Page images
PDF
EPUB

MAKING PORT.

And tacking west and tacking east,
Spray-showers upward going,
Her wake one zigzag trail of yeast,
Her gunwale fairly flowing;

All flutterous clamor overhead,
Lee scuppers white and spouting,
Upon the deck a stamping tread,
And windy voices shouting;

Her weather shrouds as viol-strings,
And leeward all a-clatter, -

The long, lithe schooner dips and springs;
The waters cleave and scatter.

Shoulder to shoulder, breast to breast,
Arms locked, hand over hand:
Bracing to leeward, lips compressed,
Eyes forward to the land;

Driving the wheel to wind, to lee,
The two men work as one,
Out of the southwest sweeps the sea;
Low slants the summer sun.

The harbor opens wide and wide,
Draws up on either quarter;

The Vineyard's low hills backward slide;
The keel finds smoother water.

219

220

MAKING PORT.

And tacking starboard, tacking port,
Bows hissing, heeled to leeward,
Through craft of many a size and sort,
She trails the long bay seaward.

And jibing once to wear about,
The hurling wind drives at her;
The loud sails flap and flutter out,
The sheet-blocks rasp and clatter.

A lumberman lies full abeam,

The flow sets squarely toward her;
We lose our headway in the stream
And drift broadside aboard her.

A sudden flurry fore and aft,

Shout, trample, strain, wind howling ;

A ponderous jar of craft on craft,

A boom that threatens fouling;

A jarring slide of hull on hull,

Her bowsprit sweeps our quarter.
Clang go the sheets; the jib draws full;
Once more we cleave the water.

The anchor rattles from the bow,
The jib comes wrapping downward ;
And quiet rides the dripping prow,
Wave-lapped and pointing townward.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

He stood beside a cottage lone,

And listened to a lute,

One summer eve, when the breeze was gone,

And the nightingale was mute.

The moon was watching on the hill;

The stream was staid, and the maples still,

To hear a lover's suit,

That, half a vow, and half a prayer,

Spoke less of hope than of despair,

And rose into the calm, soft air,

As sweet and low,

As he had heard-O, woe! O, woe!
The flutes of angels, long ago!

"By every hope that earthward clings, By faith that mounts on angel wings,

[blocks in formation]

By dreams that make night-shadows bright,
And truths that turn our day to night,
By childhood's smile, and manhood's tear,
By pleasure's day, and sorrow's year,
By all the strains that fancy sings,
And pangs that time so surely brings,
For joy or grief, for hope or fear,
For all hereafter as for here,

In peace or strife, in storm or shine,
My soul is wedded unto thine ! ”

And for its soft and sole reply,
A murmur, and a sweet, low sigh,
But not a spoken word;

And yet they made the waters start

Into his eyes who heard,

For they told of a most loving heart,
In a voice like that of a bird;

Of a heart that loved though it loved in vain,
A grieving, and yet not a pain :

A love that took an early root
And had an early doom,

Like trees that never grow to fruit,
And early shed their bloom;
Of vanished hopes and happy smiles,
All lost for evermore,

Like ships that sailed for sunny isles,

But never came to shore !

THOMAS KIBBLE HERVEY.

O! SNATCHED AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM.

O! SNATCHED away in beauty's bloom,
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear

Their leaves, the earliest of the year,
And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom.

And oft by yon blue gushing stream

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, And feed deep thought with many a dream, And lingering pause, and lightly tread: Fond wretch! as if her step disturbed the dead.

Away! we know that tears are vain,

That Death nor heeds nor hears distress:

Will this unteach us to complain,

Or make one mourner weep the less?

And thou, who tell'st me to forget,
Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

LORD BYRon.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »