Yet more, the billows and the depths have more! High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast! They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle-thunders will not break their rest. Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!
Give back the true and brave!
Give back the lost and lovely!-those for whom The place was kept at board and hearth so long! The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,
And the vain yearning woke midst festal song! Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown,— But all is not thine own.
To thee the love of woman hath gone down, Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head, O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery
Yet must thou hear a voice, Restore the dead! Earth shall reclaim her precious things from
Restore the dead, thou sea!
TACKING SHIP OFF SHORE.
THE weather leach of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken,
The braces are taut and the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.
Open one point on the weather bow
Is the lighthouse tall on Fire Island head; There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow, And the pilot watches the heaving lead.
I stand at the wheel and with eager eye To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze, Till the muttered order of "FULL AND BY!" Is suddenly changed to "FULL FOR STAYS!" The ship bends lower before the breeze,
As her broadside fair to the blast she lays; And she swifter springs to the rising seas As the pilot calls "STAND BY FOR STAYS!" It is silence all, as each in his place, With the gathered coils in his hardened hands, By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace, Waiting the watchword impatient stands.
And the light on Fire Island head draws near, As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear, With the welcome call of "READY! ABOUT!"
No time to spare! it is touch and go,
And the captain growls "Down HELM ! HARD DOWN!"
As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw, While heaven grows black with the stormcloud's frown.
High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray, As we meet the shock of the plunging sea; And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay,
As I answer, "AY, AY, SIR! HARD A LEE!"
With the swerving leap of a startled steed The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind, The dangerous shoals on the lee recede, And the headland white we have left behind.
The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse
And belly and tug at the groaning cleats; The spanker slaps and the mainsail flaps,
And thunders the order, “TACKS AND SHEETS!"
'Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the
Hisses the rain of the rushing squall; The sails are aback from clew to clew, And now is the moment for "MAINSAIL HAUL!"
And the heavy yards like a baby's toy
By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung; She holds her way, and I look with joy
For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.
"LET GO, AND HAUL!" 't is the last command, A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA. And the head-sails fill to the blast once more; Astern and to leeward lies the land,
SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS IN BER- MUDA.
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, Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own? He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage; He gave us this eternal spring Which here enamels everything, And sends the fowls to us in care On daily visits through the air. He hangs in shades the orange bright Like golden lamps in a green night, And does in the pomegranates close Jewels more rich than Ormus shows: He makes the figs our mouths to meet, And throws the melons at our feet; But apples, plants of such a price, No tree could ever bear them twice. With cedars chosen by his hand From Lebanon he stores the land; And makes the hollow seas that roar Proclaim the ambergris on shore. He cast (of which we rather boast) The gospel's pearl upon our coast; And in these rocks for us did frame A temple where to sound his name. O let our voice his praise exalt Till it arrive at heaven's vault, Which then perhaps rebounding may Echo beyond the Mexique bay!". Thus sung they in the English boat A holy and a cheerful note; And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept the time.
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,
O'ER the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire, and behold our home! These are our realms, no limits to their sway, - Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey. Ours the wild life in tumult still to range From toil to rest, and joy in every change. O, who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave! Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave; Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease! Whom slumber soothes not, pleasure cannot please.
O, who can tell save he whose heart hath tried, And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide, The exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play, That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way? That for itself can woo the approaching fight, And turn what some deem danger to delight; That seeks what cravens shun with more than
And where the feebler faint can only feelFeel to the rising bosom's inmost core,
Its hope awaken and its spirit soar ?
Save that it seems even duller than repose: Come when it will we snatch the life of life— When lost-what recks it--by disease or strife? Let him who crawls enamored of decay, Cling to his couch and sicken years away; Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head:
Ours - the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed. While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul, Ours with one pang-one bound-escapes con- trol.
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave, And they who loathed his life may gild his grave: Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed, When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead. For us, even banquets fond regrets supply In the red cup that crowns our memory; And the brief epitaph in danger's day, When those who win at length divide the prey, And cry, Remembrance saddening o'er each brow, How had the brave who fell exulted now!
JUST in thy mould and beauteous in thy form, Gentle in roll and buoyant on the surge, Light as the sea-fowl rocking in the storm, In breeze and gale thy onward course we urge, My water-queen!
More light and swift than thou none thread the
With surer keel or steadier on its path, We brave each waste of ocean-mystery And laugh to hear the howling tempest's wrath, For we are thine.
Trust to the mystic power that points thy way, Trust to the eye that pierces from afar ; Trust the red meteors that around thee play, And, fearless, trust the Sea-Green Lady's Star, Thou bark divine!"
DESERTED by the waning moon,
When skies proclaim night's cheerless noon, On tower, or fort, or tented ground The sentry walks his lonely round; And should a footstep haply stray Where caution marks the guarded way,
IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.
ON deck, beneath the awning, I dozing lay and yawning; It was the gray of dawning. Ere yet the sun arose;
With terror it would seize ye, And make your souls uneasy, To see those Rabbis greasy,
Who did naught but scratch and pray. Their dirty children puking, Their dirty saucepans cooking, Their dirty fingers hooking
Their swarming fleas away.
To starboard Turks and Greeks were, Whiskered and brown their cheeks were, Enormous wide their breeks were, Their pipes did puff away; Each on his mat allotted In silence smoked and squatted, Whilst round their children trotted
In pretty, pleasant play. He can't but smile who traces The smiles on those brown faces, And the pretty, prattling graces Of those small heathens gay.
And so the hours kept tolling; And through the ocean rolling Went the brave Iberia bowling, Before the break of day, —
When a squall, upon a sudden, Came o'er the waters scudding; And the clouds began to gather, And the sea was lashed to lather, And the lowering thunder grumbled, And the lightning jumped and tumbled,
And the ship, and all the ocean, Woke up in wild commotion. Then the wind set up a howling, And the poodle dog a yowling, And the cocks began a crowing, And the old cow raised a lowing, As she heard the tempest blowing; And fowls and geese did cackle, And the cordage and the tackle Began to shrick and crackle;
And the spray dashed o'er the funnels, And down the deck in runnels; And the rushing water soaks all, From the seamen in the fo'ksal To the stokers, whose black faces Peer out of their bed-places; And the captain he was bawling, And the sailors pulling, hauling, And the quarter-deck tarpauling Was shivered in the squalling; And the passengers awaken, Most pitifully shaken ;
And the steward jumps up, and hastens For the necessary basins.
Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered. And they knelt and moaned and shivered, As the plunging waters met them, And splashed and overset them; And they called in their emergence Upon countless saints and virgins; And their marrowbones are bended, And they think the world is ended. And the Turkish women for'ard Were frightened and behorrored; And, shrieking and bewildering,
The mothers clutched their children; The men sang "Allah Illah! Mashallah Bismillah !"
As the warring waters doused them, And splashed them and soused them; And they called upon the Prophet, Who thought but little of it.
Then all the fleas in Jewry Jumped up and bit like fury; And the progeny of Jacob Did on the main-deck wake up, (I wot those greasy Rabbins Would never pay for cabins ;) And each man moaned and jabbered in His filthy Jewish gabardine,
In woe and lamentation,
And howling consternation.
And the splashing water drenches
Their dirty brats and wenches;
And they crawl from bales and benches,
In a hundred thousand stenches.
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