OFF THK CAPE. 



231 



Then, in his pride of ignorance, behold 



The shadow only of his Maker's face ; 

 So gaze — alone, on Time's dread wreck, untold : 



Those flaming worlds, our Newton failed to trace ! 



Descending thence, on earth, new life begins : 



While Death but counts his shafts, already driven : 



Abjuring now — though late — all meaner things : — 

 Pardon and joy welcome his faith to — Heaven. 



Anno Dom. 1836. ^' ^' ^' 



OFF THE CAPE. 



AN ILLUSTRATION OF DANIELl's CELEBRATED PICTURE, " OFF THE CAPE, 



A MAN OVERBOARD." 



ABOARD H. C. S. M E , 1829. 



Sunset in the broad and rolling Indian Ocean ; lat. 28°. S. long. 62A° 

 E. Picture to yourself, kind reader, a boundless waste of waters ;— a 

 world of silence, awe, and soul- overpowering magnificence; — liquid 

 plains of scopeless and ever-changing green, heaving in gigantic ma- 

 jesty beneath the broad, o'erarching canopy of heaven. 



Where is the boundary of this godlike dominion ? Expandmg in 

 " never ending, still beginning" continuity — unmarked by the petty 

 traces of animated nature — unbridled, untransformed by the labours of 

 humanity, it stands apart in sullen and inhospitable dignity, and laughs 

 at the Lilliputian arts by which mankind has rendered the face of the 

 less unyielding earth subservient to his wants, his wishes, and his pride. 

 There is something nobly constant in the ocean. Ages fleet away, but 

 they work no alteration upon its aspect- Thrones, empires are over- 

 turned ; races of mankind become extinguished ; that seemingly calcu- 

 lated for eternity, yields, at last, to the universal fiat ; the structure of 

 " the great globe itself," undergoes vast and total alteration ; but Time, 

 the conqueror of all, finds himself baffled when he seeks to establish an 

 authority over the unbending waters. 



♦' And writes no wrinkle on their azure brow !" 



Such as it rolled when the command of omnipotence curbed its sullen 

 and inimical dominion — prescribed that bounds which hitherto had 

 ranged in unchallenged sovereignty, and from its briny and reluctant 

 bosom, bade a world arise for the subsistence and habitation of a 

 race of new and superior beings ; such as it rose on the first great 

 day of an immortal creation, still is it now, and shall be. All have 

 gazed upon the self-same features. The first navigator, wlio thrust 

 forth his adventurous skift" to tempt the greatness of dangers hitherto 

 inconceived, propelled it on the self-same surface. To Jason and his 

 companion Argonauts, to Agamemuou and his brother chieftains, to 



