All day thy wings have fanned At that far height the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows: reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart. A WET sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast. And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While, like the eagle free, Away the good ship flies, and leaves Old England on the lee. There's tempest in yon hornèd moon, And lightning in yon cloud; And hark, the music, mariners! The wind is wakening loud. The wind is wakening loud, my boys, The lightning flashes free; The hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage the sea ALLAN CUNNING AM. The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, d the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow: From coral rocks the sea-plants lift Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow; The water is calm and still below, For the winds and the waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air: There with its waving blade of green, The sea-flag streams through the silent water, And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter: There with a light and easy motion The fan coral sweeps through the clear deep sea; And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean Are bending like corn on the upland lea; And life, in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, In my fo'castle bunk, in a jacket dry, Eight bells have struck and my watch is below. WALTER MITCHEL. SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS IN BERMUDA. WHERE the remote Bermudas ride In the ocean's bosom unespied, From a small boat that rowed along, The listening winds received this song: "What should we do but sing His praise, That led us through the watery maze Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks, That lift the deep upon their backs, He gave us this eternal spring And throws the melons at our feet; With falling oars they kept the time. CAVE OF STAFFA. THANKS for the lessons of this spot, fit school For the presumptuous thoughts that would assign Mechanic laws to agency divine, And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule Infinite power. The pillared vestibule, Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed, Might seem designed to humble man, when proud Of his best workmanship by plan and tool. Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight Of tide and tempest on the structure's base, And flashing upwards to its topmost height, Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace In calms is conscious, finding for his freight Of softest music some responsive place. |