In the first watch of the night, The fleet of Death rose all around. The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds; 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, for ever southward, They drift through dark and day; 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 tremour of the face. And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright, With strange, unearthly splendour in its glare! Not one alone; from each projecting cape Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge. Like the great giant Christopher, it stands And the great ships sail outward and return, 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; 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 Press the great shoulders of the hurricane. The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock, "Sail on!" it says, " sail on, ye stately ships! THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. WE sat within the farm-house old, 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, 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 heart of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, The first slight swerving of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leaves 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, The flames would leap, and then expire. And, as their splendour flashed and failed, And sent no answer back again. The windows, rattling in their frames,— Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain,- 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, There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, The air is full of farewells to the dying, The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 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 mists and vapours; Amid these earthly damps, What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers, May be heaven's distant lamps. There is no Death! What seems so is transition; 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. |