COME, hoist the sail, the fast let go! The ripples lightly tap the boat. Loose! Give her to the wind! She shoots ahead:-They're all afloat: The strand is far behind. 116 THE PLEASURE BOAT. No danger reach so fair a crew! Fair ladies, fairer than the spray O, might I like those breezes be, And touch that arching brow, I'd toil for ever on the sea Where ye are floating now. The boat goes tilting on the waves; The waves go tilting by; There dips the duck;-her back she laves; O'er head the sea-gulls fly. Now, like the gulls that dart for prey, The little vessel stoops; Now rising, shoots along her way, Like them, in easy swoops. The sun-light falling on her sheet, It glitters like the drift THE PLEASURE BOAT. Sparkling in scorn of summer's heat, The winds are fresh; she's driving fast Upon the bending tide, The crinkling sail, and crinkling mast, Go with her side by side. Why dies the breeze away so soon? For, see, the winged fisher's plume Below, a cheek of lovely bloom. -Whose eyes look up at thee? She smiles; thou needst must smile on her. A rich, white cloud that doth not stir.— And pictured beach of yellow sand, Change the smooth sea to fairy land.- 117 118 THE PLEASURE BOAT. From that far isle the thresher's flail Strikes close upon the ear; The leaping fish, the swinging sail Of yonder sloop sound near. LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. BY W. LEGGET T. THE birds, when winter shades the sky, Fly o'er the seas away, Where laughing isles in sunshine lie, And summer breezes play : And thus the friends that flutter near While fortune's sun is warm, Are startled if a cloud appear, And fly before the storm. But when from winter's howling plains Each other warbler's past, The little snow bird still remains, And cherups midst the blast. Love, like that bird, when friendship's throng With fortune's sun depart, Still lingers with its cheerful song, And nestles on the heart. |