"Havoc !" the shipwreck-demon cried,
Loosed all his tempests on the tide,
Gave all his lightnings play;
The abyss recoiled before the blast,
Firm stood the seaman till the last.
Like shooting stars, athwart the gloom
The merchant sails were sped;
Yet oft, before its midnight doom,
They marked the high masthead
Of that devoted vessel, tost
By winds and floods, now seen, now lost: While every gun-fire spread
A dimmer flash, a fainter roar ;
At length they saw, they heard, no more.
There are to whom that ship was dear,
For love and kindred's sake;
When these the voice of rumour hear,
Their inmost heart shall quake,
Shall doubt, and fear, and wish, and grieve,
Believe, and long to unbelieve,
But never cease to ache;
Still doomed, in sad suspense, to bear
The hope that keeps alive despair.
He sought his sire from shore to shore,
He sought him day by day;
The prow he tracked was seen no more,
Breasting the ocean spray;
Yet, as the winds his voyage sped,
He sailed above his father's head,
Unconscious where it lay,
Deep, deep beneath the rolling main
He sought his sire; he sought in vain.
Son of the brave! no longer weep;
Still with affection true,
Along the wild disastrous deep
Thy father's course pursue;
Full in his wake of glory steer,
His spirit prompts thy bold career,
His compass guides thee through;
So, while thy thunders awe the sea,
Britain shall find thy sire in thee.
A NIGHT IN A STAGE-COACH.
BEING A MEDITATION ON THE WAY BETWEEN LONDON AND
BRISTOL, SEPT. 23, 1815.
I TRAVEL all the irksome night,
By ways to me unknown;
I travel like a bird in flight,
Onward, and all alone.
In vain I close my weary eyes,
They will not, cannot sleep,
But, like the watchers of the skies,
Their twinkling vigils keep.
My thoughts are wandering wild and far;
From earth to heaven they dart;
Now wing their flight from star to star,
Now dive into my heart.
Backward they roll the tide of time,
And live through vanished years;
Or hold their "colloquy sublime"
With future hopes and fears;
Then passing joys and present woes
Chase through my troubled mind,
Repose still seeking,-but repose
Not for a moment find.
So yonder lone and lovely moon
Gleams on the clouds gone by,
Illumines those around her noon,
Yet westward points her eye.
Nor wind nor flood her course delay,
Through heaven I see her glide;
She never pauses on her way,
She never turns aside.
With anxious heart and throbbing brain,
Strength, patience, spirits gone,
Pulses of fire in every vein,
Thus, thus I journey on.
But soft-in Nature's failing hour,
Up springs a breeze,-I feel
Its balmy breath, its cordial power,-
A power to soothe and heal.
Lo! gray and gold and crimson streaks
The gorgeous east adorn,
While o'er the empurpled mountain breaks
The glory of the morn.
Insensibly the stars retire,
Exhaled like drops of dew;
Now through an arch of living fire
The sun comes forth to view.
The hills, the vales, the waters burn
With his enkindling rays,
No sooner touched than they return
A tributary blaze.
His quickening light on me descends,
His cheering warmth I own;
Upward to him my spirit tends,
But worships GOD alone.
Oh that on me, with beams benign,
His countenance would turn :
I too should then arise and shine,-
Arise, and shine, and burn!
Slowly I raise my languid head,
Pain and soul-sickness cease;
The phantoms of dismay are fled,
And health returns, and peace.
Where is the beauty of the scene
Which silent night displayed?
The clouds, the stars, the blue serene,
The moving light and shade?
All gone! the moon, erewhile so bright,
Veiled with a dusky shroud,
Scems, in the sun's o'erpowering light,
The fragment of a cloud.
At length I reach my journey's end:
Welcome that well-known face!
I meet a brother and a friend;
I find a resting-place.
Just such a pilgrimage is life :
Hurried from stage to stage,
Our wishes with our lot at strife,
Through childhood to old age.
The world is seldom what it seems:-
To man, who dimly sees,
Realities appear as dreams,
And dreams realities.
The Christian's years, though slow their flight,
When he is called away,
Are but the watches of a night,
And death the dawn of day.
ADDRESSED TO A LADY, ON HEARING THAT BIRD'S SONG EARLY IN THE MORNING OF FEBRUARY 27, 1832, WHEN THE GROUND WAS COVERED WITH HOAR-FROST, AND THE SMALL POOLS WERE PLATED WITH ICE.
OH, warn away the gloomy night!
With music make the welkin ring;
Bird of the dawn! on joyful wing,
Soar through thine element of light,
Till nought in heaven mine eye can see
Except the morning star and thee.
But speech of mine can ne'er reveal
Secrets so freely told above;
Yet is their burden joy and love,
And all the bliss a bird can feel,
Whose wing in heaven to earth is bound,
Whose home and heart are on the ground.
Unlike the lark be thou, my friend!
No downward cares thy thoughts engage;
But, in thine house of pilgrimage,
Though from the ground thy songs ascend,
Still be their burden joy and love!
Heaven is thy home, thy heart above.
Oh, welcome in the cheerful day!
Through rosy clouds the shades retire;
The sun hath touched thy plumes with fire,
And girt thee with a golden ray;
Now shape and voice are vanished quite,
Nor eye nor ear can track their flight.
Might I translate thy strain, and give
Words to thy notes in human tongue,
The sweetest lay that e'er I sung,
The lay that would the longest live,
I should record upon this page,
And sing thy song from age to age,
SPRING flowers, spring birds, spring breezes Are felt, and heard, and seen;
Light trembling transport seizes
My heart,--with sighs between :
These old enchantments fill the mind
With scenes and seasons left behind;--
Childhood, its smiles and tears,—
Youth, with its flush of years,
Its morning clouds, and dewy prime,
More exquisitely tinged by time!
Fancies again are springing,
Like May flowers in the vales; While hopes long lost are singing, From thorns, like nightingales; And kindly spirits stir my blood, Like vernal airs that curl the flood:
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