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For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives !

Thou too, sail on, O Ship of State !
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock ;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee,—are all with thee!

THE EVENING STAR.

JUST above yon sandy bar,

As the day grows fainter and dimmer, Lonely and lovely, a single star

Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.

Into the ocean faint and far

Falls the trail of its golden splendour,
And the gleam of that single star
Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender.

Chrysaor rising out of the sea,

Shewed thus glorious and thus emulous, Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe,

For ever tender, soft, and tremulous.

Thus o'er the ocean faint and far

Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly;

Is it a God, or is it a star,

That, entranced, I gaze on nightly!

THE SECRET OF THE SEA.

AH! what pleasant visions haunt me As I gaze upon the sea!

All the old romantic legends,

All my dreams, come back to me.

Sails of silk and ropes of sendal,
Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,
And the answer from the shore !

Most of all, the Spanish ballad
Haunts me oft, and tarries long,

Of the noble Count Arnaldos
And the sailor's mystic song.

Like the long waves on a sea-beach, Where the sand as silver shines,

With a soft, monotonous cadence, Flow its unrhymed lyric lines ;

Telling how the Count Arnaldos,
With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,

Steering onward to the land;

How he heard the ancient helmsman

Chant a song so wild and clear, That the sailing sea-bird slowly Poised upon the mast to hear,

Till his soul was full of longing,
And he cried, with impulse strong,-
"Helmsman! for the love of heaven,
Teach me too that wondrous song!"

"Wouldst thou," so the helmsman answered,

"Learn the secret of the sea?

Only those who brave its dangers
Comprehend its mystery!"

In each sail that skims the horizon,
In each landward-blowing breeze,

I behold that stately galley,

Hear those mournful melodies;

Till my soul is full of longing
For the secret of the sea,

And the heart of the great ocean

Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

TWILIGHT.

THE twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
Flash the white caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage
There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window, As if those childish eyes

Were looking into the darkness,

To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,
And the night-wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child?

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