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With robes of white, that far behind
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,
Or Naiad rising from the water,

But modelled from the Master's daughter!
On many a dreary and misty night,
"Twill be seen by the rays of the signal light,
Speeding along through the rain and the dark.
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,

By a path none other knows aright!
Behold, at last,

Each tall and tapering mast

Is swung into its place;

Shrouds and stays

Holding it firm and fast!

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Whose roar

Would remind them for evermore

Of their native forests they should not see again.

And everywhere

The slender, graceful spars

Poise aloft in the air,

And at the mast head,

White, blue, and red,

A flag unrolls the stripes and stars.

Ah! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless,

In foreign harbours shall behold

That flag unrolled,

"Twill be as a friendly hand

Stretched out from his native land,

Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless.

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Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,

Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not at rest;
And far and wide,

With ceaseless flow,

His beard of snow

Heaves with the heaving of his breast.

He waits impatient for his bride.

There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands,

Decked with flags and streamers gay,

In honour of her marriage day,

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending, Round her like a veil descending,

Ready to be

The bride of the grey, old sea.

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Spake, with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart,

Of the sailor's heart,

All its pleasures and its griefs,
All its shallows and rocky reefs,
All those secret currents, that flow
With such resistless undertow,

And lift and drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its course.
Therefore he spake, and thus said he :-

"Like unto ships far off at sea,

Outward or homeward bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,

Floats and swings the horizon's bound,
Seems at its distant rim to rise

And climb the crystal wall of the skies,
And then again to turn and sink,

As if we could slide from its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea,

It is not the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves

That rock and rise

With endless and uneasy motion,

Now touching the very skies,

Now sinking into the depths of ocean.
Ah! if our souls but poise and swing
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level, and ever true

To the toil and the task we have to do,

We shall sail securely, and safely reach

The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach The sights we see, and the sounds we hear, Will be those of joy and not of fear!"

Then the Master,

With a gesture of command,

Waved his hand;

And at the word,

Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and below,

The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs !

She starts, she moves,-she seems to feel

The thrill of life along her keel,

And, spurning with her foot the ground,

With one exulting, joyous bound,

She leaps into the ocean's arms!

And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,—
"Take her, O bridegroom, old and grey,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms!"

How beautiful she is! How fair
She lies within those arms that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!

Through wind and wave, right onward steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.

Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,.
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives !

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
"Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our tears,

Are all with thee,-are all with thee!

TWILIGHT.

THE twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage

There shines a ruddier light, And a little face at the window

Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,
As if those childish eyes
Were looking into the darkness,
To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.
What tale do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, bleak and wild, As they beat at the crazy casement, Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, wild and bleak, As they beat at the heart of the mother, Drive the colour from her cheek?

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, An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,

The light-house, 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, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,

And never can be one again;

The first light swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.

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Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames,-
The ocean, roaring up the beach,—
The gusty blast, -the bickering flames,-
All mingled vaguely in our speech;
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.

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