THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 363 And to leaven with fiery leaven Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said, Beneath our feet each deed of shame! All common things, each day's events, The low desire, the base design, And all occasions of excess; The longing for ignoble things; The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds, 364 THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. All these must first be trampled down We have not wings, we cannot soar; The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, The distant mountains, that uprear The heights by great men reached and kept Standing on what too long we bore Nor deem the irrevocable Past, THE PHANTOM SHIP. 365 THE PHANTOM SHIP. IN Mather's Magnalia Christi, May be found in prose the legend A ship sailed from New Haven, Were heavy with good men's prayers. "O Lord! if it be thy pleasure But Master Lamberton muttered, And the ships that came from England; Nor of Master Lamberton. This put the people to praying That the Lord would let them hear What in his greater wisdom He had done with friends so dear. And at last their prayers were answered: An hour before the sunset Of a windy afternoon, 366 THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. When, steadily steering landward, And they knew it was Lamberton, Master, On she came, with a cloud of canvas, Then fell her straining topmasts, And the masts, with all their rigging, And the hulk dilated and vanished, And the people who saw this marvel Each said unto his friend, That this was the mould of their vessel, And the pastor of the village Gave thanks to God in prayer, THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS A MIST was driving down the British Channel, And through the window-panes, on floor and panel, THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. 367 It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon, And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover To see the French war-steamers speeding over, Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions, Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance, The sea-coast opposite. And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations On every citadel; Each answering each, with morning salutations, And down the coast, all taking up the burden, As if to summon from his sleep the Warden Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure, No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure No more, surveying with an eye impartial Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, |