I too have seen thee on thy surging path,
When the night tempest met thee: thou didst dash
Thy white arms high in Heaven, as if in wrath
Threatening the angry sky; thy waves did lash
The labouring vessel, and with deadening crash
Rush madly forth to scourge its groaning sides;
Onward thy billows came to meet and clash
In a wild warfare, till the lifted tides
[rides.
Mingled their yesty tops, where the dark storm-cloud
In thee, first light, the bounding ocean smiles,
When the quick winds uprear it in a swell,
That rolls in glittering green around the isles,
Where ever-springing fruits and blossoms dwell
Oh! with a joy no gifted tongue can tell,
I hurry o'er the waters, when the sail
Swells tensely, and the light keel glances well
Over the curling billow, and the gale
Comes off from spicy groves to tell its winning tale.
The soul is thine: of old thou wert the power
Who gave the poet life, and I in thee
Feel my heart gladden at the holy hour
When thou art sinking in the silent sea;
Or when I climb the height, and wander free
In thy meridian glory, for the air
Sparkles and burns in thy intensity,
I feel thy light within me, and I share
In the full glow of soul thy spirit kindles there.
He comes not; I have watched the moon go down, But yet he comes not. Once it was not so. He thinks not how these bitter tears do flow, The while he holds his riot in that town. Yet he will come and chide, and I shall weep; And he will wake my infant from its sleep,
To blend its feeble wailing with my tears.
Oh! how I love a mother's watch to keep,
Over those sleeping eyes, that smile, which cheers
My heart, though sunk in sorrow, fix'd and deep.
I had a husband once, who loved me; now
He ever wears a frown upon his brow,
And feeds his passion on a wanton's lip,
As bees, from laurel flowers, a poison sip;
But yet I cannot hate. Oh! there were hours,
When I could hang for ever on his eye,
And Time, who stole with silent swiftness by,
Strew'd, as he hurried on, his path with flowers.
I loved him then; he loved me too. My heart
Still finds its fondness kindle if he smile;
The memory of our loves will ne'er depart;
And though he often sting me with a dart,
Venom'd and barb'd, and waste upon the vile
Caresses which his babe and mine should share-
Though he should spurn me, I will camly bear
His madness; and should sickness come, and lay
Its paralyzing hand upon him, then
I would, with kindness, all my wrongs repay,
Until the penitent should weep, and say
How injured and how faithful I had been.
DEEP in the wave is a coral grove,
Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine
The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift,
And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift
Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,
For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air:
There with its waving blade of green,
The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter:
There, with a light and easy motion,
The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea :
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own:
And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore;
Then far below in the peaceful sea,
The purple mullet and goldfish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly,
Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.
YE clouds, who are the ornament of heaven,
Who give to it its gayest shadowings,
And its most awful glories; ye who roll
In the dark tempest, or at dewy evening
Hang low in tenderest beauty; ye who, ever
Changing your Protean aspects, now are gather'd,
Like fleecy piles, when the mid sun is brightest,
Even in the height of heaven, and there repose,
Solemnly calm, without a visible motion,
Hour after hour, looking upon the earth
With a serenest smile or ye who rather,
Heap'd in those sulphury masses, heavily
Jutting above their bases, like the smoke
Poured from a furnace or a roused volcano,
Stand on the dun horizon, threatening
Lightning and storm; who, lifted from the hills,
March onward to the zenith, ever darkening,
And heaving into more gigantic towers
And mountainous piles of blackness; who then roar
With the collected winds within your womb,
Or the far uttered thunders; who ascend
Swifter and swifter, till wide overhead
Your vanguards curl and toss upon the tempest
Like the stirred ocean on a reef of rocks
Just topping o'er its waves, while deep below
The pregnant mass of vapour and of flame
Rolls with an awful pomp, and grimly lowers,
Seeming to the struck eye of fear the car
Of an offended spirit, whose swart features
Glare through the sooty darkness, fired with ven-
And ready with uplifted hand to smite
And scourge a guilty nation; ye who lie,
After the storm is over, far away,
Crowning the drippling forests with the arch
Of beauty, such as lives alone in heaven,
Bright daughter of the sun, bending around
From mountain unto mountain like the wreath
Of victory, or like a banner telling
Of joy and gladness; ye who round the moon
Assemble, when she sits in the mid sky
In perfect brightness, and encircle her
With a fair wreath of all aërial dyes;
Ye who, thus hovering round her, shine like mount
Whose tops are never darken'd, but remain,
Centuries and countless ages, reared for temples
Of purity and light; or ye who crowd
To hail the newborn day, and hang for him,
Above his ocean couch, a canopy
Of all inimitable hues and colours,
Such as are only pencill'd by the hands
Of the unseen ministers of earth and air,
Seen only in the tinting of the clouds,
And the soft shadowing of plumes and flowers;
Or ye who, following in his funeral train,
Light up your torches at his sepulchre,
And open on us through the clefted hills
Far glances into glittering worlds beyond
The twilight of the grave, where all is light,
Golden and glorious light, too full and high
For mortal eye to gaze on, stretching out
Brighter and ever brighter, till it spread,
Like one wide radiant ocean without bounds,
One infinite sea of glory: Thus, ye clouds,
And in innumerable other shapes
Of greatness or of beauty, ye attend us,
To give to the wide arch above us Life
And all its changes. Thus it is to us
A volume full of wisdom, but without ye
One awful uniformity had ever,
With too severe a majesty, oppress'd us.
EVENING ON NARRAGANSET BAY*.
THE sun is sinking from the sky
In calm and cloudless majesty ;
And cooler hours, with gentle sway,
Succeed the fiery heat of day.
* This and the succeeding specimens of Eastburn's poetry are taken from the narrative poem of Yamoyden, written jointly by him and Sands. The different portions of that work have never been assigned to the respective authors, and the merit of these extracts must therefore be shared between them, except perhaps, in the case of the "Song of an Indian Mother," which we have somewhere seen claimed as the sole property of Eastburn.
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