Sails of silk and ropes of sendal, And the answer from the shore! Haunts me oft, and tarries long, And the sailor's mystic song. Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;- Steering onward to the land;- 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, Í 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 Is passing to and fro, Now rising to the ceiling, 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, Then, alas! the land-wind failed. Alas! the land-wind failed, And ice-cold grew the night; *"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. Not one alone; from each projecting cape And perilous reef along the ocean's verge, Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape, Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge. Like the great giant Christopher it stands Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave, Wading far out among the rocks and sands, The night-o'ertaken mariner to save. And the great ships sail outward and return, Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells, And ever joyful, as they see it burn, They wave their silent welcomes and farewells. They come forth from the darkness, and their sails Gleam for a moment only in the blaze, And eager faces, as the light unveils, Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze. The mariner remembers when a child, On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink; And when, returning from adventures wild, He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink. Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same Year after year, through all the silent night Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame, Shines on that inextinguishable light! It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss The lighthouse,-the dismantled fort,— The wooden houses, quaint and brown. We sat and talked until the night, Descending, filled the little room; Our faces faded from the sight, Our voices only broke the gloom. We spake of many a vanished scene, Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead; And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again; 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 And sent no answer back again. The windows, rattling in their frames,The ocean, roaring up the beach,The gusty blast,-the bickering flames, 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! What seems so is 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. 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. Truly shape and fashion these; Leave no yawning gaps between; Think not, because no man sees, 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; Make the house, where Gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean. Else our lives are incomplete, Standing in these walls of Time, Stumble as they seek to climb. : 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. SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS. A HANDFUL of red sand, from the hot clime Of Arab deserts brought, Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, The minister of Thought. How many weary centuries has it been About these deserts blown! How many strange vicissitudes has seen How many histories known! Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite Trampled and passed it o'er, When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight His favourite son they bore. Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare, Crushed it beneath their tread; Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air Scattered it as they sped; Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth Illumed the wilderness; Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms In half-articulate speech; Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate, And resolute in heart; These have passed over it, or may have passed! Now in this crystal tower Imprisoned by some curious hand at last, It counts the passing hour. And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand ; Before my dreamy eye Stretches the desert with its shifting sand, Its unimpeded sky. And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, A form of fear and dread. The column and its broader shadow run, Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain; BIRDS OF PASSAGE. BLACK shadows fall From the lindens tall, That lift aloft their massive wall And from the realms Of the shadowy elms A tide-like darkness overwhelms And everywhere A warm, soft vapour fills the air, Of the star-lit night, Swift birds of passage wing their flight Through the dewy atmosphere. |