With endless and uneasy motion,
Now touching the very skies,
Now sinking into the depths of ocean.
Ah! if our souls but poise and swing
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true

To the toil and the task we have to do,
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining
beach

The sights we see, and the sounds we hear,

Will be those of joy and not of fear!"

Then the Master,

With a gesture of command, Waved his hand;

And at the word,

Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and below,
The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking away the shores and spurs.
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,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!

And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,-
"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms!"
How beautiful she is! How fair
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form within many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward

steer!

The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.

Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
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 dusky 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 Callirrhoe,

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. Ан! 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.

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 shadows 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;

"When the wind abated and the vessels were near enough, the Admiral was seen constantly sitting in the stern, with a book in his hand. On the 9th of September he was seen for the last time, and was heard by the people of the Hind to say, 'We are as near heaven by sea as by land.' In the following night, the lights of the ship suddenly disappeared. The people in the other vessel kept a good look-out for him during the remainder of the voyage. On the 22d of September they arrived, through much tempest and peril, at Falmouth. But nothing more was seen or heard of the Admiral.' -BELKNAP'S American Biography, i. 203.

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! Heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land!"
In the first watch of the night,

Without a signal's sound,
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.

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

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 DRIFTWOOD. WE sat within the farmhouse 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 lighthouse, -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 feel, 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, roaring 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 answer back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that
yearned!

They were indeed too much akin, The driftwood 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 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.

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 remembrance, 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.
Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky.