No low, faint murmurs, trembled on my tongue, A deadly torpor every limb oppress’d, Weak were my sinews, and unmann’d my breast:  When lo! a voice, that struck my inmost heart, Seem’d, thro’ the wavering storm, to cry, ‘Depart!’ Trembling with awe, I turn’d my aching view, And spread the flying sail, and o’er the billows flew.

      “On foreign shores, to poverty resign’d,
    An exile, friendless and alone, I pined. 
    Hope and Content inspired my toils no more;
    Alas!  I left them on my native shore! 
    Stern Want around me pour’d her chilling woes,
    And no faint beam, to cheer my winter, rose.

      “At length, when years, with slow-revolving round,
    Had half assuaged my soul’s eternal wound,
    And rural peace my humble efforts bless’d
    With one short calm of momentary rest;
    Sudden, the demons of tyrannic war }
    Whirl thro’ our peaceful haunts his rapid car, }
    And waving standards kindle all the air:  }
    In crackling heaps the flaming forests rise,
    The smoking cities darken half the skies. 
    Thro’ burning woods and falling towers I sprung,
    While torches hiss’d, and darts around me sung,
    And, still expectant of some happier time,
    Sought distant refuge in another clime.

      “My term of sorrows came not:  black Despair,
    And lawless Force, and shrinking Fear, were there. 
    Woes, yet unfelt, were nigh;—­fell Slavery shed
    Her night of sorrows on my hapless head: 
    Doom’d each imperious order to fulfil,
    And watch a ruthless master’s various will. 
    Five years, exposed to unremitted pain,
    I languish’d there—­’till Friendship broke my chain.

      “Now o’er my head full fifteen suns had burn’d, }
    Since from my native rocks my eyes I turn’d:  }
    And practised now in woe, my soul no longer mourn’d. }
    I sought my patron, and (a bark supplied)
    His fortunes follow’d o’er the foamy tide.

      “From these dire shores our rapid course we held;
    Auspicious gales the flying canvas swell’d;
    And joy’s faint sunshine kindled in my eyes,
    As the last mountain mingled with the skies: 
    When, by conflicting winds together driven,
    A night of clouds involved the starless heaven;
    Fierce and more fierce th’ increasing tempest blew,
    The thunder rattled, and the lightning flew. 
    Soon, borne at random o’er the watery way,
    The yawning rocks our guideless ship betray;
    My shrieking comrades sink.—­Some power unseen
    Preserved me, trembling, thro’ the deathful scene;
    I rode th’ opposing waves, and from the steep
    Beheld the vessel plunge into the flashing deep.

       “Beneath a sheltering wood all night I lay,
    ’Till morn had chased the flying stars away;
    Then sought the wave-worn strand.—­The storm was dead;
    And Silence o’er the deep her pinions spread. 
    All—­all were gone!—­I saw my doom severe;
    And, dull with suffering, scarcely dropp’d a tear!