This vast phenomenon, whose lofty head,
In heaven immersed, embracing clouds o'erspread, 40
In spiral motion first, as seamen deem,
Swells, when the raging whirlwind sweeps the stream.
The swift volution, and the enormous train,
Let sages versed in nature's lore explain.
The horrid apparition still draws nigh,
And white with foam the whirling billows fly.
The guns were primed; the vessel northward veers,
Till her black battery on the column bears:
The nitre fired; and, while the dreadful sound,
Convulsive shook the slumbering air around, 50
The watery volume, trembling to the sky,
Burst down, a dreadful deluge, from on high!
The expanding ocean trembled as it fell,
And felt with swift recoil her surges swell;
But soon, this transient undulation o'er,
The sea subsides, the whirlwinds rage no more.
While southward now the increasing breezes veer,
Dark clouds incumbent on their wings appear:
Ahead they see the consecrated grove
Of Cyprus, sacred once to Cretan Jove. 60
The ship beneath her lofty pressure reels,
And to the freshening gale still deeper heels.
But now, beneath the lofty vessel's stern,
A shoal of sportive dolphins they discern,
Beaming from burnish'd scales refulgent rays,
Till all the glowing ocean seems to blaze:
In curling wreaths they wanton on the tide,
Now bound aloft, now downward swiftly glide;