"Like unto ships far off at sea, And climb the crystal wall of the skies, As if we could slide from its outer brink. It is not the sea that sinks and shelves, That rock and rise With endless and uneasy motion, Now sinking into the depths of ocean. To the toil and the task we have to do, We shall sail securely, and safely reach Will be those of joy and not of fear!" Then the Master, With a gesture of command, Waved his hand; And at the word, Loud and sudden there was heard, All around them and below, The sound of hammers, blow on blow, She starts, she moves,-she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel, And, spurning with her foot the ground, And lo! from the assembled crowd With all her youth and all her charms!" How beautiful she is! How fair Through wind and wave, right onward steer! Sail forth into the sea of life, Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! With all the hopes of future years, We know what Master laid thy keel, Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice 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, His sails of white sea-mist But when he passed there were cast 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; 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, 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, Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward through day and dark, With mist and rain to the Spanish Main; 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, 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, 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, |