They grappled with their prize, With mist and rain, to the Spanish Main; They drift through dark and day; THE LIGHTHOUSE. THE rocky ledge runs far into the sea, And on its outer point, some miles away, The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry, A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day. Even at this distance I can see the tides, Upheaving, break unheard along its base, A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides In the white lip and tremor of the face. And as the evening, darkens, lo! how bright, Through the deep purple of the twilight air, Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light With strange, unearthly splendour in its glare ! Not one alone; from each projecting cape And perilous reef along the ocean's verge, Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape, Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge. Like the great giant Christopher it stands Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave, The night-o'ertaken mariner to save. 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, immoveable, 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 grasp, And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece. The startled waves leap over it; the storm Smites it with all the scourges of the rain, And steadily against its solid form Press the great shoulders of the hurricane. 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 DRIFT-WOOD. WE sat within the farm-house old, Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold, 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, The first slight swerving of the heart, 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 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 sent no answer back again. Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain,— The long-lost ventures of the heart, That send no answers back again. O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned! They were indeed too much akin, The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within. BY THE FIRESIDE. RESIGNATION. THERE is no flock, however watched and tended, The air is full of farewells to the dying, The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Let us be patient! These severe afflictions But oftentimes celestial benedictions We see but dimly through the mists and vapours; 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,- Where she no longer needs our poor protection, In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, Day after day we think what she is doing Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, Not as a child shall we again behold her; In our embraces we again enfold her, But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion And though at times impetuous with emotion, The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling By silence sanctifying, not concealing, THE BUILDERS. ALL are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; Each thing in its place is best; 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, |