And see! she stirs ! She starts, she moves, — she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel, And, spurning with her foot the ground, She leaps into the ocean's arms! And lo! from the assembled crowd How beautiful she is! How fair She lies within those arms, that press Of tenderness and watchful care! Through wind and wave, right onward steer! Are not the signs of doubt or fear. Sail forth into the sea of life, O gentle, loving, trusting wife, Prevail o'er angry wave and gust; Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! 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 CASTLE-BUILDER A GENTLE boy, with soft and silken locks, A fearless rider on his father's knee, There will be other towers for thee to build; There will be other steeds for thee to ride; There will be other legends, and all filled With greater marvels and more glorified. Build on, and make thy castles high and fair, Rising and reaching upward to the skies; Listening to voices in the upper air, Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries. PAUL REVERE'S RIDE LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, "If the British march Of the North Church tower as a signal light, — One, if by land, and two, if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war ; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street, Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went 95 |