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!

THE EVENING STAR.

JUST above yon sandy bar,

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

Lights the air with a dusty glimmer.

Into the ocean faint and far

Falls the trail of its golden splendour, 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 Cailirrhoe,

For ever 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 sendal, 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;-
How he heard the ancient helmsman
Chant a song so wild and clear,
That the sailing sea-bird slowly
Poised upon the mast to hear,
Till his soul was full of longing,

And he cried with impulse strong,"Helmsman! for the love of heaven,

Teach me, too, that wondrous song!"

"Wouldst thou,"-so the helmsman answered,
"Learn the secret of the sea?
Only those who brave its dangers
Comprehend its mystery!"

In each sail that skims the horizon,
In each landward-blowing breeze,
I behold that stately galley,

Hear those mournful melodies;

Till my soul is full of longing,
For the secret of the sea,
And the heart of the great ocean
Sends a thrilling pulse through me

TWILIGHT.

THE twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea
But in the fisherman's cottage,

There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,
As if those childish eyes
Were looking into the darkness,

To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.
What tale do the roaring ocean.
And the night-wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child?

And why do the roar ing ocean,

And the night-wind, wild and bleak, As they beat at the heart of the mother, Drive the colour from her cheek?

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 where he passed there were cast Leaden showers 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! Ileaven is as near."
He said, "by water as by land!"
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's seund,
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, for ever southward,
They drift through dark and day:
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.

THE LIGHTHOUSE.

THE rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
And on its outer point, some miles away,
The lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day
Even at this distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving, break unheard along its base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides
In the white lip and tremor of the face.
And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
Through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light
With strange, unearthly splendour in its glare!
Not one alone; from each projecting cape

And perilous reef along the ocean's verge,
Starts into life, a dim, gigantic shape,
Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge.
Like the great giant Christopher it stands

Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave, Wading far out among the rocks and sands, The night-o'ertaken mariner to save.

And the great ships sail outward and return, Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells, And ever joyful, as they see it burn,

They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.

They come forth from the darkness, and their sails

Gleam for a moment only in the blaze, And eager faces as the light unveils,

Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze. The mariner remembers when a child,

On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink; And when, returning from adventures wild, He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same
Year after year, through all the silent night
Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that inextinguishable light!

It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp

The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace, It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp, And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece. The startled waves leap over it; the storm Smites it with all the scourges of the rain, And steadily against its solid form

Press the great shoulders of the hurricane. The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din Of wings and winds and solitary cries, Blinded and maddened by the light within, Dashes himself against the glare, and dies. A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock, Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove, It does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock, But hails the mariner with words of love. "Sail on!" it says, "sail on, ye stately ships! And with your floating bridge the ocean span; Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse, Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!"

THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD.
WE sat within the farm-house 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 light-house,-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 teel. 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,

Or say it in too great excess.

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 splendour 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, soaring 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.

BY THE FIRESIDE.

RESIGNATION.

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mist and vapours,
Amid these earthly damps,

What seems to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.

Thus alone can we attain

There is no Death! What seems so is transi

tion;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life Elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,-the child of our affection,-
But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air:

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remeinbrance, though unspoken,

May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild,

In our embraces we again enfold her.
She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion,
Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the

ocean,

That cannot be at rest,

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling
We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,
The grief that must have way.

THE BUILDERS.

ALL are architects of Fate

Working in these walls of Time, Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between; Think not, because no man sees, Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the house where Gods may dwell
Beautiful, entire, and clean.
Else our lives are incomplete.
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.

To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky.

SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR
GLASS.

A HANDFUL of red sand from the hot clime
Of Arab deserts brought,
Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,
The minister of Thought.

How many weary centuries has it been
About those deserts blown!

How many strange vicissitudes has seen,
How many histories known!

Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite
Trampled and passed it o'er,

When into Egpyt from the patriarch's sight
His favourite son they bore.

Perhaps the fect of Moses, burnt and bare,
Crushed it beneath their tread;

Or Pharoah's flashing wheels into the air
Scattered it as they sped;

Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth
Held close in her caress,

Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith
Illumed the wilderness;

Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms
Pacing the Red Sea beach,

And singing slow their old Armenian psalms
In half-articulate speech;

Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate
With westward steps depart;

Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate,
And resolute of heart!

These have passed over it, or may have passed;
Now in this crystal tower

Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,
It counts the passing hour.

And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;
Before my dreamy eye

Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,
Its unimpeded sky,

And borne aloft by the sustaining blast,
This little golden thread

Dilates into a column high and vast,
A form of fear and dread.

And onward, and across the setting sun,
Across the boundless plain,

The column and its broader shadow run
Till thought pursues in vain.

The vision vanishes! These walls again
Shut out the lurid sun,

Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain;
The half-hour's sand is run.

BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

BLACK shadows fall

From the lindens tall,

That lift aloft their massive wall
Against the southern sky;

And from the realms

Of the shadowy elms

A tide-like darkness overwhelms
The fields that round us lic.

But the night is fair,

And everywhere

A warm, soft vapour fills the air,
And distant sounds seem near;

And above, in the light

Of the star-lit night,

Swift birds of passage wing their flight Through the dewy atmosphere.

THE OPEN WINDOW

THE old house by the lindens
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravelled pathway
The light and shadow played.

I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air:
But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there.

The large Newfoundland house-dog
Was standing by the door;
He looked for his little playmates,
Who would return no more.
They walked not under the lindens,
They played not in the hall;

But shadow, and silence, and sadness,
Were hanging over all."

The birds sang in the branches,
With sweet, familiar tone;
But the voices of the children

Will be heard in dreams alone!

And the boy that walked beside me,
He could not understand,
Why closer in mine, ah! closer,
I pressed his warm, soft hand!

KING WITLAF'S DRINKING-HORN.
WITLAF, a king of the Saxons,
Ere yet his last he breathed,
To the merry monks of Croyland

His drinking-horn bequeathed,-

That, whenever they sat at their revels, And drank from the golden bowl, They might remember the donor,

And breathe a prayer for his soul.

So sat they once at Christmas,

And bade the goblet pass;

In their beards the red wine glistened
Like dew-drops in the grass.
They drank to the soul of Witlaf,
They drank to Christ the Lord,
And to each of the Twelve Apostles,
Who had preached His holy word.
They drank to the Saints and Martyrs
Of the dismal days of yore.
And as soon as the horn was empty
They remembered one Saint more.

And the reader droned from the pulpit,
Like the murmur of many bees,
The legend of good Saint Guthlac,
And Saint Basil's homilies:

Till the great bells of the convent,
From their prison in the tower,
Guthlac and Bartholomæus

Proclaimed the midnight hour.

And the Yule-log cracked in the chimney, And the Abbot bowed his head,

And the flamelets flapped and flickered, But the Abbot was stark and dead.

Yet still in his pallid fingers

He clutched the golden bowl,
In which, like a pearl dissolving,
Had sunk and dissolved his soul.
But not for this their revels
The jovial monks forbore.

For they cried, "Fill high the goblet!
We must drink to one Saint more!"

GASPAR BECERRA.

By his evening fire the artist
Pondered o'er his secret shame;
Baffled, weary, and disheartened,

Still he mused, and dreamed of fame.

'Twas an image of the Virgin

That had tasked his utmost skill! But alas! his fair ideal

Vanished and escaped him still.

From a distant Eastern island

Had the precious wood been brought;
Day and night the anxious master
At his toil untiring wrought;

Till, discouraged and desponding,
Sat he now in shadows deep,
And the day's humiliation
Found oblivion in sleep.

Then a voice cried, "Rise, O master!
From the burning brand of oak

Shape the thought that stirs within thee!'
And the startled artist woke,—

Woke, and from the smoking embers

Seized and quenched the glowing wood;
And therefrom he carved an image,
And he saw that it was good.

O thou sculptor, painter, poet!
Take this lesson to thy heart;
That is best which lieth nearest;
Shape from that thy work of art.

PEGASUS IN POUND.
ONCE into a quiet village,
Without haste and without heed,
In the golden prime of morning,
Strayed the poet's winged steed.

It was Autumn, and incessant

Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, And, like living coals, the apples

Burned among the withering leaves.

Loud the clamorous bell was ringing
From its belfry gaunt and grim;
"Twas the daily call to labour,
Not a triumph meant for him.
Not the less he saw the landscape,
In its gleaming power veiled;
Not the less he breathed the odours
That the dying leaves exhaled.
Thus, upon the village common,

By the school-boys he was found;
And the wise men, in their wisdom,
Put him straightway into pound.

Then the sombre village crier,
Ringing loud his brazen bell,
Wandered down the street proclaiming
There was an estray to sell.
And the curious country people,

Rich and poor, and young and old,
Came in haste to see this wondrous
Winged steed, with mane of gold.
Thus the day passed, and the evening
Fell with vapours cold and dim;
But it brought no food nor shelter,

Brought no straw nor stall, for him. Patiently, and still expectant,

Looked he through the wooden bars, Saw the moon rise o'er the landscape, Saw the tranquil, patient stars;

Till at length the bell at midnight

Sounded from its dark abode,

And, from out a neighbouring farm-yard
Loud the cock Alectry on crowed.
Then, with nostrils wide distended,
Breaking from his iron chain,
And unfolding far his pinions,
To those stars he soared again.
On the morrow, when the village
Woke to all its toil and care,
Lo! the strange steed had departed,
And they knew not when nor where.
But they found upon the greensward
Where his struggling hoofs had trod,
Pare and bright, a fountain flowing
From the hoof-marks in the sod.
From that hour, the fount unfailing
Gladdens the whole region round,
Strengthening all who drink its waters,
While it soothes them with its sound.

I HEARD a voice that cried, "Balder the Beautiful

Is dead, is dead!"

And through the misty air
Passed like the mournful cry
Of sunward sailing cranes.

I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun

Borne through the Northern sky.
Blasts from Niffelheim
Lifted the sheeted mists
Around him as he passed.

And the voice for ever cried,
"Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!'

And died away

Through the dreary night,
In accents of despair.

Balder the Beautiful
God of the summer sun,
Fairest of all the Gods!

Light from his forehead beamed,
Runes were upon his tongue,
As on the warrior's sword.
All things in earth and air
Bound were by magic spell
Never to do him harm;
Even the plants and stones.
All save the mistletoe,
The sacred mistletoe!

Hæder, the blind old God,

Whose feet are shod with silence,
Pierced through that gentle breast
With his sharp spear, by fraud
Made of the mistletoe,
The accursed mistletoe!

They laid him in his ship,
With horse and harness,
As on a funeral pyre,
Odin placed

A ring upon his finger,
And whispered in his ear.

They launched the burning ship,
It floated far away
Over the misty sea,

Till like the sun it seemed,
Sinking beneath the waves
Balder returned no more!

So perished the old Gods!
But out of the sea of Time
Rises a new land of song,
Fairer than the old,
Over its meadows green

Walk the young bards and sing.
Build it again

O ye bards,

Fairer than before!

Ye fathers of the new race,

Feed upon morning dew,

Sing the new Song of Love!

The law of force is dead!
The law of love prevails!
Thor, the thunderer,
Shall rule the earth no more,
No more with threats,
Challenge the meek Christ.

Sing no more,

Ye bards of the North,
Of Vikings and of Jarls!
Of the days of Eld

Preserve the freedom only,
Not the deeds of blood!

SONNET.

ON MRS. KEMBLE'S READINGS FROM SHAKSPERE.
O PRECIOUS evenings! all too swiftly speed!
Leaving us heirs to all the amplest heritages
Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,
And giving tongues unto the silent dead!
How our hearts glowed and trembled as she
read,

Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages
Of the great poet who foreruns the ages,
Anticipating all that shall be said!

O happy reader! having for thy text

The magic book, whose Sybilline leaves have caught

The rarest essence of all human thought!

O happy Poet! by no critic vext!

How must thy listening spirit now rejoice
To be interpreted by such a voice!

THE SINGERS.

GOD sent his singers upon earth,
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.

The first, a youth, with soul of fire,
Held in his hand a golden lyre;

Through groves he wandered, and by streams,
Playing the music of our dreams.

The second, with a bearded face,
Stood singing in the market-place,
And stirred with accents deep and loud
The hearts of all the listening crowd.

A grey, old man, the third and last,
Sang in cathedrals din and vast,
While the majestic organ rolled
Contrition from its mouths of gold.