POEMS. COLUMBUS. THE Cordage creaks and rattles in the wind, 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 The broad backs of the waves, which jostle and crowd To fling themselves upon that unknown shore, Their used familiar since the dawn of time, Whither this foredoomed life- an eminent surge Chance-heaped a breath's space o'er the weltering press, |