134 Then the Master, With a gesture of command, Waved his hand; And at the word, Loud and sudden there was heard, She starts, she moves,-she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel, And lo! from the assembled crowd The moistened eye, the trembling lip, Are not the signs of doubt or fear. Sail forth into the sea of life, Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee,-are all with thee! THE EVENING STAR. JUST above yon sandy bar, As the day grows fainter and dimmer, Lonely and lovely, a single star Lights the air with a dusky glimmer. Into the ocean faint and far Falls the trail of its golden splendour, And the gleam of that single star Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender. Chrysaor rising out of the sea, Showed thus glorious and thus emulous, Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe, For ever tender, soft, and tremulous. Thus o'er the ocean faint and far Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly: Is it a God, or is it a star That, entranced, I gaze on nightly? THE SECRET OF THE SEA. АH! what pleasant visions haunt me As I gaze upon the sea! All the old romantic legends, All my dreams come back to me.. Sails of silk and ropes of sendal, Haunts me oft, and tarries long, And the sailor's mystic song. Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;- Steering onward to the land;How he heard the ancient helmsman Chant a song so wild and clear, That the sailing sea-bird slowly Poised upon the mast to hear, Till his soul was full of longing And he cried, with impulse strong,"Helmsman! for the love of heaven, Teach me, too, that wondrous song!" "Wouldst thou,"-so the helmsman answered, "Learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery!" In each sail that skims the horizon, In each landward-blowing breeze, I behold that stately galley, Hear those mournful melodies; Till my soul is full of longing, For the secret of the sea, And the heart of the great ocean Sends a thrilling pulse through me. TWILIGHT. The wind blows wild and free, Flash the white caps of the sea. But in the fisherman's cottage There shines a ruddier light, And a little face at the window Peers out into the night. Close, close it is pressed to the window, As if those childish eyes Were looking into the darkness, To see some form arise. And a woman's waving shadow Now bowing and bending low. What tale do the roaring ocean, And the night-wind, bleak and wild, As they beat at the crazy casement, Tell to that little child? And why do the roaring ocean, And the night-wind, wild and bleak, As they beat at the heart of the mother, Drive the colour from her cheek? SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.* And the east-wind was his breath. Glistened in the sun; On each side, like pennons wide Dripped with silver rain; But where he passed there were cast Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed; Three days or more seaward he bore, Alas! the land-wind failed, "When the wind abated and the vessels were near enough, the Admiral was seen constantly sitting in the stern, with a book in his hand. On the 9th of September he was seen for the last time, and was heard by the people of the Hind to say, 'We are as near heaven by sea as by land.' In the following night, the lights of the ship suddenly disappeared. The people in the other vessel kept 'a good look-out for him during the remainder of the voyage. On the 22d of September they arrived, through much tempest and peril, at Falmouth. But nothing more was seen or heard of the Admiral. -BELKNAP'S American Biography, i. 203. And never more, on sea or shore, The Book was in his hand; The fleet of Death rose all around. The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds; Every mast, as it passed, Seemed to rake the passing clouds. They grappled with their prize, At midnight black and cold! As of a rock was the shock; Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward, through day and dark, They drift in close embrace, With mist and rain, to the Spanish Main; Yet there seems no change of place. Southward, for ever southward, They drift through dark and day; And like a dream, in the Gulf-stream Sinking, vanish all away. The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din Of wings and winds and solitary cries, Blinded and maddened by the light within, Dashes himself against the glare, and dies. A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock, Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove, It does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock, But hails the mariner with words of love. "Sail on!" it says, "sail on, ye stately ships! And with your floating bridge the ocean span; Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse, Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!" The first slight swerving of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part, Or say it in too great excess. The leaves of memory seemed to make As suddenly, from out the fire And, as their splendour flashed and failed, We thought of wrecks upon the main, Of ships dismasted, that were hailed The windows, rattling in their frames,- All mingled vaguely in our speech; Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain, The long-lost ventures of the heart, They were indeed too much akin, The driftwood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within. 0 BY THE FIRESIDE. RESIGNATION. THERE is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! The air is full of farewells to the dying, Will not be comforted! Let us be patient! These severe afflictions Not from the ground arise, We see but dimly through the mists and vapours, Amid these earthly damps; What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers, May be heaven's distant lamps. There is no Death! transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, She is not dead,-the child of our affection, But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule. In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, By guardian angels led, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives, whom we call dead. Day after day we think what she is doing In those bright realms of air; Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Behold her grown more fair. Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken The bond which nature gives, Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, May reach her where she lives. Not as a child shall we again behold her; For when with raptures wild In our embraces we again enfold her, She will not be a child; But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, Clothed with celestial grace; And beautiful with all the soul's expansion Shall we behold her face. And though at times impetuous with emotion And anguish long suppressed, The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, That cannot be at rest, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling We may not wholly stay; By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way. THE BUILDERS. ALL are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time: Each thing in its place is best; Are the blocks with which we build. Such things will remain unseen. In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the Gods see everywhere. Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen; Standing in these walls of Time, Shall to-morrow find its place. To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky. |