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SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

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; 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.

NOTE.

(1.) "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.

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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.

YY

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 splendor 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,
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!

THE LIGHTHOUSE.

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!"

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