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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Shipwreck

  • He who has suffered shipwreck, fears to sail
  • Upon the seas, though with a gentle gale.
  • Herrick.

  • Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
  • False fires, that others may be lost.
  • Wordsworth.

  • Some hoisted out the boats, and there was one
  • That begged Pedrillo for an absolution,
  • Who told him to be damn’d,—in his confusion.
  • Byron.

  • Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—
  • Then shriek’d the timid, and stood still the brave,—
  • Then some leap’d overboard with fearful yell,
  • As eager to anticipate their grave.
  • Byron.

  • O, I have suffer’d
  • With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
  • Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,
  • Dash’d all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
  • Against my very heart! poor souls! they perish’d.
  • Shakespeare.

  • But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale,
  • And in the distant ray what glimmering sail
  • Bends to the storm?—Now sinks the note of fear!
  • Ah! wretched mariners!—no more shall day
  • Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way!
  • Mrs. Radcliffe.

  • And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
  • Through the whistling sleet and snow,
  • Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
  • Towards the reef of Norman’s Woe.
  • Longfellow.

  • In vain, alas! the sacred shades of yore
  • Would arm the mind with philosophic lore,
  • In vain they’d teach us, at the latest breath,
  • To smile serene amid the pangs of death.
  • Falconer.

  • Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
  • Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock;
  • Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
  • The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes
  • In wild despair; while yet another stroke
  • With strong convulsion rends the solid oak:
  • Ah heaven!—behold her crashing ribs divide!
  • She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o’er the tide.
  • Falconer.