William Falconer

William Falconer

William Falconer (21 February 1732 – December 1769) was a Scottish poet.

Quotes

The Shipwreck (1762)

• With living colours give my verse to glow:
  The sad memorial of a tale of woe!
  • Introduction, lines 35-36.

• Thou living ray of intellectual fire.
  • Canto I, line 104.

• High in his chariot glow'd the lamp of day.
  • Canto I, 426.

• The sacred lamp of day
  Now dipt in western clouds his parting ray.
  • Canto II, line 27.

• Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
  Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock;
  Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
  The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes
  In wild despair; while yet another stroke
  With strong convulsion rends the solid oak:
  Ah Heaven!—behold her crashing ribs divide!
  She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide.
  • Canto III, line 642.