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 And the great ships sail outward and return, 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 ; Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same 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 Press the great shoulders of the hurricane. The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock, "Sail on!" it says, "sail on, ye stately ships! THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. WE sat within the farm-house old, 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, 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, The first slight swerving of the heart, And leave it still unsaid in part, The very tones in which we spake Had something strange, I could but mark; The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark Oft died the words upon our lips, And, as their splendour flashed and failed, And sent no answer back again. The windows, rattling in their frames,- Until they made themselves a part 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, There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, The air is full of farewells to the dying, The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Let us be patient! These severe afflictions Not from the ground arise, But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise. We see but dimly through the mists and vapours; Amid these earthly damps, 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, But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule. D D 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 unspcken, May reach her where she lives. Not as a child shall we again behold her ; In our embraces we again enfold her, She will not be a child; 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 We may not wholly stay; By silence sanctifying, not concealing. |