With oaken brace and copper band,
Lay the rudder on the sand,
That, like a thought, should have con-
trol

Over the movement of the whole;
And near it the anchor, whose giant
hand

Would reach down and grapple with the land,

And immovable and fast

Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast!

And at the bows an image stood,
By a cunning artist carved in wood,
With robes of white, that far behind
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,
Or Naiad rising from the water,
But modelled from the Master's daughter!
On many a dreary and misty night,
"Twill be seen by the rays of the signal
light,

Speeding along through the rain and the dark,

Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,
By a path none other knows aright!
Behold at last,*

Each tall and tapering mast

Is swung into its place;
Shrouds and stays
Holding it firm and fast!

* Vessels are sometimes, though not usually, launched fully rigged. I have availed myself of the exception, as better suited to my purposes than the general rule; but the reader will see by the following extract of a letter from a friend in Portland, Maine, that it is neither a blunder nor a poetic licence.

"In this State, and also, I am told, in New York, ships are sometimes rigged upon the stocks, in order to save time, or to make a show. There was a fine large ship launched last summer at Ellsworth, fully rigged and sparred. Some years ago a ship was launched here, with her rigging, spars, sails, and cargo aboard. She sailed the next day, and-was never heard of again! I hope this will not be the fate of your poem!"

All is finished! and at length

Has come the bridal day

Of beauty and of strength.

To-day the vessel shall be launched! With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, And o'er the bay,

Slowly, in his splendours dight,

The great sun rises to behold the sight.
The ocean old,
Centuries old,

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,

Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not at rest;
And far and wide,
With ceaseless flow,

His beard of snow

Heaves with the heaving of his breast.
He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands,
Decked with flags and streamers gay,
In honour of her marriage-day,
Her snow-white signals fluttering,
blending,

Round her like a veil descending,
Ready to be

The bride of the gray, old sea.
On the deck another bride
Is standing by her lover's side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sunny fleck,
Fall around them on the deck.

The prayer is said,

The service read,

The joyous bridegroom bows his head;
And in tears the good old Master
Shakes the brown hand of his son,
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster

Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor-

The shepherd of that wandering flock,
That has the ocean for its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock---
Spake with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart

Of the sailor's heart,

All its pleasures and its griefs,
All its shallows and rocky reefs,
All those secret currents, that flow
With such resistless undertow,
And lift and drift with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its

course.

Therefore he spake, and thus said he :--

"Like unto ships far off at sea,
Outward or homeward bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,
Floats and swings the horizon's bound,

The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!

And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,
"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms!"
How beautiful she is! How fair
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form within many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave right onward

steer!

The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.

Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives !

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of
steel,

Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,

What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee;
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, 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. AH! 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,

Such as gleam in ancient lore; And the singing of the sailors,

And the answer from the shore ! Most of all, the Spanish ballad

Haunts me oft, and tarries long, Of the noble Count Arnaldos

And the sailor's mystic song.

Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
Where the sand as silver shines,
With a soft, monotonous cadence,

Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;—
Telling how the Count Arnaldos,
With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,

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,

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 twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sca.
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.* SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice

Sailed the corsair Death; Wild and fast blew the blast,

And the east-wind was his breath.

* "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

His lordly ships of ice

Glistened in the sun;

On each side like pennons wide
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;

But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello

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; And never more, on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light. He sat upon the deck,

The Book was in his hand;

"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,'
He said, "by water as by land !”
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,

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..

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.

Southward, for ever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-stream
Sinking, vanish all away.

THE LIGHTHOUSE.

THE rocky ledge runs far into the sea, And on its outer point, some miles

away,

The Lighthouse lifts its massive

masonry,

A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.

Even at this distance I can see the tides, Upheaving, break unheard along its base,

A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides

In the white lip and tremor of the face. And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,

Through the deep purple of the twilight air,

Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light

With strange, unearthly splendour in its glare!

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.

Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,

And steadily against its solid form

Press the great shoulders of the
hurricane.

The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din

Of wings and wind 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.