His roving fancy, like the wind,

That nothing can stay and nothing can bind;
And the magic charm of foreign lands,
With shadows of palms, and shining sands,
Where the tumbling surf,

O'er the coral reefs of Madagascar,
Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar,
As he lies alone and asleep on the turf.

And the trembling maiden held her breath
At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea,
With all its terror and mystery,

The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,
That divides, and yet unites, mankind!
And whenever the old man paused, a gleam
From the bowl of his pipe would awhile illume
The silent group in the twilight gloom,
And thoughtful faces, as in a dream;
And for a moment one might mark
What had been hidden by the dark,
That the head of the maiden lay at rest,
Tenderly, on the young man's breast!

Day by day the vessel grew,

With timbers fashioned strong and true,
Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee,
Till, framed with perfect symmetry,
A skeleton ship rose up to view !
And around the bows and along the side
The heavy hammers and mallets plied,
Till after many a week, at length,
Wonderful for form and strength,

Sublime in its enormous bulk,

Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk!

And around it columns of smoke, upwreathing, Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething Caldron, that glowed,

And overflowed

With the black tar, heated for the sheathing.

And amid the clamours

Of clattering hammers,

He who listened heard now and then
The song of the Master and his men :-
"Build me straight, O worthy Master,
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"

With oaken brace and copper band,
Lay the rudder on the sand,

That, like a thought, should have control,
Over the movement of the whole;

And near it the anchor, whose giant hand
Would reach down and grapple with the land,
And immoveable and fast

Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast!
And at the bows an image stood,

By a cunning artist carved in wood,
With robes of white, that far behind
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,
Or Naiad rising from the water,

But modelled from the Master's daughter!
On many a dreary and misty night,
"Twill be seen by the rays of the signal light,
Speeding along through the rain and the dark,
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,

The pilot of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,
By a path none other knows aright!
Behold, at last,1

Each tall and tapering mast

1 I wish to anticipate a criticism on this passage by stating, that sometimes, though not usually, vessels are launched fully rigged and sparred. I have availed myself of the exception, as better suited to my purposes than the general rule; but the reader will see that it is neither a

Is swung into its place;

Shrouds and stays
Holding it firm and fast!

Long ago,

In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain
Lay the snow,

They fell,-those lordly pines!
Those grand, majestic pines!
'Mid shouts and cheers
The jaded steers,

Panting beneath the goad,

Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive kings so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming hair,
And, naked and bare,

To feel the stress and the strain
Of the wind and the reeling main,

Whose roar

Would remind them for evermore

Of their native forests they should not see again.
And everywhere

The slender, graceful spars

Poise aloft in the air,

And at the mast head,

White, blue, and red,

A flag unrolls the stripes and stars.

Ah! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless,
In foreign harbours shall behold

That flag unrolled,

blunder nor a poetic licence. On this subject a friend in Portland, Maine, writes me thus:—

"In this State, and also, as I am told, in New York, ships are sometimes rigged upon the stocks, in order to save time, or to make a show. There was a fine, large ship launched last summer at Ellsworth, fully rigged and sparred. Some years ago a ship was launched here, with her rigging, spars, sails, and cargo aboard. She sailed the next day, and-was never heard of again. I hope this will not be the fate of your poem !"

'Twill be as a friendly hand

Stretched out from his native land,

Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless!

All is finished! and at length

Has come the bridal day

Of beauty and of strength.

To-day the vessel shall be launched!
With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,
And o'er the bay,

Slowly, in all his splendours dight,
The great sun rises to behold the sight.
The ocean old,

Centuries old,

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,
Paces restless to and fro,

Up and down the sands of gold.
His beating heart is not at rest;
And far and wide,

With ceaseless flow,

His beard of snow

Heaves with the heaving of his breast.

He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands,

Decked with flags and streamers gay,

In honour of her marriage day,

Her snow-white signals, fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,

Ready to be

The bride of the grey old sea.

On the deck another bride
Is standing by her lover's side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sunny fleck,
Fall around them on the deck.

The prayer is said,

The service read,

The joyous bridegroom bows his head,
And in tears the good old Master
Shakes the brown hand of his son,
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster

Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor-

The shepherd of that wandering flock,
That has the ocean for its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock-
Spake, with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart

Of the sailor's heart,

All its pleasures and its griefs,
All its shallows and rocky reefs,
All those secret currents, that flow
With such resistless undertow,
And lift and drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its course.
Therefore he spake, and thus said he :-

"Like unto ships far off at sea,
Outward or homeward bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,
Floats and swings the horizon's bound,
Seems at its distant rim to rise

-

And climb the crystal wall of the skies, And then again to turn and sink,

As if we could slide from its outer blink. Ah! it is not the sea,

It is not the sea that sinks and shelves, But ourselves

That rock and rise

With endless and uneasy motion,

VOL. I.

R