LINES ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE. BY DORCAS DOVE. AND is it thus ye welcome Peace, From mouths of forty-pounding Bores? Not so the quiet Queen should come; She asks for no triumphal Arch; No Steeples for their ropy Tongues; She wants no Noise of mobbing Throats Returning to Domestic Loves, When War has ceased with all its Ills, Captains should come like sucking Doves, With Olive Branches in their Bills. No need there is of vulgar Shout, Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife and Drum, And Soldiers marching all about, To let Us know that Peace is come. O, mild should be the Signs, and meek, Lo! where the Soldier walks, alas! With Scars received on foreign Grounds; The Oil that should be poured in Wounds? The bleeding Gaps of War to close, THE DEMON-SHIP. 'T WAS off the Wash the sun went down - the sea looked black and grim, For stormy clouds with murky fleece were mustering at the brim; Titanic shades! enormous gloom! as if the solid night Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light! It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye, With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky! Down went my helm-close reefed the tack held freely in my hand With ballast snug-I put about, and scudded for the land. Loud hissed the sea beneath her lee; my little boat flew fast, But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail! What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail! What darksome caverns yawned before! what jagged steeps behind! Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind. Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase, But where it sank another rose and galloped in its place; As black as night-they turned to white, and cast against the cloud A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor's shroud: Still flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run! Behold yon fatal billow rise-ten billows heaped in one! With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling fast, As if the scooping sea contained one only wave, at last! Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift-pursuing grave; It seemed as though some cloud had turned its hugeness to a wave! Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base! the foam! Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed - * "Where am I? in the breathing world, or in the world of death?" With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath; A moon, as if the earthly moon, was shining up aloft; O! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight I've seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes Of fever; and most frightful things have haunted in my dreams Hyenas, cats, blood-loving bats, and apes with hateful stare, Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls, the lion and she-bear, Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spiteDetested features, hardly dimmed and banished by the light! Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs All fantasies and images that flit in midnight glooms Hags, goblins, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast,But nothing like that GRIMLY ONE who stood beside the mast! His cheek was black- his brow was black - his eyes and hair as dark: His hand was black, and where it touched it left a sable mark; His throat was black, his vest the same and when I looked beneath, His breast was black-all, all was black, except his grinning teeth. His sooty crew were like in hue, as black as Afric slaves! O, horror! e'en the ship was black that ploughed the inky waves! "Alas!" I cried, "for love of truth and blessed mercy's sake, My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child,-- my Loud laughed that SABLE MARINER, and loudly in return His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce --- "Our skins," said he, "are black, ye see, because we carry coal; You'll find your mother sure enough, and see your native "Ham. The air bites shrewdly it is very cold. Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air."- HAMLET, "COME, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come!" The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name! Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, And be her tuneful laureates and upholders. Who do not feel as if they had a Spring Poured down their shoulders! |