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THE BIRD AND THE SHIP.

251

I have trusted all to the sounding gale.
And it will not let me stand still.

"And wilt thou, little bird, go with us?
Thou may'st stand on the mainmast tall,
For full to sinking is my house
With merry companions all."

“I need not, and seek not company,
Bonny boat, I can sing all alone;
For the mainmast tall too heavy am I—
Bonny boat, I have wings of my own.

66 High over the sails, high over the mast,
Who shall gainsay these joys?

When thy merry companions are still, at last
Thou shalt hear the sound of my voice.

"Who neither may rest, nor listen may,
God bless them every one!

I dart away, in the bright blue day,
And the golden fields of the sun.

"Thus do I sing my weary song,

Wherever the four winds blow;

And this same song, my whole life long,
Neither poet nor printer may know."
Longfellow.

WILHELM MULLER.

SYMPATHY WITH SAILORS.

Он, pray the God of might

For those upon the deep;

For cold will be their watch to-night,
And short their chilly sleep.

The sea-bird through the day

That skimm'd the ocean's breast, Now with her young divides the prey Within her rocky nest.

The fisher seeks the shore;

Around his children run;

Then, lull'd by ocean's distant roar,
He slumbers with the sun.

The ploughman from the plain
Conducts his weary team,

And, sheltered from the wind and rain,

Hails harvest in his dream.

The city's busy hum

The daylight's ceaseless voiceAt night's approach is hush'd-is dumb, Except the drunkard's noise.

But evening's murky clouds

The tempest-boding glare

THE STORM.

The louder howling in the shrouds,
Increase the sailor's care.

Night brings no sweet repose,
No shelter from the storm;

The more the growing tempest blows,
The more exposed his form.

Then pray

the God of might,

For those upon the deep;

For cold will be their watch to-night,

And short, alas! their sleep.

253

J. LONGMUIR.

THE STORM.

O GOD! have mercy in this dreadful hour
On the poor mariner! in comfort here,
Safe sheltered as I am, I almost fear
The blast that rages with resistless power.
What were it now to toss upon the waves-
The maddened waves, and know no

near

The howling of the storm alone to hear,

succour

And the wild sea that to the tempest raves;
To gaze amid the horrors of the night,
And only see the billows' gleaming light;

And in the dread of death to think of her
Who, as she listens sleepless to the gale,
Puts up a silent prayer and waxes pale!—
O God! have mercy on the mariner!

SOUTHEY.

THE MOTHER WHO HAS A CHILD AT SEA.

THERE'S an eye that looks on the swelling cloud, Folding the moon in a funeral shroud,

That watches the stars dying one by one,

Till the whole of the heaven's calm light hath gone.
There's an ear that lists to the hissing surge,
As the mourner turns to the anthem dirge,
That eye! that ear! oh, whose can they be—
But a mother's who hath a child at sea?

There's a cheek that is getting ashy white,
As the tokens of storm come on with the night;
There's a form that's fixed at the lattice pane,
To mark how the gloom gathers o'er the main,
While the yeasty billows lash the shore

With loftier sweep and hoarser roar—

That cheek! that form! oh, whose can they be, But a mother's who hath a child at sea?

The rushing whistle chills her blood,

As the north wind hurries to scourge the flood;

THE MOTHER WHO HAS A CHILD AT SEA. 255

And the icy shiver spreads to her heart,
As the first red lines of lightning start.
The ocean boils !—all mute she stands,
With parted lips and tight-clasped hands;
Oh, marvel not at her fear, for she
Is a mother who hath a child at sea!

She conjures up this fearful scene

Of yawning waves, when the ship between,
With striking keel, and splintered mast,
Is plunging hard and foundering fast;
She sees her boy, with lank-drenched hair,
Clinging to the wreck with a cry of despair.
Oh, the vision is maddening! No grief can be
Like a mother's who hath a child at sea.

She presses her brow she sinks and kneels,
While the blast howls on, and the thunder peals;
She breathes not a word, for her passionate prayer
Is too fervent and deep for the lips to bear;
It is poured in the long convulsive sigh,
In the straining glance of an upturned eye;
And a holier offering cannot be,

Than the mother's prayer for her child at sea.

Oh! I love the waves when they spurn control,
For they suit my own bond-hating soul;
I like to hear them sweeping past,
Like the eagle's pinions, free and fast;

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