"]
[Footnote 24: The following is Lord Byron's version of this touching
narrative; and it will be felt, I think, by every reader, that this is
one of the instances in which poetry must be content to yield the palm
to prose. There is a pathos in the last sentences of the seaman's
recital, which the artifices of metre and rhyme were sure to disturb,
and which, indeed, no verses, however beautiful, could half so
naturally and powerfully express:--
"There were two fathers in this ghastly crew,
And with them their two sons, of whom the one
Was more robust and hardy to the view,
But he died early; and when he was gone,
His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw
One glance on him, and said, 'Heaven's will be done,
I can do nothing,' and he saw him thrown
Into the deep without a tear or groan.
"The other father had a weaklier child,
Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate;
But the boy bore up long, and with a mild
And patient spirit held aloof his fate;
Little be said, and now and then he smiled,
As if to win a part from off the weight
He saw increasing on his father's heart,
With the deep, deadly thought, that they must part.
"And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised
His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam
From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed,
And when the wish'd-for shower at length was come,
And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed,
Brighten'd, and for a moment seem'd to roam,
He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain
Into his dying child's mouth--but in vain.
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