Psalms 107:27

Reel to and fro. — Or more exactly, spin round and round.

Are at their wit’s end. — An admirable paraphrase of the Hebrew, “all their wisdom swalloweth itself up.” The poet, from the expressions employed, is possibly writing under the influence of Psalms 22:14; but he has evidently himself been to sea and experienced the dangers and discomforts he so graphically describes. Ovid (Trist. i. 2) has been quoted in illustration:

“Me miserum, quanti montes volvuntur aquarum
Jamjam tacturos sidera summa putes.
Quantæ diducto subsidunt æquore valles:
Jamjam tacturas Tartura nigra putes
Rector in incerto est, nec quid fugiatve petatve
Invenit: ambiguis ars stupet ipsa malis.”

See on this passage Addison in Spectator, No. 489.