As morning broke, the light wind died away, When he who had the watch sung out and swore, If ’twas not land that rose with the sun’s ray, He wish’d that land he never might see more; And the rest rubb’d their eyes and saw a bay, Or thought they saw, and shaped their course for shore; For shore it was, and gradually grew Distinct, and high, and palpable to view.
And then of these some part burst into tears, And others, looking with a stupid stare, Could not yet separate their hopes from fears, And seem’d as if they had no further care; While a few pray’d (the first time for some years)— And at the bottom of the boat three were Asleep: they shook them by the hand and head, And tried to awaken them, but found them dead.
The day before, fast sleeping on the water, They found a turtle of the hawk’s-bill kind, And by good fortune, gliding softly, caught her, Which yielded a day’s life, and to their mind Proved even still a more nutritious matter, Because it left encouragement behind: They thought that in such perils, more than chance Had sent them this for their deliverance.
The land appear’d a high and rocky coast, And higher grew the mountains as they drew, Set by a current, toward it: they were lost In various conjectures, for none knew To what part of the earth they had been tost, So changeable had been the winds that blew; Some thought it was Mount AEtna, some the highlands, Of Candia, Cyprus, Rhodes, or other islands.
Meantime the current, with a rising gale, Still set them onwards to the welcome shore, Like Charon’s bark of spectres, dull and pale: Their living freight was now reduced to four, And three dead, whom their strength could not avail To heave into the deep with those before, Though the two sharks still follow’d them, and dash’d The spray into their faces as they splash’d.
Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had done Their work on them by turns, and thinn’d them to Such things a mother had not known her son Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew; By night chill’d, by day scorch’d, thus one by one They perish’d, until wither’d to these few, But chiefly by a species of self-slaughter, In washing down Pedrillo with salt water.
As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen Unequal in its aspect here and there, They felt the freshness of its growing green, That waved in forest-tops, and smooth’d the air, And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen From glistening waves, and skies so hot and bare— Lovely seem’d any object that should sweep Away the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep.