The emerald Spring, sun awakened! On the trees are the white blossoms rustling, With moist loving eyes full of beauty. All is fragrance and murmurs and soft airs and laughter, And in the blue heavens the birds are a-singing Thalatta! Thalatta! From the German of Ileine. THE VOYAGE. E left behind the painted buoy WE That tosses at the harbor-mouth; Warm broke the breeze against the brow, Caught the shrill salt, and sheer'd the gale. THE VOYAGE. How oft we saw the sun retire, And burn the threshold of the night, Fall from his Ocean-lane of fire, And sleep beneath his pillar'd light! How oft the purple-skirted robe Of twilight slowly downward drawn, As thro' the slumber of the globe Again we dash'd into the dawn! By peaks that flamed, or, all in shade, By sands and steaming flats, and floods O hundred shores of happy climes, How swiftly stream'd ye by the bark! From havens hid in fairy bowers, For one fair vision ever fled Down the waste waters day and night, 35 Her face was evermore unseen, And now we lost her, now she gleam'd Like Virtue firm, like knowledge fair, Like Heavenly Hope she crown'd the sea, And now, the bloodless point reversed, She bore the blade of Liberty. And never sail of ours was furl'd, Nor anchor dropt at eve or morn; We loved the glories of the world, But laws of nature were our scorn; For blasts would rise and rave and cease, But whence were those that drove the sail Across the whirlwind's heart of peace, And to and thro' the counter gale? Again to colder climes we came, For still we followed where she led : Now mate is blind and captain lame, And half the crew are sick or dead. But blind or lame or sick or sound We follow that which flies before: We know the merry world is round, And we may sail for evermore. Tennyson. TR COLUMBUS. RUST to the guiding god, follow the silent sea; Were shore not yet there, 'twould now arise from the wave; For Nature is to Genius linked eternally, And ever will perform the promise Genius gave. Schilier. COLUMBUS. HE cordage creaks and rattles in the wind, THE With freaks of sudden hush; the reeling sea Now thumps like solid rock beneath the stern, Now leaps with clumsy wrath, strikes short, and falling Crumbled to whispery foam, slips rustling down crowd To fling themselves upon that unknown shore, How lonely is the sea's perpetual swing, Yet night brings more companions than the day To this drear waste; new constellations burn, But to the spirit select there is no choice; For the cheap means putting Heaven's ends in pawn, A hand is stretched to him from out the dark, And patience all the passion of great hearts; These are their stay, and when the leaden world. |