Written On Passing Deadman's Island, In The Gulf Of St. Lawrence,[1] Late In The Evening, September, 1804.

See you, beneath yon cloud so dark, Fast gliding along a gloomy bark? Her sails are full,--though the wind is still, And there blows not a breath her sails to fill! Say, what doth that vessel of darkness bear? The silent calm of the grave is there, Save now and again a death-knell rung, And the flap of the sails with night-fog hung. There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore Of cold and pitiless Labrador; Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost, Full many a mariner's bones are tost. Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck, And the dim blue fire, that lights her deck, Doth play on as pale and livid a crew, As ever yet drank the churchyard dew. To Deadman's Isle, in the eye of the blast, To Deadman's Isle, she speeds her fast; By skeleton shapes her sails are furled, And the hand that steers is not of this world! Oh! hurry thee on-oh! hurry thee on, Thou terrible bark, ere the night be gone, Nor let morning look on so foul a sight As would blanch for ever her rosy light!