To absence, sorrow, and despair consign'd;
Oh! then, to swell the tides of social woe
That heal the afflicted bosom they o'erflow,
While memory dictates, this sad shipwreck tell,
And what distress thy wretched friend befell:
Then, while in streams of soft compassion drown'd,
The swains lament, and maidens weep around;
While lisping children, touch'd with infant fear,
With wonder gaze, and drop the unconscious tear;
Oh! then this moral bid their souls retain,

All thoughts of happiness on earth are vain!"
The last faint accents trembled on his tongue,
That now inactive to the palate clung;
His bosom heaves a mortal groan - he dies!
And shades eternal sink upon his eyes.

As thus defaced in death Palemon lay,
Arion gazed upon the lifeless clay;
Transfix'd he stood, with awful terror fill'd,

While down his cheek the silent drops distill'd:
"O ill-starr'd votary of unspotted truth!
Untimely perish'd in the bloom of youth ;
Should e'er thy friend arrive on Albion's land,
He will obey, though painful, thy command;
His tongue the dreadful story shall display,
And all the horrors of this dismal day :
Disastrous day! what ruin hast thou bred,

What anguish to the living and the dead!
How hast thou left the widow all forlorn;
And ever doom'd the orphan child to mourn,
Through life's sad journey hopeless to complain:
Can sacred justice these events ordain?

But, O my soul! avoid that wondrous maze
Where reason, lost in endless error, strays;
As through this thorny vale of life we run,
Great Cause of all effects, thy will be done!"

Now had the Grecians on the beach arrived,
To aid the helpless few who yet survived:
While passing, they behold the waves o'erspread
With shatter'd rafts and corses of the dead;
Three still alive, benumb'd and faint they find,
In mournful silence on a rock reclined:
The generous natives, moved with social pain,
The feeble strangers in their arms sustain;
With pitying sighs their hapless lot deplore,
And lead them trembling from the fatal shore.

OCCASIONAL ELEGY,

IN WHICH THE PRECEDING NARRATIVE IS CONCLUDED.

THE Scene of death is closed! the mournful strains Dissolve in dying languor on the ear;

Yet pity weeps, yet sympathy complains,

And dumb suspense awaits o'erwhelm'd with fear:

But the sad muses with prophetic eye
At once the future and the past explore;
Their harps oblivion's influence can defy,
And waft the spirit to the eternal shore

Then, O Palemon! if thy shade can hear
The voice of friendship still lament thy doom,

Yet to the sad oblations bend thine ear,

That rise in vocal incense o'er thy tomb:

From young Arion first the news received
With terror, pale unhappy Anna read;
With inconsolable distress she grieved,

And from her cheek the rose of beauty fled;

In vain, alas! the gentle virgin wept,

Corrosive anguish nipt her vital bloom; O'er her soft frame diseases sternly crept,

And gave the lovely victim to the tomb:

A longer date of woe, the widow'd wife
Her lamentable lot afflicted bore;

Yet both were rescued from the chains of life
Before Arion reach'd his native shore!

The father unrelenting phrenzy stung,
Untaught in virtue's school distress to bear;
Severe remorse his tortured bosom wrung,
He languish'd, groan'd, and perish'd in despair.

Ye lost companions of distress, adieu!

Your toils, and pains, and dangers are no more; The tempest now shall howl unheard by you,

While ocean smites in vain the trembling shore;

On you the blast, surcharged with rain and snow,
In winter's dismal nights no more shall beat;
Unfelt by you the vertic sun may glow,

And scorch the panting earth with baneful heat:

No more the joyful maid, with sprightly strain, Shall wake the dance to give you welcome home;

Nor hopeless love impart undying pain,

When far from scenes of social joy you roam;

No more on yon wide watery waste you stray,

While hunger and disease your life consume, While parching thirst, that burns without allay Forbids the blasted rose of health to bloom;

No more you feel contagion's mortal breath
That taints the realms with misery severe,
No more behold pale famine, scattering death,
With cruel ravage desolate the year:

The thundering drum, the trumpet's swelling strain
Unheard, shall form the long embattled line:
Unheard, the deep foundations of the main
Shall tremble, when the hostile squadrons join:

Since grief, fatigue, and hazards still molest
The wandering vassals of the faithless deep;
Oh! happier now escaped to endless rest,
Than we who still survive to wake, and weep:

What though no funeral pomp, no borrow'd tear, Your hour of death to gazing crowds shall tell; Nor weeping friends attend your sable bier,

Who sadly listen to the passing bell;