The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen, and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs. The distant mountains, that uprear Are crossed by pathways, that appear The heights by great men reached and kept Standing on what too long we bore With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, We may discern-unseen before A path to higher destinies. Nor deem the irrevocable Past, As wholly wasted, wholly vain, If, rising on its wrecks, at last To something nobler we attain. THE PHANTOM SHIP. IN Mather's Magnalia Christi, May be found in prose the legend A ship sailed from New Haven, That filled her sails at parting, Were heavy with good men's prayers. وو "O Lord! if it be thy pleasure "— Thus prayed the old divine— "To bury our friends in the ocean, Take them, for they are thine!" But Master Lamberton muttered, And under his breath said he, "This ship is so crank and walty I fear our grave she will be !" And the ships that came from England, Brought no tidings of this vessel Nor of Master Lamberton. This put the people to praying That the Lord would let them hear What in his greater wisdom He had done with friends so dear. When, steadily steering landward, A ship was seen below, And they knew it was Lamberton, Master, Who sailed so long ago. On she came, with a cloud of canvas, Until the eye could distinguish The faces of the crew. Then fell her straining topmasts, Hanging tangled in the shrouds, And her sails were loosened and lifted, And the masts, with all their rigging, Fell slowly, one by one, And the hulk dilated and vanished, As a sea-mist in the sun! |