A POETICAL SEA-PEICE: Containing in a spacious table the lively description of a Tempest at Sea, and Shipwrecks. Transcribed hither out of an elderly manuscript poem; partly for a lesson of life, and partly for the honourable uses which follow; under the old Greek, and Roman solemn praefaces of good speed.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Quod faustum, foelixque sit. 
With the favourable allowance, and concurrence (or not otherwise) of the equal patrons, and friends of eminent Poets, and Painters, from CAESAR to the private Gentleman, and of those Poets, and eminent Painters themselves.  
An Agonicall CHALLENGE, in the name of Apollo, to the Art of Apelles, bringing into a comparison the work of wit, and words, by the pen, under the poetical figure, Jcon, with the work of wit, and colours, by the penicill.  Ob artium majus bonum. 
The meritorious office of bringing the magnificent design into act, by the means of Royal favour, is zealously recommended to the wisdom, and noble forwardness of Mr. Endymion Porter, an affectionate, and an understanding lover; as of all other generous Arts, so specially of these the two most famous.  
Printed at LONDON by Thomas Cotes. 1633.   

A POETICAL SEA-PEICE:  

SO spoke the stormy fiend; whose work it was,  
To vex the aer, and seas as smooth as glass,  
To roll on heaps till they on end do stand,  
Where they against the winds do breaking band,  
And lift at heaven, and in their rangeing race,  
Twixt ridg and ridg the deep engulphing space,  
Appears like jaws infernal, mouths of hell,  
To swallow whole Fleets whole, none left to tell,  
The losses happening in those liquid graves.  
Thus while the winds do tyrannize the waves,  
Great clapps of thunder break from thickened sky,  
And shafts of lightning through the region fly,  
And fly at random, which more terror breed:  
They only happy who were strucken dead.  
The wild seas madded thus, in their affray,  
Do threaten with their dash to put out day.  
The rocks in sight would fain have shrunk the head,  
The hidden to be seen in vain do dread.  
The battered shores had almost yielded back,  
The waves so little of their wills did lack:  
And but for bounds the world's creator fixed,  
All th' elements had once again been mixed.   

The Mariner, when first the storm began,  
By known signs taught to fear, looks pale and wan,  
His sails takes in, and stoups unto that ill,  
He cannot master, and with sighs doth fill,  
The deaf, and angry heavens, from whose offence,  
The persecution came, permitted thence.  
For otherwise an host of spirits want power,  
To stir a breath, or strain a slender shower.  
The sprinkling of the breaking waves beget,  
Somewhat like rain, and which as much doth wet.  
Yet fell rain also in so vast a store,  
As had the winds slept, and the waves no more,  
Been stirring then the winds, and force did use,  
Which might, the ship it sunk not, bulge, and bruise:  
Like chorus between acts so came the rain,  
Peal after peal, then tragic storms again.   

Away goes steerage, and the lead away,  
All courses fail, no road is near, nor bay.  
Away the card, away the compass goes:  
In two and thirty points not one point shows,  
A line of safety, all the lines that were,  
Did point to death, none other centre there.  
And if AMALFI had at that time found,  
The loadstones use, the needle turning round,  
Upon no corner could have fallen so true,  
As to direct from whence less danger grew.  
The staff wherewith the height they want to take,  
Now when each sea over the ship doth rake,  
Surges whelm surges, billows do billows ride,  
(The sea-race running counter to the tide)  
Unuseful is, nor fit a step to stay,  
When rocking ships the reeling drunkards play,  
And disengorge the seas surcharging waste,  
At gushing scuppet-holes, which seem to caste.  
The dancing beak-head now doth plunge, and dive,  
Then up again before the wind doth drive,  
And while upright it stands upon the slide,  
The naked bottom may be halfway eyed.  
No place for art is left, no place for might,  
And every way best pleaseth but the right.  
For they the winds must follow not their will.  
Obedience was their best, and that was ill.  
To mind than first life past hath swift recourse,  
Than first the fear of death doth stir remorse,  
Awakens memory, represents things done:  
And they who laboured riches to have won,  
By death's contempt, would all the world now give,  
To be but safe on shore, and so to live.  
These were the sports of that outrageous fiend:  
On whom a rabble of his likes attend,  
Alike perdues, alike forlorn as he,  
But less in power, in malice, and degree.  
Some ball up clouds to ram into the wind,  
Others new blasts do labour to unbind,  
And on their backs come fiercely riding in,  
Before the old ones to surcease begin,  
And with their onsets violate the sky,  
And between whiles do whole broadsides let fly.  
The Vultures, Harpies, and all birds of praey,  
Took sanctuary far upon shore away:  
Their element is now no longer theirs.  
Another shoal of ouglier birds appears,  
Which visibly possess the troubled clime,  
Themselves the sorest tempests of the time.   

He had a coat full threefold thick of brass,  
About his breast, nor for his life did pass,  
Who first did dare to trust the sea with ship,  
And keels did teach ' on billows back to skip,  
Who first to weather did commit his weal;  
Or had strange cause from tyrant's power to steal:  
As had that man of CRETE, from whose arts fame,  
Choice pieces carry the DAEDALEAN name.   

The ships sides crack, the tackle tears like thread:  
Some ply the pump; some cry we all are dead.  
Here climbs a nimble boy unto the top,  
When him now halfway, or not halfway up,  
A gust praevents, which duck's into the deep,  
The shrowds themselves, & from the ropes doth sweep  
The venturous climer, darting him as fare,  
As globe of stone from instrument of war.  
There, to stand fast the one the other binds,  
And both are blown of with the hoisting winds:  
Another on his hands and feet doth creep;  
Him bounding haches bandy to the deep.  
Some trust unto the halliards, and their hold,  
The cordage flies, they under seas are rolld.  
The giddy ship the sailors brains turns round,  
And strains him so, though hard his brows be bound,  
That, as from stricken flints, sparks seem to fly,  
Throughout his bones, and out at either eye.  
If any one less sickly were then so,  
Of life less weary he, the more his woe.   

The Muse while this she sings is giddy grown;  
And the right reader scarcely keeps his own.  
No marvel then if their brains turned were,  
Who of the storm the stress entire did bear.   

The rudder torn away gins the wrack,  
Though of the same the lesser was the lack,  
For that long since it ceased of use to be,  
And traitorous leaks drunk in the driving sea.  
No standing on the decks, no stirring there;  
Th' unbridled beast will now no master hear,  
But flings the rider, off the sailer shakes;  
And each a grave-roome of his cabin makes.  
The noise so huge as shricks of men were drowned;  
No anchorage but in vows; nor in them found.  
Not so much sail aloft left hanging there,  
As would suffice to wipe away one tear.  
The masts cut down, the goods thrown over board,  
And last themselves; all aid's in vain implored,  
All hands in vain employed, the hull to save,  
When gaping comes the fatal final wave,  
Called Decumane, which into watery woomb,  
At one suck draws down all, but gives no toomb;  
For what one sea devours another drives,  
Rebelching it in mockage of their lives;  
And as a load too heavy to digest,  
These surges play it over to the rest,  
And while one wreck another wreck doth hit,  
What seas left whole is so in pieces split;  
Or cast on beds of sand, or ragged rocks,  
The carcasse-selfe dissolving with the shocks.   

The planks start out, the ribs in pieces crack,  
No timber is so strong, but yields back,  
And as the waves rush in, forth shoots the ware,  
Such as remained t'accompany despair.  
With them the deeps are spread, here barrels float,  
There packs not yet through-wet, and chests of note,  
And men and boys ride on them while they may,  
Then shrick out last farewells and fall away:  
The wine with brine doth mix; and mingled so,  
The curled foam doth no pure whiteness show,  
But dipped in claret die praetends to blush.  
One swallowing surge the Merchant's hop's doth crush,  
The Factors, Sailors, children's, Wives, and Friends:  
In wretched loss the whole adventure ends.  
And though the Ocean opens to the sky,  
Where none alive is near to bid, or buy,  
A world of scattered goods on billows green,  
As at a mart, yet they in vain are seen,  
And what his mercy spares, or what the kind,  
Of that which cannot sink the shore doth find,  
The shore more cruel than the sea devours;  
For he who claims the wreck cries, all is ours.   

Nor with less noise then as if from the side,  
Of steeple rocks a cliff should chance to slide,  
And drop into the under-beating seas,  
To the great fright of the NEREIDS,  
And other wanton nymphs who play by shore,  
The sunk ship falls, and beaten waters roar.   

The ravenous fish, (those wolves of NEPTUNES fie●●●  
A passage short to quick and dead do yield,  
Through greedy maws; but corpses thrown on shore▪  
Find burial there, and people to deplore.   

The cowerd under hatches feels the fall,  
Not daring sight to use, nor speech at all,  
And stops his ears, just as his breath is stopped.   

But the tall fellow never overtopped,  
With baseness though with brine, in swimming sinks,  
And even in sinking of surviving thinks,  
Bestrides some mast, lays hold of yard, or plank,  
And though among the lost himself he rank,  
Yet strives with arms, and legs to keep aloft.  
And boldness so is blessed, that not unoft,  
God favours his escape, and lets him go.  
" The valiant man against despair cries No.  
" And though of all things else bereft, and left,  
" Himself he leaves not. God no greater gift▪  
" Hath given unto man than such a mind,  
" Beneath the which are fortune, seas, and wind,  
" Above it nothing else but God alone,  
" And to him knit is always so his own.   
FINIS.  
Sit Trinitati sempiterna gloria.