THE CONVICT SHIP.

187

Yet is not life, in its real flight,

Mark'd thus-even thus-on earth, By the closing of one hope's delight, And another's gentle birth?

O let us live, so that flower by flower,
Shutting in turn may leave

A ling'ring still for the sun-set hour,
A charm for the shaded eve.

MRS. HEMANS,

The Convict Ship.

MORN on the waters! and purple and bright,
Bursts on the billow the flushing of light;

O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun.
See the tall vessel goes gallantly on;

Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail

And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the

gale;

The winds come around her in murmur and song,

And the surges rejoice, as they bear her along.

188

THE CONVICT SHIP.

See! she looks up to the golden-edged clouds,
And the sailor sings gaily aloft in the shrouds :
Onward she glides, amid ripple and spray,
Over the waters-away, and away!

Bright as the visions of youth, ere they part,
Passing away, like a dream of the heart!
Who, as the beautiful pageant sweeps by,
Music around her, and sunshine on high-
Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow,
O there be hearts that are breaking below?

Night on the waves! and the moon is on high— Hung, like a gem, on the brow of the sky, Treading its steps, in the power of her might, And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light! Look to the waters!-asleep on their breast, Seems not the ship like an island of rest?

Bright and alone on the shadowy main,

Like a heart-cherish'd home on some desolate plain !

Who- -as she smiles on the silvery light,
Spreading her wings on the bosom of night,
Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky,
A phantom of beauty-could deem, with a sigh,
That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin,
And souls that are smitten lie bursting within?
Who-as he watches her silently gliding—
Remembers that wave after wave is dividing

THE CONVICT SHIP.

189

Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever,
Hearts which are parted and broken for ever!
Or dreams that he watches afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of Hope, or the young spirit's grave?

"Tis thus with our life: while it passes along,
Like a vessel at sea, amid sunshine and song!
Gaily we glide, in the gaze of the world,

With streamers afloat, and with canvas unfurl'd;
All gladness and glory, to wandering eyes,
Yet charter'd by sorrow, and freighted with sighs:
Fading and false is the aspect it wears,

As the smiles we put on just to cover our cares; And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know,

Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below;

Whilst the vessel approaches that desolate shore, Where the dreams of our childhood are vanish'd

and o'er!

T. K. HERVEY.