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A WRECK IN SHREWSBURY INLET, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The ocean sands are round her keel
Last Line: Content to perish, ne'er to bow!
Subject(s): Disasters; Shipwrecks


The ocean sands are round her keel;
The ocean surge is rolling past;
The sea-bird's wing will whirl and wheel
In circles round her broken mast;
There is no mortal hand to scare
The crow and sea-gull from her deck;
No spirit, but the sailor's prayer,
Keeps watch above the noble wreck.

Is she not desolate? -- old ship,
Left to the surges' wild career, --
No more her noble prow to dip
In the wide waters, blue and clear? --
No more to bear the snowy sail
Home from old England's far-off shores;
No more to breast the northern gale,
With strong men on her oaken floors?

Is there no struggle with the storm?
No struggle, that the noble steed
Heaves when, with life-blood still so warm,
He falls in fight, his last to bleed?
Fights not the old ship wind and tide,
As in old days, when tempests came
And the rough waves that swept her side
Shook not her iron strength of frame?

So fights she not? Ah, gallantly!
And slow each plank is rent away
As if each atom scorned to be
The first-won trophy of decay.
The sea-bird on her broken mast,
The frayed rope swinging from her prow,
She waits her doom of wave and blast,
Content to perish, ne'er to bow!





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