Poem by George Croly

Lines Written at Spithead

HARK to the knell!
It comes on the swell
  Of the stormy ocean wave;
’T is no earthly sound,
But a tale profound
  From the mariner’s deep-sea grave.

When the billows dash,
And the signals flash,
  And the thunder is on the gale;
And the ocean is white
With its own wild light,
  Deadly and dismal and pale.

When the lightning’s blaze
Smites the seaman’s gaze,
  And the sea rolls in fire and in foam;
And the surge’s roar
Shakes the rocky shore,
  We hear the sea-knell come.

There ’neath the billow,
The sand their pillow,
  Ten thousand men lie low;
And still their dirge
Is sung by the surge,
  When the stormy night-winds blow.

Sleep, warriors! sleep
On your pillow deep
  In peace! for no mortal care,
No art can deceive,
No anguish can heave,
  The heart that once slumbers there.

1. Nelson’s Pillar
2. The Genius of Death

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