Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of Eshcol.

Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral

ages,

Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac,

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Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful

always,

Love immortal and young in the endless succession of

lovers.

So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.

[Miles Standish was not inconsolable. In the Fortune came a certain Barbara, whose last name is unknown, whom Standish married. He had six children, and many of his descendants are living.]

THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP.

[THE form of this poem was perhaps suggested by Schiller's Song of the Bell, which, tracing the history of a bell from the first finding of the metal to the hanging of the bell in the tower, so mingles the history of human life with it that the Bell becomes the symbol of humanity. Schiller's poem introduced a new artistic form which has since been copied more than once, but nowhere so successfully as in The Building of the Ship. The changes in the measure mark the quickening or retarding of the thought. The reader will be interested in watching these changes and observing the fitness with which the short lines express the quicker, more sudden, or hurried action, while the longer ones indicate lingering, moderate action or reflection. The Building of the Ship is the first in a series of poems collected under the general title, By the Seaside, and published in a volume entitled, The Seaside and the Fireside, Boston, 1850.]

"BUILD me straight, O worthy Master!
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,

That shall laugh at all disaster,

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"

The merchant's word

Delighted the Master heard;

For his heart was in his work, and the heart

Giveth grace unto every

Art.

A quiet smile played round his lips,
As the eddies and dimples of the tide
Play round the bows of ships,

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1

That steadily at anchor ride.

And with a voice that was full of glee,

He answered, "Ere long we will launch
A vessel as goodly, and strong, and stanch,
As ever weathered a wintry sea!"

And first with nicest skill and art,
Perfect and finished in every part,
A little model the Master wrought,
Which should be to the larger plan
What the child is to the man,
Its counterpart in miniature;

That with a hand more swift and sure
The greater labor might be brought
To answer to his inward thought.
And as he labored, his mind ran o'er

The various ships that were built of yore,
And above them all, and strangest of all,
Towered the Great Harry, crank and tall,

29. The Great Harry was a famous ship built for the English navy in the reign of King Henry VII. Henry found the small navy left by Edward IV. in a very weak condition, and he undertook to reconstruct it. The most famous ship in Edward's navy was named Grace à Dieu and Henry named his Harry Grace à Dieu, but she was more generally known as the Great Harry. On the accession of Henry VIII. her name was changed to the Regent, but when a few years afterward she was burnt in an engagement with the French, the ship built in her place resumed the old name and became a second Great Harry. It was this ship that the poet describes. She was a thousand tons burden, which was regarded as an immense size in those days, and her crew and armanent were out of all proportion, as we should think now. She carried seven hundred men, and a hundred and twentytwo guns, but of these most were very small. Thirty-four were eighteen pounders, and were called culverins. There were also demi-culverins, or nine pounders, while the rest only carried one or two pounds and were variously named falcons, falconets, ser-pentines, sabinets.

Whose picture was hanging on the wall,
With bows and stern raised high in air,
And balconies hanging here and there,
And signal lanterns and flags afloat,

And eight round towers, like those that frown
From some old castle, looking down
Upon the drawbridge and the moat.

And he said with a smile, "Our ship, I wis,
Shall be of another form than this!"

It was of another form, indeed;
Built for freight, and yet for speed,

A beautiful and gallant craft;

Broad in the beam, that the stress of the blast,
Pressing down upon sail and mast,
Might not the sharp bows overwhelm ;
Broad in the beam, but sloping aft
With graceful curve and slow degrees,
That she might be docile to the helm,
And that the currents of parted seas,
Closing behind, with mighty force,
Might aid and not impede her course.

In the ship-yard stood the Master,
With the model of the vessel,
That should laugh at all disaster,

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!

Covering many a rood of ground,

Lay the timber piled around;

Timber of chestnut, and elm, and oak,

And scattered here and there, with these,
The knarred and crooked cedar knees;

Brought from regions far away,

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From Pascagoula's sunny bay,

And the banks of the roaring Roanoke!
Ah! what a wondrous thing it is
To note how many wheels of toil

One thought, one word, can set in motion!
There's not a ship that sails the ocean,
But every climate, every soil,

Must bring its tribute, great or small,
And help to build the wooden wall!

The sun was rising o'er the sea,
And long the level shadows lay,
As if they, too, the beams would be
Of some great, airy argosy,

Framed and launched in a single day.
That silent architect, the sun,

Had hewn and laid them every one,

69. The wooden wall is of course the ship. The reference is to a proverbial expression of very ancient date. When the Greeks sent to Delphi to ask how they were to defend themselves against Xerxes, who had invaded their country, the oracle replied:

"Pallas hath urged, and Zeus the sire of all

Hath safety promised in a wooden wall;
Seed-time and harvest, weeping sires shall tell
How thousands fought at Salamis and fell."

The Greeks interpreted this as a caution to trust in their navy, and the battle at Salamis resulted in the overthrow of the Persians and discomfiture of their fleet.

73. A richly freighted ship. The word is formed from Argo, the name of the fabled ship which brought back the golden fleece from Colchis. Shakespeare uses the word: as in The Taming

of the Shrew:

"That she shall have; besides an argosy
That now is lying in Marseilles' road."

Act II. Scene 1.

And in The Merchant of Venice : —

"He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England."

Act I. Scene 3.