FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK." 



Ho sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 

 Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 

 ***** 

 " Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee 

 Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 

 Thy waters washed them power while they were free, 

 And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 

 The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 

 Has dried up realms to deserts : not so thou; 

 Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play 

 Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow 

 Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now." 



297 



" DEEP ON HER SIDE THE KEELING VESSEL LIES." 



The poet par excellence of the sea, partly on account of the literary merits of his 

 production, but more by reason of his technical correctness, was William Falconer, the 

 author of " The Shipwreck/' on the title pages of all the older editions of which he is 

 described simply as " a sailor." His poem, which is in three cantos, was founded on actual 

 incidents in a shipwreck from which himself and but two or three of the crew were saved. 

 Again, in 1769 he embarked on board the Aurora frigate on a venture to the East Indies, 

 but from the time the ship left the Cape of Good Hope no information was ever received 

 of her, and she is believed to have foundered with all hands, including the poet. 

 Falconer, although a disciple of the Muse, wrote a political satire, entitled, " The 

 Demagogue ; " while his Marine Dictionary is, in its revised form, a recognised authority 

 to-day. The poem on which his fame rests is remarkable for the absolute correctness of 

 its details. Take, for example, the following passage, which could not have been written 

 by a landsman-poet : 



158 



