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!