In the GULF of ST. LAWRENCE, late in the Evening, September, 1805. EE you, beneath yon cloud so dark, Fast gliding along a gloomy bark? Her sails are full,-though the wind is still, Say what doth that vessel of darkness bear? The silent calm of the grave is there, Save now and again a death-knell rung, And the flap of the sails with night-fog hung. There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore Of cold and pitiless Labrador; Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost, Full many a mariner's bones are tost. Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck, To Deadman's Isle, in the eye of the blast, Oh! hurry thee on-oh! hurry thee on, THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE. IIE turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My choir shall be the moonlit waves, Even more than music, breathes of Thee! I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown, Thy heaven, on which 't is bliss to look, I'll read thy anger in the rack That clouds awhile the day-beam's track; Of sunny brightness, breaking through. There's nothing bright, above, below, From flowers that bloom to stars that glow, Some feature of thy Deity. There's nothing dark, below, above, LIKE ONE WHO, DOOM'D. IKE one who, doom'd o'er distant seas When home at length, with fav'ring breeze, His ship, in sight of shore, goes down, Is o'er the waters wasted. Like him, this heart, thro' many a track Like him, alas! I see that ray What years were given to cherish. WHO IS THE MAID? ST. JEROME'S LOVE. HO is the Maid my spirit secks, Through cold reproof and slander's blight? Is hers an eye of this world's light? Are the pale looks of her I love; Or if, at times, a light be there, Its beam is kindled from above. I chose not her, my heart's elect, From those who seek their Maker's shrine As if themselves were things divine. Not so the faded form I prize And love, because its bloom is gone; The glory in those sainted eyes Is all the grace her brow puts on. And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright, So touching as that form's decay, Which, like the altar's trembling light, In holy lustre wastes away. |