Hark the silver trumpets ringing
Jubilee with loud accord;
And the angel-harpers singing,
Welcome, blessed of the Lord!
See the blood-washed elders hail them,
Safe beyond the waves of strife,
And the faithful King of Salem
Crown them with eternal life!]
THE GENIUS OF NAVIGATION.
BUT chief at sea, whose every flexile wave
Obeys the blast, the aërial tumult swells.
In the dread ocean undulating wide,
Beneath the radiant line that girts the globe,
The circling Typhon, whirled from point to point,
Exhausting all the rage of all the sky,
And dire Ecnephia reign. Amid the heavens,
Falsely serene, deep in a cloudy speck
Compressed, the mighty tempest brooding dwells:
Of no regard, save to the skilful eye,
Fiery and foul, the small prognostic hangs
Aloft, or on the promontory's brow
Musters its force. A faint, deceitful calm,
A fluttering gale, the demon sends before,
To tempt the spreading sail. Then down at once,
CHARACTER OF A SHIPMASTER.
Precipitant, descends a mingled mass
Of roaring winds and flame, and rushing floods.
In wild amazement fixed, the sailor stands.
Art is too slow; by rapid Fate oppressed,
His broad-winged vessel drinks the whelming tide,
Hid in the bosom of the black abyss.
With such mad seas the daring Gama fought
For many a day and many a dreadful night,
Incessant, labouring round the stormy Cape,
By bold ambition led, and bolder thirst
Of gold. For then from ancient gloom emerged
The rising world of trade: the Genius, then,
Of Navigation, that, in hopeless sloth,
Had slumbered on the vast Atlantic deep
For idle ages, starting, heard at last
The Lusitanian Prince,* who, heaven-inspired,
To love of useful glory roused mankind,
And in unbounded commerce mixed the world.
CHARACTER OF A SHIPMASTER.
THOUGH trained in boisterous elements, his mind
Was yet by soft humanity refined;
Each joy of wedded love at home he knew,
Abroad, confest the father of his crew!
Brave, liberal, just! the calm domestic scene
Had o'er his temper breathed a gay serene:
* Don Henry, son of John I. of Portugal.
Him science taught by mystic lore to trace
The planets wheeling in eternal race;
To mark the ship in floating balance held,
By earth attracted and by seas repelled,
Or point her devious track through climes unknown,
That leads to every shore and every zone:
He saw the moon through heaven's blue concave glide,
And into motion charm the expanding tide,
While earth impetuous round her axle rolls,
Exalts her watery zone, and sinks the poles;
Light and attraction, from their genial source,
He saw still wandering with diminished force;
While on the margin of declining day
Night's shadowy cone reluctant melts away.
Inured to peril, with unconquered soul,
The chief beheld tempestuous billows roll;
O'er the wild surge, when dismal shades preside,
His equal skill the lonely bark could guide;
His genius, ever for the event prepared,
Rose with the storm, and all its dangers shared.
FALCONER.
[WHEN the ship "Ocean Monarch" was burned off Liverpool on the 24th of August 1848, Frederick Jerome saved fifteen lives by an act of singular courage and benevolence. He was killed in Central America in the autumn of 1851.1
SHOUT the noble seaman's name,
Deeds like his belong to fame:
Cottage roof and kingly dome
Sound the praise of brave Jerome.
Let his acts be told and sung,
While his own high Saxon tongue—
Herald meet for worth sublime-
Peals from conquered clime to clime.
Madly rolled the giant wreck,
Fiercely blazed the riven deck;
Thick and fast as falling stars
Crashed the flaming blocks and spars;
Loud as surf when winds are strong
Wailed the scorched and stricken throng,
Gazing on a rugged shore,
Fires behind and seas before.
On the charred and reeling prow,
Reft of hope, they gather now,
Finding, one by one, a grave
In the vexed and sullen wave.
Here the child, as if in sleep,
Floats on waters dark and deep;
There the mother sinks below,
Shrieking in her mighty wo.
Britons, quick to strive and feel,
Joined with chiefs of rich Brazil;
Western freemen, prompt to dare,
Side by side with Bourbon's heir—
Proving who could then excel,
Came with succour long and well;
But Jerome, in peril nurst,
Shone among the foremost-first.
Through the reddened surge and spray,
Fast he cleaved his troubled way;
Boldly climbs and stoutly clings,
On the smoking timber springs;
Fronts the flames, nor fears to stand
In that lorn and weeping band,
Looks on death, nor tries to shun,
Till his work of love is done.
"Nature has no sympathy with guilt."
THE morning air blows fresh on him;
The waves dance gladly in his sight;
The sea-birds call, and wheel, and skim,—
Oh, blessed morning light!
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