The heights by great men reached and kept, Standing on what too long we bore Nor deem the irrevocable Past THE PHANTOM SHIP. IN Mather's Magnalia Christi, A ship sailed from New Haven, Were heavy with good men's prayers. "O Lord! if it be thy pleasure" Take them; for they are thine!" But Master Lamberton muttered, And the ships that came from England, 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. And at last their prayers were answered:It was in the month of June, An hour before the sunset Of a windy afternoon, 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, The faces of the crew. Then fell her straining topmasts, And the masts, with all their rigging, Fell slowly, one by one, And the hulk dilated and vanished. And the people who saw this marvel Each said unto his friend, That this was the mould of their vessel, And the pastor of the village THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS. A MIST was driving down the British Channel, And through the window-panes, on floor and panel, It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon, And, from the frowning rampart, the black cannon Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover To see the French war-steamers speeding over, Sulien and silent, and like couchant lions, Their cannon, through the night, Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance, The seacoast opposite. And now they roared at drumbeat from their stations Each answering each, with morning salutations, And down the coast, all taking up the burden, As if to summon from his sleep the Warden Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure, No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure, No more, surveying with an eye impartial Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field-marshal For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer, He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, And as he entered, darker grew, and deeper, He did not pause to parley or dissemble, But smote the Warden hoar; Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited, HAUNTED HOUSES. ALL houses wherein men have lived and died We meet them at the doorway, on the stair, A sense of something moving to and fro. There are more guests at table, than the hosts Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,' The stranger at my fireside cannot see The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear; He but perceives what is; while unto me All that has been is visible and clear. |