The tempest heard and paused

The wild sea gentler moved―

They felt the power of woman's faith

In the word of him she loved.

All night to rope and spar

They clung with strength untired, Till the dark clouds fled before the sun, And the fierce storm expired.

At noon the song of bridal bells
O'er hill and valley ran;

At eve he called the maiden his,
"Before the holy man."

They dwelt beside the waters

That bathe yon fallen pine,

And round them grew their sons and daughters, Like wild grapes on the vine.

And years and years flew o'er them,

Like birds with beauty on their wings,

And theirs were happy sleigh-ride winters,
And long and lovely springs,

Such joys as thrilled the lips that kissed,

The wave, rock-cooled, from Horeb's fountains,

And sorrows, fleeting as the mist

Of morning, spread upon the mountains,

Till, in a good old age,

Their life-breath passed away;

Their name is on the churchyard page-
Their story in my lay.

*

And let them rest together,

The maid, the boat, the boy,

Why sing of matrimony now,
In this brief hour of joy?

Our time may come, and let it—

'Tis enough for us now to know

That our bark will reach West Point ere long,

If the breeze keep on to blow.

We have Hudibras and Milton,

Wines, flutes, and a bugle-horn,

And a dozen segars are lingering yet

Of the thousand of yestermorn.

They have gone, like life's first pleasures,

And faded in smoke away,

And the few that are left are like bosom friends

In the evening of our day.

We are far from the mount of battle,*

Where the wreck first met mine eye,

And now where twin-forts in the olden time rose,
Through the Race, like a swift steed, our little bark goes,
And our bugle's notes echo through Anthony's Nose,
So wrecks and rhymes-good-by.

* Stony Point.

+ Forts Clinton and Montgomery.

LINES

TO HER WHO CAN UNDERSTAND THEM.

AIR: "To ladies' eyes a round, boy!"

THE song that o'er me hovered,

In summer's hour, in summer's hour,

To-day with joy has covered

My winter bower, my winter bower.

Blest be the lips that breathe it,

As mine have been, as mine have been, When pressed in dreams beneath it,

To hers unseen, to hers unseen.

And may her heart, wherever

Its hope may be, its hope may be,

Beat happily, though never

To beat for me, to beat for me.

Is she a spirit given

One hour to earth, one hour to earth,

To bring me dreams from heaven,

Her place of birth, her place of birth?

Or minstrel maiden hidden,

Like cloistered nun, like cloistered nun,

A bud, a flower forbidden,

To air and sun, to air and sun?

For had I power to summon,

With harp divine, with harp divine,

The angel or the woman,

The last were mine, the last were mine.

If earth-born beauty's fingers

Awaked the lay, awaked the lay,

Whose echoed music lingers

Around my way, around my way,