The Loss Of The Royal George Poem by Joanna Baillie

WHERE are the tamers of the deep,
The gallant and the brave?
Heaven's angry whirlwinds o'er them sweep,
Cold ocean is their grave.
Was it, their sun of glory waned
Amid the cloudy fight,
When through the mists of battle rained
A shower of deathly light?
Arose they from the strife of blood
On victory's eagle pinion,
Waving in death above the flood
The banner of dominion?
I would not mock their fate with sorrow,
Let woman melt in tears,
Fame's gorgeous purple I would borrow
To shroud their glorious biers.

No; on their dark and dismal hour
No star of conquest rose;
Vain was their boast of strength and power,
The tempests were their foes.
Haughty they rode the passive deep,
And bade the waves give place;
They called the wild winds from their sleep,
To waft them on their race.
They saw not from the deep arise
The spirit of the storm,
And mingle with the dark'ning skies
His dim and scowling form.
But God to him strange might had given
To wreak his wrath on man;
By rushing blasts the skies were riven,
The waves their war began.
Where are the tamers of the deep,
The gallant and the brave?
Go ask the wild winds where they sleep,
Search ocean for their grave.

Was heard on Denmark's wintry shore
The drear distress-gun moaning?
'Twas night, amid the tempest's roar
That dying men were groaning.
And Ocean, like a conqueror proud,
In triumph rolled to land,
And with his gallant spoils bestrewed
The waste and silent sand.
There are, who sweetly sleep at home
With calm and careless breast,
And those they love in slumber come
To cheer their couch of rest.
Oh, wake them not, from those to part,
Who in their dreams survive!
To-morrow to the bleeding heart,
For aye, they cease to live!