And women too! affrighted maids and wives,
All deeply feeling for their sailors' lives.
The strife continued: in a glass we saw
The desperate efforts, and we stood in awe,
When the last boat shot suddenly before,
Then filled, and sank—and could be seen no more!
Then were those piercing shrieks, that frantic flight,
All hurried! all in tumult and affright!
A gathering crowd from different streets drew near;
All ask, all answer-none attend, none hear!
One boat is safe; and see! she backs her sail
To save the sinking-Will her care avail?
Oh! how impatient on the sands we tread,
And the winds roaring, and the women led,
As up and down they pace with frantic air,
And scorn a comforter, and will despair;
They know not who in either boat is gone,
But think the father, husband, lover, one.
And who is she apart? She dares not come
To join the crowd, yet cannot rest at home:
With what strong interest looks she at the waves,
Meeting and clashing o'er the seamen's graves!
'Tis a poor girl betrothed—a few hours more,
And he will be a corpse upon the shore.
AST thou not marked, when o'er thy startled head
Sudden and deep the thunder-peal has rolled,
How, when its echoes fell, a silence dead
Sunk on the wood, the meadow, and the wold?
The rye-grass shakes not on the sod-built fold,
The rustling aspen-leaves are mute and still,
The wall-flower waves not on the ruined hold,
Till, murmuring distant first, then near and shrill,
The savage whirlwind wakes, and sweeps the groaning hill
ITH trembling faith, with breathless prayer
I on my God relied,
As billow unto billow called,
And deep to deep replied.
Now rose we, like a leaf, on high;
Now touched the solid ground;
While each pale seaman gazed on each,
In moveless horror bound.
Then heartfelt cries were raised to heaven,
Undrowned by ocean's roar;
And they for mercy loudly prayed
Who never prayed before.
And Mercy spake in low, small voice, —
"Ye waters, peace, be still!"
And billows sunk, and winds were hushed,
Obedient to her will.
And now one wide expanse of green,
Save where a silvery light
Of moonlight marked the angel's path
Who guarded us by night.
O happy hour, when all the storms
Of earth shall silent be,
And our glad souls beyond those stars
Shall mount, O Lord, to thee !
EVENING CALM ON THE LAKE OF GENEVA.
LEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wide world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction: once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet, as if a Sister's voice reproved That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.
It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darkened Jura, whose capped heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light dip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more:
He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill.
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill,
But that is fancy; for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instill,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.
All heaven and earth are still,-though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-
All heaven and earth are still: from the high host
Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,
All is concentred in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.
EANTIME, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense; and every hue unfolds,
In fair proportion, running from the red
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton! the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting to the Sun, thy showery prism;
And to the sage-instructed eye unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclosed,
From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy:
He wondering views the bright enchantment bend
Delightful o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but, amazed,
Beholds the amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away.
RIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art.
Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given,
For happy spirits to alight,
Betwixt the earth and heaven.
Can all that Optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?
When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!
And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.
When, o'er the green undeluged earth, Heaven's covenant thou didst shine, How came the world's gray fathers forth. To watch thy sacred sign!
And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child,
To bless the bow of God.
Methinks thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang,
On earth delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.
Nor ever shall the Muse's eye
Unraptured greet thy beam:
Theme of primeval prophecy,
Be still the poet's theme.
The earth to thee her incense yields,
The lark thy welcome sings,
When, glittering in the freshened fields,
The snowy mushroom springs.
How glorious is thy girdle, cast
O'er mountain, tower, and town!
Or mirrored in the ocean vast,
A thousand fathoms down!
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