Straight peals of thunder heaven’s high arches rend The hailstones leap, the showers in spouts descend. The winds with widen’d throats the signal give; The cables break, the smoking vessels drive. Now, wondrous, as they beat the foaming flood, The timbers soften into flesh and blood; The yards and oars new arms and legs design; A trunk the hull; the slender keel a spine: The prow a female face; and by degrees The gallies rise green daughters of the seas. Sometimes on coral beds they sit in state, Or wanton on the waves they fear’d of late. The barks that beat the seas are still their care, Themselves remembering what of late they were; To save a Trojan sail in throngs they press, But smile to see Alcinous in distress.