ray divine

Ah! will they leave Pieria’s happy shore,

To plough the tide where wintery tempests roar?

Or shall a youth approach their hallowed fane,

Stranger to Phœbus, and the tuneful train?

Far from the Muses’ academic grove,

’Twas his the vast and trackless deep to rove;

Alternate change of climates has he known,

And felt the fierce extremes of either zone;

Where polar skies congeal th’ eternal snow,

Or equinoctial suns for ever glow,

Smote by the freezing, or the scorching blast,

‘A ship-boy on the high and giddy mast,’

From regions where Peruvian billows roar,

To the bleak coasts of savage Labrador;

From where Damascus, pride of Asian plains,

Stoops her proud neck beneath tyrannic chains,

To where the Isthmus, laved by adverse tides,

Atlantic and Pacific seas divides:

But while he measured o’er the painful race

In fortune’s wild illimitable chace,

Adversity, companion of his way,

Still o’er the victim hung with iron sway,

Bade new distresses every instant grow,

Marking each change of place with change of woe;

In regions where th’ Almighty’s chastening hand

With livid pestilence afflicts the land,

Or where pale famine blasts the hopeful year,

Parent of want and misery severe;

Or where, all-dreadful in th’ embattled line,

The hostile ships in flaming combat join,

Where the torn vessel, wind and waves assail,

Till o’er her crew distress and death prevail.—

Such joyless toils, in early youth endured,

Th’ expanding dawn of mental day obscured,

Each genial passion of the soul oppressed,

And quenched the ardour kindling in his breast:

Then censure not severe the native song,

Though jarring sounds the measured verse prolong,

Though terms uncouth offend the softer ear,

Yet truth, and human anguish deign to hear:

No laurel wreaths these lays attempt to claim,

Nor sculptur’d brass to tell the poet’s name.

And lo! the power that wakes th’ eventful song,

Hastes hither from Lethean banks along;

She sweeps the gloom, and, rushing on the sight,

Spreads o’er the kindling scene propitious light;

In her right hand an ample roll appears,

Fraught with long annals of preceding years,

With every wise and noble art of man

Since first the circling hours their course began;

Her left a silver wand on high displayed

Whose magic touch dispels oblivion’s shade:

Pensive her look; on radiant wings that glow

Like Juno’s birds, or Iris’ flaming bow,

She sails; and swifter than the course of light

Directs her rapid intellectual flight:

The fugitive ideas she restores,

And calls the wandering thought from Lethe’s shores;

To things long past a second date she gives,

And hoary Time from her fresh youth receives;

Congenial sister of immortal Fame,

She shares her power, and Memory is her name.

O first-born daughter of primeval Time!

By whom transmitted down in every clime

The deeds of ages long elapsed are known,

And blazoned glories spread from zone to zone;

Whose magic breath dispels the mental night,

And o’er th’ obscured idea pours the light;

Say, on what seas, for thou alone canst tell,

What dire mishap a fated ship befel,

Assailed by tempests, girt with hostile shores

Arise! approach! unlock thy treasured stores!

Full on my soul the dreadful scene display,

And give its latent horrors to the day.

FIRST CANTO:

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THE SCENE OF WHICH LIES NEAR THE CITY OF CANDIA.

TIME,—ABOUT FOUR DAYS AND AN HALF.

ARGUMENT.

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I. Retrospect of the Voyage—Arrival at Candia—State of that Island—Season of the Year described.—II. Character of the Master and his Officers, Albert, Rodmond, and Arion—Palemon, Son to the Owner of the Ship—Attachment of Palemon to Anna, the Daughter of Albert.—III. Noon—Palemon’s History.—IV. Sunset—Midnight—Arion’s Dream—Unmoor by Moonlight—Morning—Sun’s Azimuth taken—Beautiful Appearance of the Ship, as seen by the Natives from the Shore.

THE SHIPWRECK

CANTO I.

O bliss supreme: where Virtue’s self can melt

With joys, that guilty Pleasure never felt;

Formed to refine the thought with chaste desire,

And kindle sweet Affection’s purest fire.

DRAWN BY RICHARD WESTALL, R.A. ENGRAVED BY WILLIAM FINDEN. PUBLISHED BY JOHN SHARPE, PICCADILLY, OCT. 1, 1819.

CANTO I.

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I. A ship from Egypt, o’er the deep impelled

By guiding winds, her course for Venice held.

Of famed Britannia were the gallant crew,

And from that isle her name the vessel drew;

The wayward steps of Fortune they pursued,

And sought in certain ills imagined good:

Though cautioned oft her slippery path to shun,

Hope still with promised joys allured them on;

And, while they listened to her winning lore,

The softer scenes of peace could please no more:

Long absent they from friends and native home

The cheerless ocean were inured to roam;

Yet Heaven, in pity to severe distress,

Had crowned each painful voyage with success;

Still to compensate toils and hazards past

Restored them to maternal plains at last.

Thrice had the sun to rule the varying year

Across the equator rolled his flaming sphere,

Since last the vessel spread her ample sail

From Albion’s coast, obsequious to the gale;

She o’er the spacious flood from shore to shore

Unwearying wafted her commercial store;

The richest ports of Afric she had viewed,

Thence to fair Italy her course pursued;

Had left behind Trinacria’s burning isle,

And visited the margin of the Nile:

And now, that winter deepens round the Pole,

The circling voyage hastens to its goal;

They, blind to Fate’s inevitable law,

No dark event to blast their hope foresaw,

But from gay Venice soon expect to steer

For Britain’s coast, and dread no perils near;

Inflamed by Hope, their throbbing hearts elate

Ideal pleasures vainly antedate,

Before whose vivid intellectual ray

Distress recedes, and danger melts away:

Already British coasts appear to rise,

The chalky cliffs salute their longing eyes;

Each to his breast, where floods of rapture roll,

Embracing strains the mistress of his soul;

Nor less o’erjoyed, with sympathetic truth,

Each faithful maid expects th’ approaching youth:

In distant souls congenial passions glow,

And mutual feelings mutual bliss bestow—

Such shadowy happiness their thoughts employ,

Illusion all, and visionary joy!

Thus time elapsed, while o’er the pathless tide

Their ship through Grecian seas the pilots guide.

Occasion called to touch at Candia’s shore,

Which, blest with favouring winds, they soon explore;

The haven enter, borne before the gale,

Despatch their commerce, and prepare to sail.

Eternal powers! what ruins from afar

Mark the fell track of desolating war!

Here arts and commerce with auspicious reign

Once breathed sweet influence on the happy plain;

While o’er the lawn, with dance and festive song,

Young Pleasure led the jocund Hours along;

In gay luxuriance Ceres too was seen

To crown the vallies with eternal green:

For wealth, for valour, courted and revered,

What Albion is, fair Candia then appeared.—

Ah! who the flight of ages can revoke? }

The free-born spirit of her sons is broke, }

They bow to Ottoman’s imperious yoke; }

No longer Fame their drooping heart inspires,

For stern Oppression quenched its genial fires:

Though still her fields, with golden harvests crown’d,

Supply the barren shores of Greece around,

Sharp penury afflicts these wretched isles,

There Hope ne’er dawns, and Pleasure never smiles;

The vassal wretch contented drags his chain,

And hears his famished babes lament in vain;

These eyes have seen the dull reluctant soil

A seventh year mock the weary labourer’s toil.—

No blooming Venus, on the desert shore,

Now views with triumph captive gods adore;

No lovely Helens now with fatal charms

Excite th’ avenging chiefs of Greece to arms;

No fair Penelopes enchant the eye,

For whom contending kings were proud to die;

Here sullen Beauty sheds a twilight ray,

While Sorrow bids her vernal bloom decay;

Those charms, so long renowned in classic strains,

Had dimly shone on Albion’s happier plains!

Now, in the southern hemisphere, the sun,

Through the bright Virgin, and the Scales, had run,

And on th’ ecliptic wheeled his winding way

Till the fierce Scorpion felt his flaming ray.

Four days becalmed the vessel here remains,

And yet no hopes of aiding wind obtains;

For sickening vapours lull the air to sleep,

And not a breeze awakes the silent deep:

This, when th’ autumnal equinox is o’er,

And Phœbus in the north declines no more,

The watchful mariner, whom Heaven informs,

Oft deems the prelude of approaching storms.—

No dread of storms the master’s soul restrain,

A captive fettered to the oar of gain:

His anxious heart, impatient of delay,

Expects the winds to sail from Candia’s bay,

Determined, from whatever point they rise,

To trust his fortune to the seas and skies.

Thou living ray of intellectual fire,

Whose voluntary gleams my verse inspire,

Ere yet the deepening incidents prevail,

Till roused attention feel our plaintive tale;

Record whom chief among the gallant crew

Th’ unblest pursuit of fortune hither drew:

Can sons of Neptune, generous, brave, and bold,

In pain and hazard toil for sordid gold?

They can! for gold, too oft with magic art,

Can rule the passions and corrupt the heart:

This crowns the prosperous villain with applause,

To whom in vain sad Merit pleads her cause;

This strews with roses Life’s perplexing road,

And leads the way to Pleasure’s soft abode;

This spreads with slaughtered heaps the bloody plain,

And pours adventurous thousands o’er the main.

II. The stately ship, with all her daring band,

To skilful Albert owned the chief command:

Though trained in boisterous elements, his mind

Was yet by soft humanity refined;

Each joy of wedded love, at home, he knew,

Aboard, confest the father of his crew!

Brave, liberal, just! the calm domestic scene

Had o’er his temper breathed a gay serene:

Him Science taught by mystic lore to trace

The planets wheeling in eternal race!

To mark the ship in floating balance held,

By earth attracted, and by seas repell’d;

Or point her devious track through climes unknown,

That leads to every shore and every zone:

He saw the moon through Heaven’s blue concave glide,

And into motion charm th’ expanding tide,

While earth impetuous round her axle rolls,

Exalts her watery zone, and sinks the Poles;

Light and attraction, from their genial source,