The father sat, and told them tales
Of wrecks in the great September gales,
Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main,
And ships that never came back again,
The chance and change of a sailor's life,
Want and plenty, rest and strife,
His roving fancy, like the wind,

That nothing can stay and nothing can bind,

And the magic charm of foreign lands, With shadows of palms, and shining sands,

Where the tumbling surf,

O'er the coral reefs of Madagascar,
Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar,
As he lies alone and asleep on the turf.
And the trembling maiden held her
breath

At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea,
With all its terror and mystery,
The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,
That divides and yet unites mankind!
And whenever the old man paused, a
gleam

From the bowl of his pipe would awhile

And overflowed

"Build me straight, O worthy Master, Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, That shall laugh at all disaster,

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"

With oaken brace and copper band,
Lay the rudder on the sand,
That, like a thought, should have con-
trol

Over the movement of the whole;
And near it the anchor, whose giant
hand

Would reach down and grapple with the land,

And immovable and fast

Hold the great ship against the bellow: ing blast!

And at the bows an image stood,
By a cunning artist carved in wood,
With robes of white, that far behind
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,
Or Naiad rising from the water,
But modelled from the Master's daugh

ter !

those lordly pines!

Those grand, majestic pines! 'Mid shouts and cheers

The jaded steers,

Panting beneath the goad,

Dragged down the weary, winding road

sheathing.

And amid the clamors

Of clattering hammers,

He who listened heard now and then

The song of the Master and his men :

To be shorn of their streaming hair, And, naked and bare,

To feel the stress and the strain

Of the wind and the reeling main, Whose roar

Would remind them forevermore

see again.

Shakes the brown hand of his son,
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster

Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor-

The shepherd of that wandering flock,
That has the ocean for its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock
Spake, with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart

Of the sailor's heart,

All its pleasures and its griefs,
All its shallows and rocky reefs,
All those secret currents, that flow
With such resistless undertow,

And lift and drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its

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 on-
ward 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 !

CHRYSAOR.

JUST above yon sandy bar,

As the day grows fainter and dimmer, Lonely and lovely, a single star

Lights the air with a dusky glimmer

Into the ocean faint and far

Falls the trail of its golden splendor, And the gleam of that single star

Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender. Chrysaor, rising out of the sea, Showed thus glorious and thus emulous,

Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe,

Forever tender, soft, and tremulous. Thus o'er the ocean faint and far

Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly;

Is it a God, or is it a star

That, entranced, I gaze on nightly!

THE SECRET OF THE SEA.

AH! what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,

All my dreams, come back to me.

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,

Such as gleam in ancient lore; And the singing of the sailors,

And the answer from the shore! Most of all, the Spanish ballad

Haunts me oft, and tarries long, Of the noble Count Arnaldos

And the sailor's mystic song.

Like the long waves on a sea-beach, Where the sand as silver shines, With a soft, monotonous cadence,

Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;

Telling how the Count Arnaldos,

With his hawk upon his hand, Saw a fair and stately galley, Steering onward to the land ;