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 with 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!

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.

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 when 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.

Southward, forever southward,

They drift through dark and day; And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream Sinking, vanish all away.

THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD.

WE sat within the farmhouse old,

Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold, An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,

Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,

When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,

The very tones in which we spake

Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,-
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed

And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames,-
The ocean, roaring up the beach,-
The gusty blast,-the bickering flames,-
All mingled vaguely in our speech;

Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,—
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.

O flames that glowed-O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,

The drift-wood fire without that burned,

The thoughts that burned and glowed within.