They grappled with their prize, With mist and rain, to the Spanish Main; Southward, for ever southward, They drift through dark and day; THE LIGHTHOUSE. THE rocky ledge runs far into the sea, Upheaving, break unheard along its base, Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge. And the great ships sail outward and return, They wave their silent welcomes and farewells. They come forth from the darkness, and their sails Gleam for a moment only in the blaze, And eager faces, as the light unveils, Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze. The mariner remembers when a child, On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink; Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace; It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp, And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece. The startled waves leap over it; the storm 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 winds 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. "Sail on!" it says, "sail on, ye stately ships! And with your floating bridge the ocean span; Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse, Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!" THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. WE sat within the farm-house old, Not far away we saw the port, The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,— We sat and talked until the night, Our voices only broke the gloom. We spake of many a vanished scene, Of what we once had thought and said, And all that fills the hearts of friends, The first slight swerving of the heart, Or say it in too great excess. The very tones in which we spake Had something strange, I could but mark; Oft died the words upon our lips, The flames would leap and then expire. And, as their splendour flashed and failed, The windows, rattling in their frames,— Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain,- O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned! The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within. BY THE FIRESIDE. RESIGNATION. THERE is no flock, however watched and tended, There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, The air is full of farewells to the dying, The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Let us be patient! These severe afflictions But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise. We see but dimly through the mists and vapours Amid these earthly damps. What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers, May be heaven's distant lamps. There is no death! What seems so is transition. This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death. She is not dead, the child of our affection,- Where she no longer needs our poor protection, In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, Day after day we think what she is doing Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, Not as a child shall we again behold her; In our embraces we again enfold her, But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion And though at times impetuous with emotion The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling We may not wholly stay; By silence sanctifying, not concealing, The grief that must have way. THE BUILDERS. ALL are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best; For the structure that we raise, Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these; Leave no yawning gaps between; In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care For the gods see everywhere. |