In this confusion, while their work they ply, The winds augment the winter of the sky, And wage intestine wars, the suffering seas Are toss’d, and mingled, as their tyrants please. The master would command, but, in despair Of safety, stands amazed with stupid care; Nor what to bid, or what forbid he knows, The ungovern’d tempest to such fury grows: Vain is his force, and vainer is his skill, With such a concourse comes the flood of ill; The cries of men are mix’d with rattling shrouds, Seas dash on seas, and clouds encounter clouds; At once from east to west, from pole to pole, The forky lightnings flash, the roaring thunders roll.