The far-down waters shrank away,
With a gurgling rush upheaving,
And the lifted waves grew wildly pale,
The Ocean's bosom leaving.
Yet, as it passed our bending stern,
In its throne-like glory going,
It crushed on a hidden rock, and turned,
Like an empire's overthrowing!
The uptorn waves rolled hoar, and huge
The far-thrown undulations
Swelled out in the sun's last, lingering smile,
And fell like battling nations!
THE LOST AT SEA.
Wife, who, in thy deep devotion,
Puttest up a prayer for one
Sailing on the stormy Ocean,
Hope no more-his course is done.
Dream not, when upon thy pillow
That he slumbers by thy side;
For his corse, beneath the billow,
Heaveth with the restless tide.
Children, who, as sweet flowers growing,
Laugh amid the sorrowing rains,
Know ye not that clouds are throwing
Shadows on your sire's remains?
Where the hoarse gray surge is rolling
With a mountain's motion on,
Dream ye that its voice is tolling
For your father, lost and gone?
When the sun looked on the water,
As a hero on his grave,
Tinging with the hue of slaughter
Every blue and leaping wave,
Under the majestic Ocean,
Where the giant currents rolled,
Slept thy sire, without emotion,
Sweetly by a beam of gold.
And the violet sunbeams slanted,
Wavering through the crystal deep,
"Till their wonted splendors haunted
Those shut eyelids in their sleep:
Sands, like crumbled silver, gleaming,
Sparkled in his raven hair-
But the sleep that knows no dreaming,
Bound him in its silence there!
Children, whose meek eyes, inquiring,
Linger on your mother's face,
Know ye that she is expiring,
That ye are an orphan race?
God be with you on the morrow,
Father, mother, both no more!
One within a grave of sorrow,
One upon the Ocean's floor!
THE INTEMPERATE.
Pray, Mr. Dramdrinker, how do you do?
What in perdition's the matter with you?
How did you come by that bruise on the head?
Why are your eyes so infernally red?
Why do you mutter that infidel hymn?
Why do you tremble in every limb?
Who has done this? let the reason be shown,
And let the offender be pelted with stone!
And the Dramdrinker said-If you listen to me,
You shall hear what you hear, and shall see what
I had a father: the grave is his bed;
I had a mother: she sleeps with the dead.
Freely I wept, when they left me alone,
But I sled all my tears on their grave and their stone;
I planted a willow, I planted a yew,
And left them to sleep till the last trumpet blew!
Fortune was mine, and I mounted her car,
Pleasure from virtue had beckoned me far;
Onward I went, like an avalanche down,
And the sunshine of fortune was changed to a frown.
Fortune was gone, and I took to my side
A young, and a lovely, and beautiful bride!
Her I entreated with coldness and scorn,
Tarrying back till the break of the morn,
Slighting her kindness, and mocking her fears,
Casting a blight on her tenderest years:
Sad, and neglected, and weary I left her;
Sorrow and care of her reason bereft her,
Till, like a star, when it falls from its pride,
She sunk on the bosom of Misery, and died!
I had a child, and it grew like a vine;
Fair as the rose of Damascus was mine;
Fair, and I watched o'er her innocent youth,
As an angel from heaven would watch over truth.
She grew like her mother in feature and form:
Her blue eye was languid, her cheek was too warm:
Seventeen Summers had shone on her brow,
The seventeenth Winter beheld her laid low!
Yonder they sleep in their graves, side by side,
A father, a mother, a daughter, a bride!
When they had left me I stood here alone;
None of my race or my kindred were known!
Friends all forsaken, and hope all departed,
Sad, and despairing, and desolate-hearted,
Feeling no kindness for aught that was human,
Hated by man, and detested by woman,
Bankrupt in fortune, and ruined in name—
Onward I kept in the pathway of shame;
And till this hour, since my father went down,
My brow has but known a continual frown!
Go to your children, and tell them the tale :
Tell them his cheek, too, was lividly pale;
Tell them his eye was all blood-shot and cold;
Tell them his purse was a stranger to gold;
Tell them he passed through the world they are in
The victim of sorrow and misery and sin;
Tell them when life's shameful conflicts were past
In horror and anguish he perished at last!
THE SUM OF LIFE.
Searcher of gold! whose days and nights
All waste away in anxious care,
Estranged from all of life's delights,
Unlearned in all that is most fair;
Who sailest not with easy glide,
But delvest in the depths of tide,
And strugglest in the foam;
Oh, come and view this land of graves,
Death's northern sea of frozen waves,
And mark thee out thy home.
Lover of woman! whose sad heart
Wastes like a fountain in the sun,
Clings most where most its pain does start,
Dies by the light it lives upon,
Come to the land of graves; for here
Are beauty's smile, and beauty's tear,
Gathered in holy trust;
Here slumber forms as fair as those
Whose cheeks, now living, shame the rose,
Their glory turned to dust.
Lover of fame! whose foolish thought
Steals onward from the wave of time,
Tell me, what goodness hath it brought,
Atoning for that restless crime?
The spirit-mansion desolate,
And open to the storms of fate,
The absent soul in fear
Bring home thy thoughts, and come with me,
And see where all thy pride must be :
Searcher of fame! look here!
And warrior! thou with snowy plume,
That goest to the bugle's call,
Come and look down-this lonely tomb
Shall hold thee and thy glories all;
The haughty brow, the manly frame,
The daring deeds, the sounding fame,
Are trophies but for death!
And millions, who have toiled like thee,
Are stayed, and here they sleep; and see,
Does glory lend them breath?
TO THE ICE MOUNTAIN.
Grave of waters gone to rest!
Jewel, dazzling all the main !
Father of the silver crest!
Wandering on the trackless plain,
Sleeping mid the wavy roar,
Sailing mid the angry storm,
Ploughing Ocean's oozy floor,
Piling to the clouds thy form!
Wandering monument of rain,
Prisoned by the sullen north!
But to melt thy hated chain,
Is it that thou comest forth?
Wend thee to the sunny south,
To the glassy summer sea;
And the breathings of her mouth
Shall unchain and gladden thee!
Roamer in the hidden path,
'Neath the green and clouded wave! Trampling, in thy reckless wrath,
On the lost but cherished brave;
Parting love's death-linked embrace,
Crushing beauty's skeleton-
Tell us what the hidden race
With our mournéd lost have done!
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