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 SATCHEL SERIES. 
 
 yuU- 
 
 THE 
 
 Voice 
 
 of a 
 
 Shell 
 
 PRICE 40 CENTS. 
 
THE 
 
 VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 BY 
 
 0. 0. AURINGEE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 THE AUTHOES' PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 BOND STREET. 
 
-f^ 
 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 
 
 THE AUTHORS' PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
COHTEE'TS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 "Wherefore 5 
 
 -TEMPEST AND DESTINY. A Panorama 9 
 
 DRIFT FROM A WRECK 56 
 
 Poeta Marina 56 
 
 A Relic 59 
 
 The Days to Come 61 
 
 In Quarantine 61 
 
 The Admiral 64 
 
 Solved 68 
 
 Glimpses 73 
 
 Drifting 75 
 
 THE MODERN MARINER 78 
 
 SPRAY 133 
 
 A Sea Trouble 133 
 
 To Eva 135 
 
 Love's Revival 138 
 
 Flora 141 
 
 The Sacrifice 142 
 
 WAIFS 145 
 
 Song 154 
 
 Song 163 
 
 Sea Music 164 
 
 Weaving '[66 
 
 A Rage 167 
 
 SEA SONGS 168 
 
 Sea Dream 168 
 
 Rover's Love Song 171 
 
 A Sea Song 173 
 
 An Invocation 174 
 
 Port Royal 176 
 
 Vale 180 
 
 (3) 
 
WHEEEFOEE, 
 
 Old minstrel ocean hath a hundred harps, 
 Hanging in niches on the mossy walls 
 Of his resplendent coral palaces, 
 Down in his mystic kingdom of the deep. 
 Some, in the silence of perpetual sleep, 
 Are mouldering away in idleness, 
 Corroding with the damps of centuries, 
 With no soul to recall their melody. 
 Since Superstition fled the near approach 
 Of scornful cold-eyed science, and became 
 A forlorn haunter of forgottem tombs, 
 In empires smouldering through unfruitful years. 
 And there are others whose sweet minstrelsy 
 (5) 
 
WHEEEFORE. 
 
 Shall never falter. These the wanderer hears 
 
 Breathe through the silence of his ocean dream, 
 
 Mingled and indistinct, but powerful 
 
 To sooth to slumber or exalt to song. 
 
 Their's is the strain that summons to the dance, 
 
 In shell-paved halls, the ministers of mirth ; 
 
 To glad the hearts of ocean deities, 
 
 "With their rich prodigality of charms — 
 
 To drop a pictured curtain o'er their cares — 
 
 A waving wall of pantomimic shapes 
 
 Before the fading figures of their woes, 
 
 And with the mingled charm of sights and sounds 
 
 "Woo them into the realm of fantasy. 
 
 But there is one whose wild and warlike note 
 
 Startles the echoes of his empire round, 
 
 Hushing at once the myriad voices raised 
 
 In long resounding peals of merriment — 
 
 The harp of war, which marshals in his realm 
 
 The headlong warriors of his bold phalanx. 
 
WHEEEFORK 
 
 Arrayed for marches through aerial fields, 
 To meet the skurrying legions of the winds, 
 Shaking white terror from their tossing crests, 
 With shouts that jar the lofty firmament, 
 And make the soft stars veil their darling eyes 
 Behind their tumbling barrier of clouds. 
 The sailor hears the warning from afar. 
 And speeds his poor ship to protecting bays 
 With white wings flung aloft in fleecy folds, 
 Skimming the brine like osprey on the wing ; 
 And if o'erta'en in the unequal race 
 Close-reefs his sails and bravely meets the brunt 
 Of elemental war, and rides it out, 
 Or drifts a wreck along the tempest's track. 
 
 If I have snatched a passing note from thee, 
 O stem and troublous spirit of the deep, 
 O wild and boistrous singer of the sea, 
 And caged it in imagination's haunt 
 Till it hath grown a free and fearful thing. 
 
TFBEREFOItE. 
 
 Sometimes to cheer, but oft to torture me — 
 To torture me with restless wrestlings long, 
 And sudden thrills and rages — cold sea fears, 
 And all a strange soul's strange anxieties, 
 Then I must often sing in its conceit, 
 For silence when it speaks is maddening : 
 So rise, mysterious spirit, when thou wilt, 
 And I will raise my voice to quiet thee I 
 
THE VOICE OP A SHELL, 
 
 TEMPEST AND DESTTOY, 
 
 A PANORAMA. 
 
 I. 
 
 A FEAEFUL night ! by Jove, a furious night ! 
 The storm harps of the world have struck a strain, 
 Assembling nature's warriors to the field 
 Of their dread tourney on the heaving breast 
 Of a storm troubled ocean, there to tilt 
 Their fiery lances in the face of heaven, 
 And clang their armor in her startled ears ! 
 Hark how the armed echo of the shock 
 Runs rattling down the sounding halls of night ! 
 Behold old N'eptune, wakened by the sound, 
 Heave back the curtains of his moving couch 
 And shake his gray locks on the hurricane ! 
 Hear the hoarse murmur of his awful voice, 
 Proclaiming revel through his drowsy halls 
 As he partakes of passion's stirring wine — 
 (9) 
 
10 TEE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 Halloing to the keepers of his chase 
 To loose his pack of terror- throated dogs 
 To bay the mad game down his long arcades 1 
 The row is rife ; all powers save that of earth, 
 And she awe-struck and silent, join the rout, 
 Roar, rage and clamor with defiant lungs, ' 
 Swing their puissant arms and shriek full hoarse, 
 And mingle and contend in mad melee. 
 A furious night ! by Jove, a fearful night ! 
 II. 
 Look, where a solitary being stands, 
 Upon the top of yon high-lifted crag, 
 Whose base is stormed at by the yelling seas, 
 Whose brow is set against the worrying winds, 
 Whose scarred and bony bosom fronts the whole ! 
 As the last hero of a perished race — 
 The lonely remnant of a giant race — 
 Lifts his grim front among a thousand foes, 
 And lets them rave their feeble lives away, 
 In calm, heroic grandeur looking far 
 Out o'er their heads into another land. 
 Beyond the thick and curdled horizon, 
 Whither the grand hope of his soul has flown. 
 Upon his withered brow the figure stands, 
 With head erect and strong arms calmly crossed 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. ] 1 
 
 Upon a bosom of athletic breadth ; 
 
 Like work of art struck from the solid cliff, 
 
 "Wrought to adorn its native solitude, 
 
 And mock the rude destroyer at its feet. 
 
 Mark the expression on that marble face, 
 
 Full-set in its dark frame of falling hair. 
 
 And then the look in those stern steadfast eyes, 
 
 So eloquent of deep devouring thoughts. 
 
 A shadow rests upon that lofty brow, 
 
 White as sea-surf, and bared before the sweep 
 
 Of the swiil tempest's wings, as if within 
 
 Its alabaster walls a creature sleeps. 
 
 That he would fain awaken and set free. 
 
 Now buried in impenetrable gloom 
 
 The figure with its aspect is unseen, 
 
 As the dark curtain falls on all, o'er all — 
 
 A quick and awful heaping up of gloom. 
 
 Here we, pure chainless spirits, will abide — 
 
 We, boundless roamers of eternal wilds. 
 
 And plains, and floods, and strange chaotic wastes. 
 
 Who once had mortal bonds, and sometimes turn 
 
 From heavenly paths to look upon old scenes, 
 
 And watch the ones who wander in the shade 
 
 And shadow of this fluctuating sphere ; 
 
 Though while we mingle with the things of earth. 
 
12 THE VOICE OE A SHELL. 
 
 We don again the earth's infirmities. 
 
 Yes, here we'll hover in the tempest's time. 
 
 And watch this mortal till the tragic chain 
 
 That lies coiled up within his darkling mind 
 
 Becomes unwound by language or by act, 
 
 And shows the dusky splendor of his dreams, 
 
 !N"o sailor man upon his high look-out, 
 
 Though clad in raiment rough and simple, he ; 
 
 'Eo ready watchful attitude is his, 
 
 Like one who bends at every brilliant flash 
 
 His piercing glance athwart the raging night, 
 
 Far out to sea. A spirit of the time, 
 
 Companion of the storm, or part of it ; 
 
 Or some ill-omen'd bird of night seems he, 
 
 Perched on his eyrie, high and desolate, 
 
 With eyes that note his victim's gambolings 
 
 In the dread moment that precedes the spring. 
 
 Look once again ! the set of that white face 
 
 Has melted in the presence of a smile. 
 
 Which mounts the fine lip with a breathing scorn, 
 
 And seems half bitter by the dancing light 
 
 Of heaven's far-piercing, all-discerning eye ! 
 
 But hush, he speaks — the storm not wholly drowns 
 
 The ringing iatonations of that voice. 
 
 At once as steady and as passionate 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 13 
 
 As some shrill bugle playing to the winds ! 
 
 " Wrecks, lightnings, thunders and earth-shaking seas ! 
 
 Fierce joy and terror join in mutual war 
 
 And make the sea and sky their battle fields. 
 
 Charging their gusty legions o'er the land 
 
 As if to hold the hearts of man in awe, 
 
 And teach how poor his grandest passions are. 
 
 All men, I mean, save me ; I cannot fear 
 
 What have been my companions since the hour 
 
 That brought the light of consciousness to me — 
 
 Companions I have loved and still must love 
 
 While this brain holds its melancholy guest, 
 
 And this heart burns with energy divine ! 
 
 Hear how they roar around this gray old crag, 
 
 Which they have pounded these five thousand years, 
 
 But all in vain ; for firm as at his birth 
 
 His feet stand steadfast planted in the flood, 
 
 His proud head held erect among the clouds. 
 
 My soul 's at home in this wild company ; 
 
 In their fierce natures dwells a sympathy — 
 
 A kinder love for my old brooding thoughts 
 
 Than the cold manner of mankind betrays. 
 
 There is a glory in this god-like strife, 
 
 An exhibition of sublimest strength 
 
 That wakes an antique spirit in my breast,. 
 
14 TEE VOICE OF A SSELL. 
 
 And makes me feel that I have some time known, 
 
 Back in the gloom of the heroic past, 
 
 Another being and a nobler life, 
 
 Compared with which this dim existence seems 
 
 The fleeting phantom of abnormal dreams. 
 
 'Tis but a flash — a momentary gleam 
 
 Shooting across the closed abyss of time. 
 
 Lighting a breath these crumbhng walls of clay^ — 
 
 A transient ray, but oh, more eloquent 
 
 Of what concerns the soul's vast destiny 
 
 Than all the world's profound philosophy ! 
 
 A golden link in that enormous chain 
 
 "Which binds our beiug with the vast sublime, 
 
 And up whose submerged sections now we grope, 
 
 Watching for glintings of the upper day. 
 
 Grand and complete it looks to angel eyes. 
 
 Girdling the forehead of the Infinite — 
 
 The thread on which creation's gems are strung. 
 
 Strung like the pearls upon a beauty's brow, 
 
 The dazzling spheres in due gradation placed 
 
 As mounts the gradual scale of excellence. 
 
 But viewed by medium of human ken 
 
 It seems but fragmentary — ^incomplete. 
 
 Life is too short, and man too blind to trace 
 
 Its subtle windiQgs or compute its scope ; 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 15 
 
 Only a little glimmer now and then 
 
 Of precious light reveals its lustrous coil, 
 
 A little length, wound in life's bottom sands. 
 
 In light or shadow, as the fickle glass 
 
 Through which we view things is serene or foul, 
 
 Clear or obscure as pain- waves ebb or flow. 
 
 Would that my nature, like these elements. 
 
 Could grant a respite after every strife. 
 
 Could let calm peace succeed the rage of hell, 
 
 'Stead of the cold return to joyless gloom, 
 
 The doors of which yawn to receive me back, 
 
 As dungeon doors gape for the prisoner 
 
 While he toils fiercely 'neath the master's lash. 
 
 Oh, for some lovely loving human heart 
 
 Of which to make my hope's firm anchorage ! 
 
 A haven for my life's far-wandering bark 
 
 To rest in when the hot typhoon is spent ! 
 
 That I might taste of love, and tasting live, 
 
 As others in God's glorious sunlight breathe. 
 
 Blessing and blessed through the long gladsome years, 
 
 Whicii bring their little cares, but heaps of love, 
 
 And hope and sweet companionship, all crowned 
 
 With a fair faith and hope in bliss beyond — 
 
 In glorious vistas opening up beyond — 
 
 Toward which they move with step unfaltering. 
 
15" TEE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 How far from such is this loose dream of mine, 
 
 Broken and disconnected, winding on 
 
 In deep obscurity, but flashing out 
 
 At intervals a broad and brilliant flame, 
 
 Hot and vehement ! instantaneous scenes 
 
 Thrown 'gainst a background of the deepest black, 
 
 Betraying in a single pulse of time 
 
 What should be gathered by the toil of years. 
 
 Still 'tis some joy to know that I exist. 
 
 Since this existence is the strangest thing — 
 
 The maddest thing of all conceived things — 
 
 The chmax of all unreality ! 
 
 For is that real which so soon dissolves, 
 
 And is at once as if it ne'er had been ? 
 
 But yesterday, a pale and trembling star 
 
 Set on a reef amidst the breakers' reel ; 
 
 To-day, a beacon on a storm-jarred rock. 
 
 Warring and fierce, while drop by drop the oil 
 
 Wastes from the vessel, and without, the shock — 
 
 The tireless strokes of strong determined foes — 
 
 Threaten its instant everlasting fall ; 
 
 To-morrow — where, among the wrecks of things 
 
 May its storm-sundered, sad remains be found ? 
 
 It cannot be ! reality assumes 
 
 Ko such unstable, ignis fatuus proof. 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. yj 
 
 But owns a self distinct from dull decay : 
 Else why this impulse ever reaching up, 
 And pushing onward, onward eagerly, 
 Toward something that e'er eludes the grasp ? 
 The primary stage of universal truth, 
 Its past a life of god-like innocence ; 
 The infant state of our progressive life, 
 "With death the door to an advanced degree — 
 The threshold of a higher, more complete ; 
 Thus on o'er paths that ever upward tend, 
 The soul unsatisfied pursues its way, 
 Drinking from purer fountains as it goes, 
 Until the mind, prepared, can calmly view 
 Creation's majesty from God's own star. 
 Such, something tells me, is the way and end 
 Of those who dare to combat and to soarj 
 And I am fain to heed that inner voice, 
 That sings its song in spite of the tumult 
 For aye endeavoring to drown it down, 
 Believing only in reality 
 As it exists in some last perfect state. 
 But quite enough of this philosophy. 
 Which tends but to the mind's bewilderment ; 
 As vain as all such word-philosophies. 
 Springing in speculative idleness 
 
18 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 From soils drained of all vital nourishment — 
 
 Plants of gigantic growth, but void of sap, 
 
 Or pith or sinew, but where sweet birds sing 
 
 Some thrilling songs a little while and die, 
 
 As constitutional decay creeps up 
 
 With secret progress through the poisoned veins, 
 
 Till branch by limb the vast illusion sinks 
 
 And sudden falls, as rotten empires fall. 
 
 Crumbling to naught before the rising sun 
 
 Of some long-suffering and patient soul, 
 
 "Whose work is grounded on the lives of men ; 
 
 Yes, quite enough of this philosophy — 
 
 And yet methinks it suits right well the hour, 
 
 "Which is brimful of desperate conceits ! 
 
 Men have gone mad by feasting on such fruit, 
 
 And it was just ! for man is formed to act, 
 
 Using his fancy as a medium 
 
 To fuse his several gifts, thus forming one 
 
 Grand combination and harmonious whole 
 
 Of elements ordained susceptible 
 
 Of union by the will's cute chemistry — 
 
 A wall of equal strength to break the foe. 
 
 In vain he plunges in that seething lake 
 
 "Whose tide returns but wrecks unto the shore — 
 
 That depth of speculation which confounds 
 
TEMPEST ul^D DESTINY. " 19 
 
 The powers and breeds uncertain fantasies ! 
 Here will I check nay life's too careless course, 
 And train it to strong action's thoroughfare. 
 Let this suffice : a beacon will I build, 
 Under the base of yon projecting rock, 
 Whose gray head leans attentive o'er the edge 
 Of the bold precipice, as if to note 
 If the rude sea encroach on his domain. 
 Its Kght will be more constant than the flame 
 Of quick-dissolving lightnings of the sky. 
 There, where grim wreckers in the by-gone times 
 Reared funeral piles to children of the sea, 
 Will I, almost as fierce of heart as they, 
 Heap up the funereal pyre of fantasy, 
 And watch the pale ghosts of my many ills 
 Arise in smoke and dissipate in night." 
 
 And still the reckless revel rattles on ! 
 
 III. 
 
 What, has the night-bird quit his airy roost ? 
 His cry has ceased to wail along the storm ; 
 We hear the old winds howl in epic rage, 
 As if to rouse the stolid rocks to hear ; 
 And as if in some iron vault beneath, 
 An uncouth beast stalks restless to and fro, 
 
20 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Growling his discontent, we hear the waves 
 
 Roaring and snarling in their vicious way, 
 
 But not a human voice mixed in with them. 
 
 Watch till the eye of night again unclose 
 
 To view the desperation of the scene. 
 
 Ah, there it dances, and the owl is there. 
 
 Still brooding— brooding — in his loneliness ; 
 
 Still groping in his mind's dim cabinet 
 
 For the lost source of fancy's fickle star, 
 
 With eyes on which the light of joy falls dead — 
 
 Shines dead as moonbeam on a stagnant pool, 
 
 So long have old illusions fed their sight. 
 
 Yet we must love this strong impassioned soul — 
 
 This wild enraptured poet of the heart, 
 
 Whose song moves with the measure of the winds, 
 
 And moves with woe the heavy ear of heaven ! 
 
 Hark ! there his sad complainings go again, 
 
 Swelling the howling chorus of the gods ! 
 
 " I cannot move — I cannot act — my brain 
 
 Seems burning up, and on my bosom's throne 
 
 A bitter spirit has presumed to sit, 
 
 And taunt me with the melancholy there ! 
 
 But let him sneer ; my torch shall scare him hence, 
 
 Back to his dreary dungeon in the ground ; 
 
 While she shall see its glimmer from her room, 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 21 
 
 And pity me my utter wretchedness ! 
 
 She pity me ! How quick my bosom's fiend 
 
 Ceases his scoffing when I think of her, 
 
 Whose love would change the tenor of my dreams, 
 
 And throne an angel where a demon sits ! 
 
 Oh what a mine of love lies in this breast, 
 
 Beneath its ever working mass of care. 
 
 Oh, what a throng of glorious desires 
 
 Sleeps in this clouded temple of the joys, 
 
 Repressed by stern misfortune's icy hand ! 
 
 O lone and melancholy, loved by none ; 
 
 O lone and melancholy, loving still — 
 
 Most fondly her who cannot feel a touch 
 
 Of aught more strong than pity in her breast, 
 
 For one whose brain is maddening for her love ; 
 
 For one whose heart is wilting for her smile ; 
 
 For one who snatched from the devouring waves 
 
 Her precious life, one night just such as this ; 
 
 When the wan reaper stalked sublimely forth 
 
 To gather in his harvest on the deep, 
 
 And heaven was burdened with the cries of men 
 
 Torn V5T:estling from their little hold of life, 
 
 To find a port in some lone coral cave, 
 
 While wrath and wreck were orders of the hour. 
 
 Would I had perished at the very time 
 
22 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL, 
 
 That saw her safe, ere she had quit my arms, 
 
 In whose embrace she cold and dripping lay, 
 
 So pale and limber that I thought her dead ; 
 
 "While the sweet kiss with which I called her back 
 
 To consciousness yet thrilled my being's core, 
 
 Waking a bliss I had not known before. 
 
 Then I had done a worthy thing indeed, 
 
 And she, perhaps, would hold my memory dear — 
 
 More dear for dying in her dear defence, 
 
 Than living but to make my madness known. 
 
 But when I ponder, oft I laugh perforce — 
 
 E'en in the moment of sharp agony ; 
 
 Laugh with a glee spasmodically wild — ■. 
 
 A humor overpowering and absurd, 
 
 To recognize in this absurdest mood 
 
 The night-hawk's passion for the turtle-dove. 
 
 "Was ever anything so fondly vain ? 
 
 Was love ever wed with folly like to this ? 
 
 For who could love a creature of my sort — 
 
 A dreamer of strange dreams, whose gaiety 
 
 Was not that fascinating flow of joy 
 
 Which certain natures have inherited — 
 
 That magnet which attracts in restless throngs 
 
 The shallow votaries of void conceits. 
 
 And holds a power which but too oft usurps 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 23 
 
 The noble place assigned to honest worth, 
 
 Winning an angel to true love's despair ! 
 
 Mine was a mirth most silent and most deep, 
 
 And full of ecstacy both deep and still — 
 
 The music of a heart too wildly strung, 
 
 Fed on imaginative fruit too young. 
 
 A haunter of old mouldering ruins, I, 
 
 Where the owl mourned the prostrate centuries ; 
 
 A frequenter of ancient battle fields 
 
 Spread out beneath the still watch of the stars. 
 
 Forming in waking dreams the warlike ghosts 
 
 Of the old armies that contended there, 
 
 Into live regiments, brigades and squads, 
 
 And marching them in chivalrous array 
 
 To battle for imaginary fair ; 
 
 Watching the wild flow of their shadowy flags. 
 
 Led to the charge upon the frightened wind, 
 
 And fancying each gust the dying shout 
 
 Of many stricken heroes in their pain ; 
 
 Feeling the hot whirl of attack and rout. 
 
 Skirmish, retreat and rally and deploy. 
 
 Gyrating round me as I sat entranced — 
 
 Strung with heroic energy the while, 
 
 The rapt director of two destinies. 
 
 Then, when the cloud of chimeric war passed off. 
 
24 TKB VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 And every armed ghost gone at my command, 
 
 I gathered relics from the hamited sea 
 
 To treasure up as miser does his gold, 
 
 To dream and ponder o'er in solitude. 
 
 Was this a picture for a girlish heart, 
 
 O'erflowing with love's romance and desire, 
 
 To treasure up apart from everything 
 
 Within its inmost secret sohtude ? 
 
 Yet I was happy, strangely happy then, 
 
 When suddenly, the vision of that face, 
 
 Dawning like sunburst on my desert path, 
 
 Burst up a smouldering mountain in my breast. 
 
 Damming the current of my life's still stream, 
 
 Kolling its volumes back upon my heart, 
 
 There to ferment and boil within the heat 
 
 Of that volcano's unrestricted wrath. 
 
 Not since that time has lovely peace essayed 
 
 To brave the inner tempest and resume 
 
 The throne she was constrained to abdicate. 
 
 The temple where she held her glittering court. 
 
 With all its vast and varied pageantry ; 
 
 Its dreamy halls, intoxicating heights, 
 
 Its opening vistas, winy atmosphere, 
 
 The glory of its fairy summer- land 
 
 Is now a ruin where all black shapes flit, 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTIXY. 25 
 
 Cradle of whirlwinds and all furious things ; 
 
 A waste of twisted labyrinthine ways — 
 
 O'ergrown and dangerous, treacherous maze — 
 
 Through which my winged thoughts are doomed to rush 
 
 Without the hope of reaching any gaol ! 
 
 Enough ! I'll dream no more, but bravely act, 
 
 Though in the acting I go wholly mad ! 
 
 Shall I go mad ? a fearful question, that, 
 
 Involving every horror, fear, disgust — 
 
 All that is loathesome to the heart of man. 
 
 Why does that cold appalling terror rise 
 
 So oft of late to shake me like a leaf 
 
 Struck by an icy current from the north ? 
 
 Because I hear it whispered in my ear 
 
 By some persistent little fiend of hell — 
 
 * Mad as the storm, in storm thy star shall set.' 
 
 Enough ! such thoughts I'll entertain no more, 
 
 Though they be prophets of unerring tongue ! 
 
 In vain the contest, so I'll kindle up 
 
 The holacaust of spirits such as they." 
 
 Starting with cautious motion from his stand, 
 With feeling steps he gropes along the crag, 
 And down a steep declivity to where 
 A little cave the lightning has revealed 
 Sunk in the bony bosom of the earth. 
 
26 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 A ragged wound torn in the giant's ribs, 
 
 From which a pile of fuel he brings forth, 
 
 And clambers down a long descent with it, 
 
 O'er boulders black and burnt that scattered lie, 
 
 Where thunderbolts have hurled them from on high ; 
 
 And chasms that 'mong the splintered ruins lurk, 
 
 To trap the careless footstep in the dark. 
 
 Placing his heavy burden at the foot 
 
 Of an o'ertopping tower of adamant, 
 
 Whose leaning form make a protected space 
 
 Of many feet under its even base, 
 
 He forms the whole into a pyramid, 
 
 In which he thrusts a miniature brand. 
 
 Forth from the dry mass darts a little spark, 
 
 Which leaps and rises to a stalwart fiend 
 
 That stretches fiery fingers forth for food ; 
 
 A crimson flame upon the crest of night, 
 
 Waving the hovering shadows o'er the brink 
 
 Of the tremendous downright precipice ; 
 
 Warming the rugged rocks with ruddy glow, 
 
 And faintly touching up the scene below. 
 
 And still the furious can-can rattles on ! 
 
 lY. 
 
 Oh ! 'tis a fearful thing for man to feel 
 The fatal gift of genius in his breast ! 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 27 
 
 That dread prerogative, creative power, 
 
 Whose influence scathes all that it breathes upon ; 
 
 To hear that voice imperative within 
 
 Forever crying for mysterious things, 
 
 In language like the worrying of guilt — 
 
 A language that hath no interpreter; 
 
 To feel the burning ftirnace of the brain 
 
 Mould of its heaped-up mass a living life, 
 
 To move expansive through immensity, 
 
 Mocking the deadly pride that gave it birth ! 
 
 Oh, the fierce cravings of that prisoner, 
 
 Who caged in flesh doth rend his prison house 
 
 With harpy instincts uncontrollable ! 
 
 Whose giant size demands a wider scope — 
 
 A boundless pleasure field in which to build, 
 
 Alone, unheeded, wedded to his strength, 
 
 Cramped in his dungeon walls of wasting clay, 
 
 He makes a hideous hell of his confines 
 
 In the o'erstrong necessity for war 
 
 Inseparable from those chaotic souls 
 
 Which build on ruins their immortal fames. 
 
 The watcher stands with sad and dreamy eye 
 Fixed on the beacon's fluctuating flare, 
 As if he traces in its glowing heart 
 
28 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Passions like those that mutilate his own, 
 
 And watches calmly to hehold the end. 
 
 " In vain ! I see how mad is the attempt 
 
 To stay the onward current of my fate, 
 
 Which bears me on and on, I know not where. 
 
 Now do I learn at last the latent truth 
 
 That I have ever pinched myself in vain 
 
 With scruples idle as the idlest thing ; 
 
 How useless 'tis to battle with these foes, 
 
 Whose pride will suffer no competitors ; 
 
 That nothing which the Infinite has fixed 
 
 May be combatted, questioned or defined, 
 
 But all accepted with humility, 
 
 Chaff with the wheat, dross with the precious ore 
 
 'Till Time shall sift and separate the heap. 
 
 I am like one of those mysterious wrecks 
 
 Which sailors tell of with a shrinking awe, 
 
 Seen on white midnights far as southern seas, 
 
 Forever drifting — drifting ceaselessly ; 
 
 No mortal hand to work the idle wheel 
 
 Or trim the sails to every veering breeze ; 
 
 Impelled by secret currents of the waste 
 
 Of dim confused distracted elements. , 
 
 They tell of voices sad and wondrous sweet 
 
 Rising at times from their deserted holds, 
 
TEIfPEST AND DESTINY. 29 
 
 Of songs that steal the listening seas along, 
 
 Filling the void of night with melody — 
 
 That haunts forevermore the listener's soul, 
 
 And sometimes, too, as one stalks silent by, 
 
 Flooded with ghastly waves of lunar light, 
 
 A rippling laugh floats through the hollow ports, 
 
 And the hull shakes with ghastly merriment, 
 
 As if a band of ghouls held revel there ; 
 
 Again, a single desolating cry, 
 
 Followed by low complainings, may be heard, 
 
 And then the rotting hulk steals slowly by — 
 
 And disappears upon the horizon — 
 
 Crumbling away upon the horizon, 
 
 Gone, as it came upon them, like a dream. 
 
 Such are the mysteries that make my life 
 
 An exhibition for the curious, 
 
 And me an object to be pointed at — 
 
 A mark for fools to aim their arrows at ! 
 
 I am the ^vretched slave of wayward sprites, 
 
 Who make my faculties the vehicle 
 
 To bear their foibles through the ways of men I 
 
 Reft of all power to act my own resolves, 
 
 I feel their cutting reins direct my course, 
 
 Forcing me o'er an ever shifting way. 
 
 I little reck how it may terminate — 
 
30 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 'Tis a condition I have come to loathe, 
 This singing, singing my old wailing songs, 
 The weary, weary songs that never cease, 
 The same old weary wailings o'er and o'er. 
 "Welcome such change as comes to hberate, 
 Be it as mirth or madness, anything — 
 E'en death, so it but brings oblivion 
 To fold his cloudy mantle o'er all." 
 
 A charge of Titans overpowers the voice 
 Of the sad singer of the solitude. 
 But hark ! above the infernal worrying 
 Of their far failing voices, inland borne, 
 A lithe light footstep rings upon the rock, 
 And a fair girlish form, wrapped in the folds 
 Of a dark sea-cloak, pauses at his side ; 
 A lovely hand throws back a sheltering hood, 
 Letting a cataract of tresses fall 
 Around a bust of perfect symmetry; 
 A face of loveHness most exquisite, 
 With eyes that look things all unspeakable 
 From their impassioned darkly brilliant depths, 
 Glows in the firelight strangely animate, 
 Flushed and vivacious with pure exercise. 
 With parted lips of love and fluttering breath. 
 
TEMPEST A^D DESTINY. 31 
 
 Sweet as tlie breath of winds from fairy isles, 
 She stands like some dear angel of the spheres 
 Sent on a mission of humanity ! 
 
 One rapid glance the startled watcher throws 
 Upon this lovely vision of the night, 
 "With sudden exclamation crying out — 
 *' You, Mora, here in such a storm as this ? 
 What can have brought you out at such a time ! 
 Has aught occurred at home to fetch you here, 
 Flying like sweet ghost on a warrior's watch ? 
 Speak quick, or I shall think your spirit come 
 To warn me of some unexpected harm ! " 
 
 " Grant me but time to catch my breath again, 
 And I will prove to you I am no ghost. 
 Although I've taken their proverbial hour 
 To venture out into this dreadful storm. 
 Kg — ^no — ^nothing unusual has occurred — 
 Pa has departed for the Mangrove Beach 
 Against the tempest to secure the boats ; 
 I could not rest alone at such a time. 
 And I had set myself to watching, when 
 A light shone suddenly into my room. 
 And then I feared a thunderbolt had fired 
 
32 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Some fated vessel on this lonely coast. 
 So I threw on my cloak and hastened out, 
 All fearful that my fears were certainties, 
 And that my eyes should see another wreck. 
 So now I'm joyful, being undeceived, 
 Although to find you here, Mark, at this hour, 
 In this vocation, sadly puzzles me. 
 Are you not ill ? Your face looks very pale ; 
 Your eyes have not their old accustomed look, 
 But wear an aspect wild and wandering. 
 As if some trouble preys upon your mind. 
 And all your manner seems distracted too." 
 
 One foam- white hand falls gently on the sleeve 
 . Of his rough jacket with a tender grace, 
 
 While a young fear looks from those darling eyes 
 
 And steals o'er all those lovely lineaments. 
 
 Imparting an inquiring earnestness, 
 
 Ev'n blending with the music of her voice. 
 
 "Do tell me, pray, what means this midnight toil; 
 
 Why bums this beacon on this lonely spot ? 
 
 Oh, what if some poor toiling mariners 
 
 Should see its glimmer shining from afar, 
 
 And take it for a friendly guide designed 
 
 To show their storm-tossed ship a welcome port I 
 
TEMPEST AND BESTIXY. 33 
 
 How sad would be such a catastrophe, 
 
 When waking from this dream of danger past — 
 
 Of needed rest in sweet security, 
 
 They look and see but death stands black before ! 
 
 The very thought of it disturbs my soul, 
 
 And makes me feel almost as cold as death. 
 
 But, Mark, I'm sure you did not think of that ; 
 
 Your generous heart would not have bid the risk. 
 
 Come ! tell me all at once, for a strange fear 
 
 Is creeping o'er me like an icy chill." 
 
 Still the fandango of the gods goes on ! 
 
 V. 
 
 Still the wild tumult of the night goes on ! 
 But what is that to those that shake the soul — 
 Those stormful storms within that shake the soul. 
 And rock the slender tower of their faith 
 Who know not that behind this discord dark — 
 This seeming hap-hazard of crazy fate — 
 Lurks the small germ of an immortal joy, 
 As life lurks in corruption. Who know not 
 That these high thrills of wild and sweet regret 
 Are prophesies of passion, piercing, pure, 
 Aspiring to regain her ancient sway 
 Over her darkened and engulfed domain. 
 
34 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 See how these wakeful hearts torment themselves 
 
 With vague but sweet and subtle mysteries ! 
 
 Quite heedless of the outer storm they stand, 
 
 Immersed in shifting waves of yellow light 
 
 That weave weird wizzards on the warped walls 
 
 Standing up old and haggard on the sky, 
 
 A growing rent in night's monastic robe, 
 
 Which hasty hands in vain attempt to mend, 
 
 Her gaze, half-fearful and half-pleading, meets 
 
 In his changed orbs a new and sudden light ; 
 
 His bosom lifts and sinks, his warrior's form 
 
 Seems to experience a magic growth ; 
 
 His strong brown hand has clasped the foam-white one 
 
 That fluttered bird-like on his sinewy arm ; 
 
 His vivid face betrays a rosy flush, 
 
 Imparted by no outward circumstance ; 
 
 His voice has caught a thrill of ecstacy — 
 
 The strong sweet music of a lover's tones. 
 
 " Come farther in the firelight ; these sea winds 
 
 Are fliU of damp diseases ; I would hold 
 
 Myself a guilty wretch did you take ill 
 
 In consequence of this experience. 
 
 Now calm, I pray you, your excited fears, 
 
 And listen while I briefly answer make ; 
 
 For, Mora, I have much to say to-night 
 
TJEMPEST AND DESTIXY. 35 
 
 Which may not bide a more propitious time. 
 I could not slesp nor rest ; my mind, alert, 
 Required employment, and my hands did yield 
 Unto its fierce demand and formed this pile 
 To lend a constant color to the scene. 
 And this is why I hover like a bird 
 Of ill portent o'er this old monument. 
 Upon my soul I did not think of harm 
 To any wandering creatures of the sea ! 
 My only wish was to combat the fiend 
 That tortures me so terribly to-night. 
 Oh, Mora ! I have had such wicked dreams 
 Through all the terrors of this wicked night ! 
 My mind, I think, would have been wholly lost, 
 Amid the press of swift and tempting shapes, 
 Had I not thought of you, and so was saved. 
 Your spirit's presence checked its onward drift, 
 And caused a calm temper to prevail. 
 Oh you have power to change at once for aye 
 This doubting, fearing state — this living death — 
 For one of constant and substantial joy ! 
 You are the umpire of a fearful game 
 Between the destinies that play for souls ! 
 Mine's now at stake — with you the issue rests — 
 With your affection, life and hope and joy ! 
 
 
36 TEE VOICE OE A SEELL. 
 
 Without it, doom too liard to contemplate — 
 
 A doom whose very shadow shakes the soul ! 
 
 When first I told you of my passion's birth, 
 
 You bade me wait 'till time had rendered you 
 
 A better knowledge of a heart too young 
 
 To know the nature of its tender need. 
 
 So I have waited — waited on for years, 
 
 Without another hope to solace me 
 
 Save that uncertain one. ISTo more, no more 
 
 Leave me to preying doubts, but let this hour 
 
 Become my Delphi, you the oracle, 
 
 Proclaiming auguries of weal or woe ! 
 
 Oh darling ! darling ! I can love with love 
 
 More strong than yonder ocean in his strength, 
 
 Constant to thee as to the moon his tides ! 
 
 All shall be thine — aye, all — I'll worship thee 
 
 With all the passion of a tropic heart, 
 
 I promise all a woman's heart can crave 
 
 Of love and peace and sunshine of the soul — 
 
 Realization of the fondest dreams 
 
 That ever fired a breast with sweet desires. 
 
 Ay, I dare promise everything of worth 
 
 If you will place your dear heart in my trust. 
 
 Speak quick, and say how it shall be with me ! 
 
 So, darling, so ! now answer from thy heart ! " 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 37 
 
 His arm has drawn her slender form to him, 
 Her luscious lips have felt his thrilling kiss, 
 Her lustrous eyes have drunk his thirsting glance, 
 Her senses almost reel; but she protests, 
 Struggling, though gently, in his close embrace, 
 More beautiful in this her maiden shame, 
 More warmly, sweetly human than before ! 
 O moment of unutterable joy, 
 To him whose heart is love, and love is heaven ! 
 O bright spot 'twixt two wastes all desolate — 
 All destitute of any freshening spring 
 Where a toil-spent and weary soul may quaff 
 The fresh and renovating cup of life ! 
 One, the bare desert of unfruitful years, 
 The other — draw the veil, man cannot view 
 With his weak earthly eyes its mysteries, 
 And hope to slumber quietly again. 
 Ah, let us hover closer to these too ! 
 For we were mortal once, and so have felt 
 These sweet sensations warm the willing blood. 
 Which in one moment of its tender rage 
 Holds more of truth than slow and weary fears 
 Of slavish toil for knowledge can attain. 
 But listen while the scenic vision winds 
 On toward the entrance of that higher stage. 
 
38 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Whose flaming lights are in the actors' eyes. 
 
 " No, Mark, not so, that was a wicked kiss ! 
 
 Release me, pray — 'tis shame to hold me thus ! 
 
 Oh what could prompt an act so dangerous ! 
 
 None ever treated me this way before ! 
 
 But now be calm and hear what I've to say; 
 
 That I do fully understand you now 
 
 I cannot doubt ; poor Mark ! I did not think 
 
 That my imprudent words were so construed 
 
 As to promote this passion in your breast 
 
 Which I regarded as a transient thing, 
 
 Born of an idle fancy of the hour. 
 
 Would I had known the nature of your heart 
 
 Ere you had fed yourself so long on hope ! 
 
 I long have thought that you had ceased to feel 
 
 For me as any but a brother feels 
 
 Toward a true and only sister ; so 
 
 The tender subject you have broached to-night 
 
 Recalls something I had forgotten quite. 
 
 Oh ! do not stare me in that awful way I 
 
 I do believe you love me as you say, 
 
 Though why 'tis so I cannot understand. 
 
 I'm but a weak, perhaps a fickle, girl, 
 
 Without accomplishments or arts beyond 
 
 What nature and my humble station gave ; 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 39 
 
 Unworthy to possess a love like yours — 
 
 Incompetent, I fear, to comprehend 
 
 A nature so much subtler than my own, 
 
 So high removed from my poor little world. 
 
 Hear and believe me, I conjure you, Mark ; 
 
 Be calm and think, and you'll perceive at once — 
 
 Will realize as I do that 'tis best 
 
 We should remain as we have ever been 
 
 Toward each other, dear and faithful friends ; 
 
 That natures separated as are ours 
 
 By such an intellectual barrier, 
 
 In forming this most sacred tie of earth, 
 
 Should choose each one a more congenial soul. 
 
 Go mingle with the world that you have shunned — 
 
 The world that has a balm for every wound — 
 
 And find affection that your nature craves, 
 
 Where every impulse is interpreted, 
 
 And love possesses knowledge to perceive 
 
 The soul's distemper and apply the cure. 
 
 You have a genius that would win you fame, 
 
 And love and honor, in its proper sphere ; 
 
 Why let it, then, drift on this dubious tide, 
 
 Subjected to the world's most killing shocks ? 
 
 Why not aspire to lead it higher up, 
 
 And place it where it may expand and shine, 
 
40 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Secure among its kindred elements ? 
 
 Mark, my preserver, I have wronged you much 
 
 In keeping you in this anxiety ; 
 
 Say you forgive me, and I will atone 
 
 For past neglect by yielding you that love 
 
 Which burns the purer, having less of self — 
 
 The gentle reverence of a sister's heart. 
 
 Say you forgive me and accept my gift 
 
 (Renewed — redoubled — since you love me so), 
 
 Thus we may banish all unhappiness ; 
 
 For I am sure you have weighed well my words 
 
 And clearly see how near they touch the truth. 
 
 Then we will quit this evil spot. Come, come." 
 
 An icy light has crept into his eyes 
 "While drinking in her golden wine of words — 
 A light so deeply piercing, and intense 
 In its wild fixedness that all the face 
 Seems turned to marble in its pallid blaze. 
 Thrice he essays to speak, and thrice his voice 
 Fails like the effort of a freezing man. 
 A moment, and the power comes ebbing back 
 In chilling ice streams trickling from his lips, 
 Which yield them passage as it were by force. 
 " You have not told me all — something remains 
 Which you in vain are trying to conceal ! 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 41 
 
 Mora, my sight is very clear to-night ! 
 Methinks I see a shadow on your heart — 
 A human shadow, which absorbs in you 
 The fresh stream of your thoughts as it runs on 
 With all its native fire and energy. 
 Something you hope — something anticipate, 
 More than your lips have yet disclosed to me. 
 Perched like a bird upon yon dizzy crag, 
 To-day I saw you looking out to sea, 
 Long, with your glass bent on the horizon, 
 To every point the bold lookout exposed ; 
 Oft you would turn away, as oft return. 
 And gaze as if your soul was in your eyes ; 
 Then with impatient gesture sit you down, 
 And toss loose pebbles down into the sea, 
 To which you seemed to be addressing words, 
 As if endeavoring to work a charm 
 Upon the idle waters of the main. 
 The circumstance most unaccountably 
 Called up a restless spirit on my mind, 
 "Who tortured me with unremitting spite. 
 Till suddenly he ceased, and whispering said. 
 In chuckling accents from his husky throat : 
 * The sea bird looketh for her absent mate. 
 Who rideth home on hot wings from afar.' 
 
42 TSE VOICE OE A SHELL. ' 
 
 You have a lover on the sea to-night, 
 Whose welfare is yonr great solicitude. 
 I know it ! it was not enough to know 
 That I must crave so fondly and in vain 
 That joy which is the essence of all joys, 
 "Without the awful fact that I must live 
 To see it added to another's lot ! " 
 
 E'en as he speaks the current slowly thaws, 
 As in the light of a returning sun ; 
 And now the moist proof gems the dusky fringe 
 That hangs upon the margin of those wells 
 Of changing passion, deep and wonderful. 
 *' But I am wild and know not what I say ! 
 And though I struggle to be rational, 
 Love is unreasoning, and will not yield 
 Her lawless empire to cold logic's sway. 
 iN'ay, do not speak — I know what you would say- 
 That he is noble, generous and brave. 
 I fully understand your woman's heart, 
 And trust its longings may be realized — 
 That heaven may bring him safely to your arms. 
 Tour hand ! for I accept your proffered gift, 
 And pledge myself to keep it sacred as 
 The struggling soul to which I fold it close. 
 By a quick flash of reason I perceive 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 43 
 
 How much of truth your reasoning comprehends, 
 
 How deeply wiser woman is than man, 
 
 How quicker to dive to the heart of things, 
 
 And bring up hidden knowledge to the light. 
 
 You have divined the structure of my soul 
 
 By an admirable insight, but who 
 
 Shall analyze these phantoms of my brain ! 
 
 This clear cool glance shall flee like airy shape 
 
 Before the light of my attendant moon. 
 
 Whose mystic rays again traverse my brain. 
 
 I hold a desolating genius whose 
 
 Strange cravings naught on earth can satisfy, 
 
 A gnawing hunger for — I know not what — 
 
 Born with my birth and nursed by circumstance, 
 
 Outstripping will in a neglected soil — 
 
 A garden given to the growth of chance. 
 
 It is a primitive and fixed decree, 
 
 A burden I must bear unto the end 
 
 "Without the knowledge of its source or aim. 
 
 Oh, will these straightening tortures never cease ! 
 
 See you yon precipice's awful jaw ? 
 
 Hear you those wolves that cry for mortal prey ? 
 
 But, Mora, come ; this is no place for you ; 
 
 The fire is almost out, the clamorous hour 
 
 Suits not the tender nature of your thoughts 
 
44 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Leave me to its familiar fantasies — 
 Ahj leave me to my madness and the storm 1 
 But what a fool ! Come, Mora, take my arm, 
 This once, at least, I'll be like other men — 
 Gods ! that's the soul of all the elements ! " 
 
 A blinding flash that seems to split in twain 
 Heaven's overcrowded amphitheatre, 
 Jumps from the folds of an o'erhanging cloud, 
 Leaps crackling down the staircase of the sky, 
 And plunges hissing in the boiling brine, 
 Leaving the darkness to reverberate 
 "With hollow bello wings from the throat of night. 
 A low cry quivers from the maiden's lips, 
 She seizes with a quick convulsive hand 
 Her dark companion's poised outpointing arm, 
 Points with the other out along the sea — 
 Along the rising sinking hills of sea — 
 And cries with terrified distracted voice, 
 " Look, Mark ! oh God ! I see it there — a ship I 
 'Tis gone — it hung all quivering on the top 
 Of a gigantic overwhelming wave ! 
 I saw it there as plainly as could be ! 
 'Tis as I feared — this light has guided here 
 Some hapless sailors of the midnight sea ! 
 
TE3IPEST AXD BESTI^^'T. 45 
 
 Ohj 3Iark ! you are a man — do something, pray ! 
 Shout — shriek — and warn them ere it is too late ! " 
 
 " Already 'tis too late ! the stern decree 
 Has passed, and here I stand a murderer ! 
 His will be done who aimed this awful blow ! 
 Now, Heaven, let thy unhappy creature die ! . . . 
 My race is up — my being's unknown sun 
 Goes out and leaves its baser tenement 
 Low smouldering in the ruin of its fall ! 
 Now yells again that demon in my ears — 
 * Mad as the storm, in storm thy star shall set ! ' 
 Now those dim objects in my horizon 
 Start from their places, form, and wall me in 
 A wall that has a thousand burning eyes ! 
 "Welcome, thou last and consummating curse 
 And swallow up the creature of thy love ! " 
 His voice rings shrilly out upon the air, 
 Piercing the maiden's ear like the last note 
 Of dying hope unto a waiting soul. 
 As she attempts to speak, another flash, 
 As fearful quite as the preceding one, 
 White sparkling, lights again the awful vault^ 
 Showing a scene to touch the toughest heart, 
 And wring a wail of pity from the lips 
 Sealed up for years against compassion's voice. 
 
46 TSE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Hardly a stone's throw from the grim sea wall, 
 
 Beset by ocean's maddenedj yelling pack 
 
 Of thirsting beasts, a solitary bark 
 
 "With tattered sails far streaming in the gale, 
 
 And spars and masts reduced to splintered wrecks, 
 
 Comes flying on to meet her certain doom 
 
 As if she struggles in destruction's cause. 
 
 Around her quivering hull the cloven spray, 
 
 Like nest of ghastly hissing serpents writhes, 
 
 Enfolding her in monstrous lividness. 
 
 Now treading on a shifting mountain's top, 
 
 She seems to rend her thick habiliment 
 
 And fling a high defiance at her foes ; 
 
 Now plunged in foamy troughs she disappears, 
 
 To stagger blind, bewildered from the bout, 
 
 And dash in ftiry at her enemies. 
 
 In vain — each change but brings her nearer on — 
 
 On to her stem and steadfast destiny. 
 
 Nor is this all the powerful eye commands ; 
 
 Look to her deck — ^behold the horror there ! 
 
 Above the cowering figures of his mates. 
 
 Upon the shivered bowsprit's heel is seen 
 
 A form almost gigantic in its mould, 
 
 "With wild fair hair that streams like midnight sun 
 
 From a bold face set in the type of death 
 
* TEMPEST JiXD DESTiyY. 47 
 
 And pierced with eyes like wells of liquid steel, 
 
 "Whose look is fastened on the horrid goal — 
 
 Fixed and unquailing as two tiger eyes. 
 
 With gladiatorial shoulders backward thrown, 
 
 One broad palm shadowing the wall-like brow, 
 
 The other closed around a straining stay^ 
 
 He towers grandly up to meet the shock, 
 
 Heroic daring in his attitude. 
 
 Night's instant curtain closes out the whole. 
 
 A terror-telling shriek, pealed from white lips. 
 
 Depicts the anguish which the spectacle 
 
 Has crowded on the girl's affrighted heart ; 
 
 And hke a lost wind wailing in the wilds, 
 
 The words well from her overburdened breast — 
 
 " 'Tis he ! 'tis he ! — my poor, my poor Eugene ! 
 
 Gone — lost forever ! " Down her wilting form 
 
 Falls, like a lightning-blighted flower to earth, 
 
 And at the feet of him who, statue-like, 
 
 Stands with one hand pressed to his raining broW; 
 
 As if a bolt from heaven had nailed him there, 
 
 And chained him to a still eternal dream. 
 
 What horror next ? A cry, a crash, a rush, 
 Slow struggling up amidst the general roar, 
 Tell that the wolves have overhauled their prey, 
 Now dances on the air a maniac laugh, 
 
48 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL, 
 
 Sad and unearthly as a panther's cry, 
 
 Floating away upon the wing of A^inds, 
 
 And mingling with the voices of the storm, 
 
 " Mad as the storm, in storm thy star shall set." 
 
 Shall set, ha ! — ^ha ! but shall not set alone I 
 
 The bloody wolves are at their meal down there I 
 
 I see their white teeth flashing through the gloom, 
 
 I hear them roar and wrestle o'er their prey. 
 
 Were I a wolf I'd join the banquet too, 
 
 A human wolf would win the greater share. 
 
 Oh, how these little vermin gnaw my brain. 
 
 Tearing its smarting texture into shreds ! 
 
 Oh heaven ! oh cease ! so, I'll be calm again. 
 
 Come, Mora, come and see this glorious wreck. 
 
 How still she lies ! come. Mora, darling, come, 
 
 And let us find your lover — your Eugene I 
 
 I hear him crying out for us to come ; 
 
 I see him beckoning from out the waves, 
 
 His face as red and round as any moon. 
 
 Set in the green side of a glassy sea. 
 
 But come ! he'll weary if we linger long." 
 
 Snatching her lifeless body from the rock. 
 
 With quick strong bounds he gains the giant's brow, 
 
 Holding his burden lightly on his arm. 
 
 As if it were no more than feather's weight. 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 49 
 
 Pausing, he presses on her passive lips, 
 
 Grown wondrous cold since last he tasted them, 
 
 -A hundred kisses, burning and intense. 
 
 Like hot wine poured between a statute's lips — 
 
 Lips that change not their cold disdainful curl, 
 
 Or yield a sign responsive to the glow. 
 
 And laugh and sparkle of the lordly draught. 
 
 A stream of lightning trickles down the sky, 
 
 Showing the face he heaps his kisses on 
 
 Set like a picture in its ebon frame — 
 
 Its ebon frame of coiling clinging hair. 
 
 A flash of reason piercing through the dense 
 
 Confused mass of his entangled brain, 
 
 Conveys the truth with overwhelming force. 
 
 A wailing cry comes up out of the rush 
 
 Of jostung demons — ^then " There streams his hair, 
 
 Like the red ghost light of a spectre ship ! 
 
 See where he points his white and dripping hands, 
 
 And motions us to follow him — come, come ! " 
 
 " Come, come ! " the tempest's trumpeters repeat, 
 And the wild revel of the night roars on ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 A splendid morn ! by Jove, a lovely morn ! 
 See burning Sol rise from his ocean bath, 
 
50 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Genial and ruddy with his early sport — 
 
 Smiling and panting with his lusty sport. 
 
 See how he pauses with a god-like grace 
 
 To kiss the dim tears from sweet nature's face. 
 
 Now with his flaming circlet on his brow, 
 
 And airy step, he mounts his golden car 
 
 To lead the gliding train of happy hours 
 
 Along the breezy avenues of heaven, 
 
 Accompanied by mingled minstrelsy 
 
 Of mellow harps strung to delightful airs. 
 
 Mark how the glad waves laugh with rich delight, 
 
 And show their white teeth in their soft conceit — 
 
 Flash their white teeth beneath the lifting folds 
 
 Of gauzy drapery mantling their fresh couch^; 
 
 Breathing soft gossip to the tell-tale wind, 
 
 Who flies with it o'er isles and continents 
 
 Reposing in the scented lap of morn. 
 
 The restless sea birds, with difiusive joy, 
 
 Throng on the scene from wide dissevered homes; 
 
 To drink the red wine from morn's gracious hand ; 
 
 To drink till cries attest their high delight ; 
 
 Drink drunk and reel and wet their gay attire, 
 
 Then with amusing rage turn on the sea 
 
 And plunge their beaks into his happy breast, 
 
 Which heaves and trembles with a hearty glee — 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 5] 
 
 Shakes with strong mirth at their discomfiture. 
 
 As seaside beauties tempt the playful waves 
 
 TVith heavenly glimpses of delicious limbs, 
 
 'Till grown o'erdaring in their sportiveness, 
 
 They laugh and leap and grow competitors 
 
 In feats of pretty waywardness, when up, 
 
 Out of deceiving quiet, suddenly, 
 
 Leaps with loud rush a pack of lusty waves. 
 
 And throw themselves among the startled nymphs — 
 
 Right in among them, wetting them all o'er, 
 
 And causing many pretty shrieks of fright 
 
 As they break in a bevy up the bank. 
 
 So do these fooUsh gulls amuse themselves 
 
 With screams and clamor at each slight mishap. 
 
 ^ut what are these from which the waves recoil, 
 Pressing back on their fellows suddenly, 
 As if they fear to tread the shining sands 
 Which bear their foot-prints of unnumbered years ? 
 What are those forms reposing on the beach, 
 Silent among the fragments of a wreck, 
 Piled up by ocean in his angry mood ? 
 Have they no welcome for the happy guest 
 Who comes with smiles to touch their lazy limbs, 
 To drop warm kisses on their drowsy lids ? 
 Come, let us hover through their morning dreams, 
 
52 THE rOJCH OF A SHELL. 
 
 And pull tlie sleepy tyrant from his throne. 
 Why does this beauteous mortal slumber here, 
 With tangled seaweed twisted in her hair — 
 The crown of Keptune on her lovely head, 
 As if she waits upon her bridal couch 
 Till dawns the hour that brings her absent groom ? 
 The gray old god has won her with his wiles, 
 Has charmed her sweet soul from its tenement, 
 Which now lies beautiful but desolate. 
 Yes, Ocean, smitten with her fairy grace. 
 Has led her through the maze of mystic forms 
 Inhabiting his city's wide suburbs, 
 Down to the gorgeous chambers of his court 
 Adorned with splendid spoils from countless wrecks, 
 Wove in and blended with delightful skill 
 With all the royal riches of his realm; 
 Where joy's voluptuous wing untiring fans 
 / The melting flame of unrestricted love; 
 
 And time is lost in music, song and dance, 
 And passion's hot and sweet bewilderment, 
 Where she shall reign sea queen — ^but what is here ? 
 A Saxon giant, with his Saxon hair 
 Trailed like a conquered banner on the sands ; 
 His wrestler's form — ^his tempest-tempered bulk. 
 In all the seeming vigor of its youth — 
 
TEMPEST AND DESTINY. 53 
 
 Its perfect natural manhood, strength and pride, 
 
 Stretched stiff and passive, with its lamp gone out ; 
 
 The cold film gathered o'er those azure globes 
 
 Which rolled the light of heaven upon his brain, 
 
 Ere ocean dashed his bold hand over them 
 
 And fixed them iu their marble suUenness. 
 
 And this is what it is to be a man 
 
 Of massy mould, opposing time and change, 
 
 Yain of superior perishable strength ! 
 
 Ah ! was he more in ocean's choking grasp 
 
 Than yon frail angel form reposing there ? 
 
 His stout impetuous heart presumed too much, 
 
 And the old god, who brooks no rivalry. 
 
 Rose up and crushed him to his mother's feet ! 
 
 But here behold the glory of the world — 
 The earthy vessel of celestial wine. 
 Cracked — shattered on the border rocks of life ; 
 The herald of imperishable truth, 
 A poet-hero of the darling race 
 Of gods, the light and wonder of the world, 
 A lifeless burden on his mother earth, 
 As if his were no more than common clay. 
 Heaven-sent with tidings from the Infinite ; 
 Full of the wild sublimity of things, 
 The sweet and touching tenderness of things ; 
 
54 TRE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 With power to utter in a few swift words 
 
 Truths high and shining as the solar soul ; 
 
 To string upon a thread of thrilling notes 
 
 Gems plucked from the Eternal's awful throne. 
 
 To waken and reanimate the world — 
 
 Behold the champion of his troubled race 
 
 Reft of his vivifying prophet fire ; 
 
 Forlorn, neglected, dead, as exiles die — 
 
 As He, yea. He, the poet-god of woe — 
 
 E'en He, the Prince of Peace and sorrowing song. 
 
 Fell when fierce folly in his desperate mood. 
 
 Struck the life-lamp from truth's all-healing hand 1 
 
 O blind old world ! so blundering obstinate ! 
 
 When will you cease to stumble blindly on 
 
 Through the thick gulf of old obscurity, 
 
 Nor heed the songs thy trembling singers sing, 
 
 Of love, and peace and worshipful repose ? 
 
 When will you strive to make m6re smooth their ways, 
 
 Who pour their generous wine into thy wounds, 
 
 And humor you when you are sick and sad ? 
 
 How long must angels see such sights as these ? 
 
 Is this a fit fate for a son of song ? 
 
 Beware, you who are lukewarm in their cause — 
 
 Who from indifference permit such things — 
 
 Such damning rot-proofs to accumulate ! 
 
TEMFEST AND DESTINY. 55 
 
 The eye is on you, terrible and bright— 
 
 The eye that never sleeps for watchfulness 
 
 Over God's woeful wandering messengers. 
 
 See this poor fallen hero where he lies, 
 
 His thrilling harp strings snapped by lawless death. 
 
 Where are the hands that should have led him on 
 
 O'er the rough path with tender care. 
 
 And kept him from heart-biting bitterness ? 
 
 There'll be a new star in the heavens to-night, 
 
 While earth shall flounder on through seas of gloom ; 
 
 While men will hug their golden falsehoods close, 
 
 Unmindful of the hope that's dead to them ! 
 
 But let us lift our vision from this scene. 
 
 Oh let us fly this piteous sight ! Come, come ! 
 
 And the grand chariot of day rolled on. 
 
56 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 DRIFT FROM A WRECK 
 
 POETA MAKIKA. 
 
 Rolled and tumbled and tossed about, 
 Like a beaten wreck by tbe reckless sea, 
 
 All over and under and in and out 
 
 And among the waters that compass me. 
 
 Now lifted high up by the waterspout, 
 Then plunged down low as a man may be. 
 
 Thrown from my shore in a moonland trance, 
 And bound to the back of an uncouth beast, 
 
 That plunges round in a drunken dance, 
 
 Like a chip thrown in midst the breakers' yeast, 
 
 I am gazing out over the years for a glance 
 Of my cliff's dim rising against the east. 
 
 The boatswain that whistles the winds to play, 
 And the waves to dance with destructive leap, 
 
 Has seen me through many a weary day 
 Hung on the verge of the watery steep. 
 
 With a calm eye bent down the rugged way, 
 And a hand to the wheel with a steady sweep. 
 
DRIFT FROM A WRECK. 57 
 
 A man of strange wanderings and woeg, 
 
 With a brain locked fast on an antique dream, 
 
 I bid adieu to my friends and foes, 
 I kiss my band to my bill and stream, 
 
 And turn and go down where the salt breeze blows, 
 And the torn foam-banners career and gleam. 
 
 I strip myself of my robes of pride, 
 And brace my limbs for the terrible fight ; 
 
 I thrust the trembling fears aside, 
 
 And set my course by the sea bird's flight. 
 
 To follow where boreal tempests ride 
 
 O'er islands drowned in the wild north light. 
 
 Sometimes through desolate seas I plough 
 
 With never a zephyr to fill my sail, 
 With never a billow to lift my prow 
 
 Or a spirit to breathe me a moving tale. 
 And a gaunt bird hovering o'er my bow, 
 
 With a form like death and a face as pale. 
 
 Oft on the horizon a sail will rise. 
 
 And beckon to me like a spirit hand 
 Waved from a casement in painted skies. 
 
 To bid me stay on some sunshine strand ; 
 And some of them pass from my aching eyes, 
 
 To rise no more upon any land. 
 
^8 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 "With a firm faith fixed on the true and strong, 
 And a hard grim grip on the things that be, 
 
 I look aloft as I heave along, 
 
 Drinking the light with heroic glee, 
 
 Planting the germs of a deathless song 
 Deep down where never an eye can see. 
 
 Tumbled about in a desperate way, 
 Hither and thither and ererywhere ; 
 
 Grasping such pleasure as comes to stay, 
 Fighting the demons of old despair 
 
 With a brave heart set for the port of day, 
 And a hope as strong as the strong light there. 
 
 Singing, God in his wisdom afflicteth me, 
 And therefore I'll make it a joy to bear ; 
 
 From a world as full as a world can be 
 Of every trouble and grief and care, 
 
 "With a moonland strength I will shake me firee, 
 "When my cliffs ride by in the murky air. 
 
A RELIO, 59 
 
 A RELIC. 
 
 Withered limb of a plant that has perished. 
 
 Some symbolical oak of the past, 
 Which the race in its infancy cherished 
 
 Ere it bowed to the boreal blast. 
 
 Some old tree in whose boughs the first singers 
 Of the earth oped their wonderful throats, 
 
 To those songs whose quaint melody lingers 
 Even yet in a few scattered notes. 
 
 Torn away from a trunk in the ages 
 
 When the world and its garments were new, 
 
 I was blown through tune's various stages, 
 By a storm that incessantly blew. 
 
 By a tempest that bloweth forever, 
 
 Wafted down through the hurrying years, 
 
 'Till I itand by life's full brimming river, 
 In amazement and terror and tears. 
 
 Mournful type of a nation forgotten 
 
 Ere the tresses of time had grown gray, 
 
 I have slept till the old world is rotten. 
 And awake to its stain and decay. 
 
60 THE VOICE OF A SSELL. 
 
 Out of time, out of place and mistaken, 
 Long I've sought and in vain for a soul — 
 
 For a heart and a spirit unshaken 
 By these waters that ceaselessly roll. 
 
 By these billows so restlessly rolling 
 On the sea-eaten walls of the world, 
 
 "With an echo like fog alarms tolling 
 
 Where the wings of the mist are unfurled. 
 
 Yes, I've sought till my feet are aweary, 
 And my brave heart as heavy as lead — 
 
 Oh how fearfully lonesome and dreary 
 Is the path an unloved one must tread. 
 
 Men are born and men die, still I tarry 
 In this cold habitation of men, 
 
 And await the slow tide that shall carry 
 This old hulk to its harbor again. 
 
 As a vine that is sorrowfully clinging 
 To some hoary old ruin of yore, 
 
 Or a bird in the wide desert singing 
 Melodies of a long lost before. 
 
ly QUAEANTINR] Ql 
 
 THE DAYS TO COME. 
 
 MOUEKFUL melancholy years gone by, 
 
 Ye are but ghosts ! but ah, the ones to come ! 
 I think of what they promise and am dumb j 
 
 1 dream of them and waken with a cry 
 Wrung from the depths of some great agony, 
 
 Too wild and deep for language to become. 
 
 Let others mourn for years that are no more, 
 I'll weep for weary days that are to be, 
 Ere I shall touch that far soil of the free 
 
 "Where my free soul roamed in some glorious yore, 
 
 For some immortal sin cast to this shore 
 Pursued by dim unhappy memory. 
 
 m QUARANTINE. 
 
 Ik quarantine, with a scorching sky, 
 A sultry air and a glassy sea, 
 
 On which the masts' taU shadows lie, 
 And the sea-bird drifts in a reverie ; 
 
 Day after day on the dreamy eye 
 The changeless scene weighs dreamily ! 
 
62 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 All motionless the black hulks sleep, 
 
 Like torpid monsters in the sun, 
 Save when they swing with the lazy sweep 
 
 Of the languid tides as they idly run 
 Through days and weeks that slowly creep 
 
 Toward a goal that is never won. 
 
 Low on our lee the emerald keys 
 
 Like sentries, guard the northern pass, 
 
 And the listless eye of the gazer sees 
 Their forms as thi'ough a shadowed glass, 
 
 And where their chain sinks in the seas, 
 The reef light's gray gigantic mass. 
 
 Scattered along the enameled coves 
 The city's gleaming structures stand, 
 
 Looking seaward from cocoa groves 
 Like a happy vision of fairy-land, 
 
 Or as some scenic picture moves 
 
 O'er a stage strewn over with golden sand. 
 
 Yon gray old sailor who ruminates 
 O'er his navy plug with an idle air, 
 
 Directs the gaze of his lolling mates 
 To the high martello's massive square, 
 
 As with a shudder he demonstrates 
 
 How " the devil has hoisted liis pennant there.' 
 
IN QXTARANTINE. g3 
 
 Then well these grim tars understand 
 
 That the yellow admiral's on a cruise, 
 And they tell with a tragic mein and grand 
 
 Wild stories of ships and their ghostly crews, 
 Drifting leagues and leagues from any land, 
 
 While death was the dearest mate to choose. 
 
 At mom the drowsy sentry sees, 
 
 With a pang he struggles to suppress, 
 A mournful group among the orange trees, 
 
 Gathered in prayerful and fixed address, 
 And mutters, affecting a yawn of ease, 
 
 " They're planting another ' case,' I guess." 
 
 Ay, Jack, your terrible namesake 's here, 
 With badge and banner wide displayed, 
 
 Charging the lurid atmosphere 
 
 With the poison of the everglade ; 
 
 K your Uncle Sam don't interfere 
 
 He's likely to drive you a lively trade. 
 
 In quarantine — ah, for a chase 
 
 With the dancing waves of the open main ! 
 Oh, for a briny breeze to brace 
 
 The slumbering energies again, 
 And spur our winged steed to the race 
 
 With the riders of the hurricane ! 
 
64 TRE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 THE ADMIRAL. 
 
 He walks the deck with firm elastic step, 
 And speaks his few commands in kindly tones, 
 Which have not lost their music since the time 
 That heard them thrilling through the deafening din 
 And rush and thunder of the battle rout — 
 That strong inspiring quality of voice 
 Sounding long after in the hearers' ears. 
 Like echoes of a half-remembered dream. 
 
 A gray and grand old man, whose sturdy frame 
 Bears yet no trace of physical decay, 
 Despite the shocks it has experienced — 
 The battle blows and tempests of its time — 
 One of those rare and pleasing spectacles 
 Of unimpaired vitality in age, 
 Which reconcile us to the thought that rise 
 With mournful languor from the great to-be. 
 So like the mighty heroes of old time, 
 The mighty men of Britain and of Rome, 
 And th' iron founders of our liberties, 
 Whose grateful pictures, stamped upon our hearts 
 Among the deep impressions of our youth, 
 Afford us rapture in maturer years, 
 And give a tone and color to our lives. 
 
TRE ADMIRAL. Q^ 
 
 With general manner courteons and kind, 
 Too genial-hearted for formality ; 
 A sailor's disregard of any rule 
 In free discourse — a happy medium 
 Unconsciously correct ; a generous warmth, 
 And equal flow of human sentiment, 
 Enriched by sparkles of spontaneous wit, 
 With lumps of humor now and then thrown in — 
 A trait that wins all guests unwittingly, 
 Delighting all who come within its scope 
 Like circulating draughts of rare old wine. 
 He stands a noble chieftain every inch. 
 And every inch a man. A steady eye. 
 Blue as the bluest sea he sails upon, 
 Clear with the light of a courageous soul — 
 That courage which flashed out so brilliantly 
 Amid the dreadful ruin and the wreck 
 That strewed the gun-stunned waves of Mobile Bay ; 
 The fiery spirit of resistance which 
 Flamed up so fiercelessly on that dreadful day. 
 That when the shell directed at his heart 
 Saw there a rage so grander than its own — 
 A fire and force ecHpsing its desire, 
 A soul of valor burning like the sun, 
 It turned aside and smote the hero's arm — 
 
66 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Struck off the stout left arm stretched out to hurl 
 His host of ocean tigers on the foe. 
 
 Methinks I see him in his glory's hour, 
 As they beheld him, stationed at his post ; 
 Directing in his stern defiant mood 
 His concentrated thunder on the lines 
 Of hostile batteries blazing red with death ; 
 Behold him ere the battle shade has yet 
 Passed from his eyes, or from his Vulcan form 
 The high heroic grandeur has relapsed ; 
 While at his feet along the riven deck 
 A strange red wine stands round in little pools, 
 "Which men lie down beside as if to drink, 
 But seized with sudden full forgetfulness 
 While in the act, lie there so rapt — so still — 
 Quite as oblivious of the row around, 
 As if they slept in pleasant fields afar, 
 With soft winds sighing through their summer dreams. 
 
 Tes ; oft in dreams I see it pictured forth 
 In all its dread details ; a drifting cloud, 
 With panoramic pictures woven in, 
 Illumined and made vivid by a form 
 Of luminous distinctness in the midst — 
 A vision that breaks in upon the night 
 
TEE ADJIIRAL. 57 
 
 Of darkest ttLOUghts, and drowns their shadows back 
 
 O'er the dead walls of the material world, 
 
 They rise behind with dull and frightful stare ; 
 
 A liojht that floods with sudden radiance 
 
 The airy chambers and majestic halls 
 
 Of the mind's ornamented palaces, 
 
 Revealing each god in his lofty niche, 
 
 Each marble warrior on his pedestal, 
 
 And all the rich and glorious spoils that years > 
 
 Have added to adorn the sacred place ; 
 
 Spoils wrung from horny-handed circumstance. 
 
 Or dug fi'om mouldering ruins of the past : — 
 
 A flash — a thrill of joyful ecstacy, 
 
 That sends a rich warm rush of golden words, 
 
 Like liquid sunshine, bubbhng to the lips ; 
 
 A stream of song that struggles to be free, 
 
 And writhes and wrestles like a conscious thing 
 
 To sing of him who is a singer too — 
 
 A singer, too, of wild unwritten songs- 
 
 Of sweet heart-songs that lead him to the shrine 
 
 Of love, where he, a constant votary. 
 
 Receives the heart's unerring prophecies. 
 
 Hail ! hail ! my hero ! from my ocean scenes 
 
 I shout to you amid the hurricane — 
 
 The clash and clamor of the elements ; 
 
QS TEE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 Climb to the summit of my sliifting hills 
 To catch the ribboned splendor of your star 
 Set in the ragged fringes of the storm ; 
 To take its winy light beneath my cloak, 
 And bear it like a lamj) along with me 
 Down to my twilight regions, there to sit 
 Within its light and weave my old sea dreams. 
 
 SOLVED. 
 
 How is it that whichever way I turn, 
 Be it upon the land or on the sea, 
 
 Where ice-cliffs glitter or sun-splendors bum, 
 Some thing in nature has a song for me — 
 A measured greeting voiced in melody ; 
 
 Sad, sweet, sometimes, as wailings of a soul 
 Lost in the wilds of an immortal grief; 
 
 Sometimes sublime as wild hurrahs that roll 
 A savage welcome to a savage chief; 
 Calm, tempered, often, as a saint's belief ? 
 
 How is it that amidst decay or bloom 
 Some thing of low or eminent degree 
 
 Holds the ripe word, which spoken at the tomb 
 Of mouldering remembrance closed to me, 
 Sets all their long-forgotten phantoms free; 
 
sozvuB. 69 
 
 Free thence to wander many a night and day 
 Through the well kept apartments of my brain, 
 
 And bathe with fresh delight in the clear ray 
 Of living sunshine pouring through each pane, 
 Strange to my thoughts, but welcome in their train ? 
 
 Not always is the wished-for music heard, 
 IsTor can it come by bidding of the will ; 
 
 But in rare moments when the heart is stirred 
 With nameless strange disquiet at some ill 
 At which the wild soul flies with daring skill ; 
 
 Or after achiag toil or thought intense, 
 When overwrought nature strives in sleepless throes, 
 
 It comes, a balm, to soothe the straining sense — 
 To lull the irritated nerves, and close 
 A gate of gold between me and my woes. 
 
 Not through medium of the carnal ear. 
 
 Stunned by earth's clamors, is the sound conveyed 5 
 But by some fine internal sense more near 
 
 The sacred citadel where stands arrayed 
 
 Love, faithful sentinel, and undismayed; 
 Too coarse, indeed, the senses to detect 
 
 Those immaterial messengers who use 
 That inarticulate pure dialect 
 
 Which spirit speaks to spirit, and the muse 
 
 Assimilates and struggles to diffuse. 
 
70 TRE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 In places desolate and ways obscure. 
 In wide lands wasted by the curse of God, 
 
 In judgment righteous of stain impure, 
 
 Their voices greet me from the blistered sod, 
 Mourning the weight of the avenging rod; 
 
 So touching and so plaintive — so instinct 
 With penitential sorrow is the song, 
 
 Addressed to me as to a being linked 
 
 To them by bond of sacred friendship strong, 
 My heart bows down beneath their burden long. 
 
 From ruins of old architectural pride, 
 
 And heathen grandeur smitten with decay, 
 
 Where pitying ivy spreads her veil to hide 
 Their naked ugliness from Christian day, 
 Their tones salute me like a trumpet's bray; 
 
 Warlike, iuspiriog, glorious in their strength, 
 They wake an antique spirit in my breast — > 
 
 Some smouldering old heroic fire at length 
 Roused from the ashes where it lay repressed, 
 Biding its time, a still undreamed-of guest. 
 
 In mystic moon-drowned landscapes brooded o'er 
 By the chaotic soul of silence throned 
 
 Invisibly on night's mysterious shore. 
 Commanding voices call me, spirit-toned, 
 In purer tongue than mortal ever owned ; 
 
SOLVED. 71 
 
 But now a strain of soul-fed eloquence, 
 
 At wMch some kindred genius starts awake 
 
 Within my breast, spurning the heathen sense, 
 Kecalling a lost state where tongue but spake 
 Th' eternal truths of which the pure partake. 
 
 They call to me from out the hearts of trees, 
 They speak to me among the throngs of men ; 
 
 I hear their voices in the surge of seas, 
 I catch their whispers in the stony glen. 
 And in the mazes of the treacherous fen ; 
 
 O sacred sweet companionship ! to me, 
 Foredoomed to speak th' inevitable thing 
 
 That cuts me off from human sympathy, 
 
 "What recompense for hate's base serpent-sting, 
 To draw my draught from life's perennial spring ! 
 
 They say my veins are fresh — that I am young 
 In face and fancy — ^yet I'm very old ; 
 
 "Was old, perhaps, when earth from chaos sprung 
 And souls were clothed in suits of sensate mould, 
 Ere death was known, or sin, or thirst for gold ; 
 
 Or the cold sinking fear that pierces deep 
 Down to the quick, like thrust of bayonet, 
 
 Nameless and formless hanging on our sleep. 
 The angel that forbids us to forget. 
 Lest drunk with hope we cease to feel our debt. 
 
72 TRE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Yes, I am old ; so old, I do believe, 
 
 That when on certain forms and scenes I bend, 
 
 After the first faint flash I can perceive 
 The subtle presence of an ancient friend, 
 A recognition which I somehow blend — 
 
 Blend with a memory stretching back and back, 
 Across the buried ages, to a shore 
 
 Beyond the utmost of time's lengthy track, 
 Where hand in hand in some all-glorious yore, 
 "We, free, pure souls, went seeking golden lore. 
 
 O bright etherial spirits once so free, 
 With whom I wandered in that region wide, 
 
 ITow 'neath the rugged rinds of plant and tree, 
 And in rude cells of earth doomed to abide 
 Till into horrible decay they slide ; 
 
 They are your voices that I recognize. 
 
 In varied tones of gladness raised to greet 
 
 Their old and loved companion of the skies 
 Who stumbles over earth with heavy feet, 
 Mewed like an eagle in his frail retreat. 
 
GLIMPSES, 73 
 
 GLIMPSES. 
 
 It was not a mere fantasy of brain, 
 
 That myth of old Pythagoras, who thought 
 
 His life the echo of a grander strain, 
 
 Who deemed him blest by recollections brought 
 From some far sphere in which his soul had wrought ; 
 
 No idle tale indeed ; for who is there 
 That has not viewed sometime in. his career 
 
 A scene which memory linked with one somewhere 
 Outside the circle of his present sphere, 
 Beyond th' abyss of many a mouldered year ? 
 
 Who has not had those aged memories, . 
 Unlike th' unstable currency of dreams, 
 
 Or fancy's vague irrationalities, 
 Dawn full upon him in the midday beams, 
 While the fierce blood sang on in blinding streams ; 
 
 And then the sudden check — the start, as o'er 
 Th' arrested senses sped that clear cold wave, 
 
 Wafted from seas the soul had sailed before. 
 Big with reflections of the great and brave — 
 Then passed, and left all deathly as the grave ? 
 
74 TBE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 Oft as I walk among the mingled throng, 
 
 With thoughts to some absorbing life-theme laced, 
 
 A sudden change will fall my frame along — 
 A penetrating chill, as if embraced 
 By unseen arms in icy mail encased ; 
 
 I start, perhaps to catch some passer-by — 
 Some utter stranger to my mortal sight, 
 
 Observing me with an inquiring eye. 
 
 As if he questioned whether it were right 
 To hail me comrade in some lost delight. 
 
 The bars are burst ! then like a swollen lake. 
 That tears a channel through the weakened wall. 
 
 Strong floods of vivid recollections break 
 
 From some great deep unbroken since the fall. 
 And sweep my present thought beyond recall ; 
 
 There, through the shining spray of rare surprise, 
 Mixed m a brief scene of unsinful mirth, 
 
 Warmed by sweet light of vanished paradise, 
 That face which baffled the dull eyes of earth 
 Glows recognized in sight of earlier birth. 
 
 A throb — 'tis gone — 'tis past ; and ah, too brief 
 The light that linked me with immortal bliss ! 
 
 Vanished the glimpse of that lost world ! in grief 
 And half-despair I turn again to this, 
 ITow marred forever by the serpent's hiss ; 
 
DBIFTING, 75 
 
 A humbled man I pass upon my way, 
 Conscious I bear a burden of the crime 
 
 That lost mankind a heritage for aye, 
 
 And bound him to this double wheel of time, 
 Which grinds his dirge in life's unchanging rhyme. 
 
 DRiFTma 
 
 Drift, did you say ? What can we do but drift — 
 Drift with the tide we cannot stem or stay ? 
 See those who struggle whii'led as fast away 
 As they that calmly watch life-phantoms lift, 
 Swung to and fro as fates and fortunes shift 
 
 Their feeble lights before the broad Jbright day. 
 
 Those systems surging through eternal space, 
 Which hold the secrets of our destiny 
 Locked in their circles where no eye can see, 
 Can they move one jot from their given place — 
 The path He has marked out for them to trace ? 
 Then how much less may such dim orbs as we ! 
 
 A million lives are drifting on to-day 
 
 Among the dubious currents of the time, 
 Whose hearts are anchored on the vast subUme, 
 
76 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Nor heed tlie feeble straws thrown in their way, 
 The wretched fragments of a world's decay 
 The tides wash up from out its settled shme. 
 
 Lives that seem to the carnal eye possessed, 
 Of every true essential making life 
 A joyous feast shut in from noise and strife, 
 The calm capacities of the earth-blest, 
 But they are strange wise birds whose lofty nest 
 Is earth-remote and safe when storms are rife. 
 
 Ay, drift ! the shore lies yonder on our lee. 
 Its structures brightly lined against the sky, 
 
 , So luminous they dim the eager eye 
 
 That strains to pierce their mystic drapery ; 
 
 There, in the end, through storm or calm shall we 
 Each clasp the idol sought so earnestly. *• 
 
 For not in vam this one long dream of years — 
 This wistful fond imagination bent 
 On the ideal with such close intent ; 
 This angel wild with woe and clad in tears 
 "Who pleads our sorrows in celestial ears, 
 With strength of woe so daring-eloquent.^ 
 
DELETING. 77 
 
 No, not in vain ; for in the dreamer's mind 
 - Lie hid the germs of every mighty good ; 
 
 The poet, brooding in his solitude, 
 Intensely o'er some deep wrong to his kind, 
 Grasps finally a power undivined 
 
 By all philosophy's wise brotherhood. 
 
 A noble work of genius is a prayer — 
 
 A reverent reaching for the Infinite ; 
 
 The peerless painting ravishing the sight, 
 The massy temple dark'ning in the air, 
 The songs of bards arising everywhere 
 
 And undefined aspirings to the light. 
 
 Think not they are unheard — unheeded all, 
 
 Those earnest cries eluding mortal ear ; 
 
 For these are they which angels stoop to hear — 
 Ay, one of such unknowingly can call 
 More heavenly lustre to this earthly ball 
 
 Than wisdom sheds through many a thousand year. 
 
 Since men's best deeds are done unconsciously, 
 
 Why be forever caring ? why, indeed, 
 
 Not be like to the poet, taking heed 
 Of neither time nor fate, but nobly free, 
 Leave all the rest to God and destiny, 
 
 Loving mankind but craving not their meed. 
 
78 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL 
 
 THE MODERN MARINER. 
 
 I. 
 
 It was a touching tale he told, 
 That skinny shell-back gray and old — 
 That ancient weather-beaten whale 
 Blown to my side by careless gale, 
 Whose faithful picture is impressed 
 Upon the life-log of my breast, 
 And has a never-failing power 
 To soothe me in my ugly hour. 
 
 I'll tell it as 'twas told to me 
 When I was young and fierce and free, 
 New wedded to the ocean blue, 
 The only bride I ever knew ; 
 Though that was many years ago 
 I keep it still, I loved it so ; 
 As told to me, I'll tell it you, 
 And reck not whether false or true, 
 I argue not — I never do ; 
 I know it left upon my heart 
 An imprmt that will not depart ; 
 True I believed it then to be, 
 So it is true — at least to me ; 
 
TRE JfODEEN- MARINER, 79 
 
 At all events it well will do 
 To while an idle hour or two, 
 
 And will, perhaps, some pleasure give 
 
 When I shall have forgot to live. 
 
 If sailors, more than other men, 
 
 Tell monstrous whoppers now and then, 
 
 It does not follow as a fact, 
 
 That they are liars by the act ; 
 For there's a license granted those 
 Who lighten thus our cares and woes. 
 
 If strange and wild the tales they tell 
 
 'Tis that their lives are wild as well ; 
 A clever fiction learned in youth 
 Is oft more prof 'table than truth ; 
 
 Besides, 'tis known that sailors' lies 
 
 Are moral lessons in disguise. 
 
 He sat beside his polished gun 
 That grimly slumbered in the sun, 
 
 Hung like a fire-ball in the west 
 
 Above the blue Caribbean's breast ; 
 To hear his yarn we gathered near, 
 With a common heart and a common ear, 
 
 A rugged but attentive throng -la* 
 
 Of sailor lads, sea-tanned and strong ; 
 
30 TEE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 And I, 'with fresh heart opened wide, 
 The awful moment did abide 
 
 When he would oj)e his lips to pour 
 Some thrilling tale of love or war. 
 He held in one huge horny hand, 
 Whereon shone one great golden band, 
 A pipe of monstrous calibre, 
 His close companion on the sea ; 
 And in his left he held a pot 
 From which he drank his Rio hot. 
 You would have felt surprise and fear 
 To see it steaming disappear, 
 Then smiled and questioned in your mind 
 " Are men-of- wars' -men copper-lined ? " 
 But he was old and cold of blood, 
 From battling time and fate and flood, 
 Though in his wasted form was seen 
 A trace of what he once had been — 
 Erect and stately as the mast 
 Whose shadow on the deck was cast ; 
 His hair was long and thin and gray, 
 And o'er his temples all astray ; 
 His white and patriarchal beard 
 Gave him an aspect sage and weird ; 
 
THE MODERN MARINER. 31 
 
 His cheeks Tvere sunken, but bis eye 
 Sbone witb beroic brilliancy, 
 
 Wbicb told of manly actions past, 
 
 And courage sbining to tbe last ; 
 His voice was steady, fuU. and strong, 
 And stirring as a trumpet song, 
 As be arose and thus addressed tbe tbrong. 
 
 n. 
 
 " 'Twas on tbe far-off Indian seas 
 One day, deserted by the breeze, 
 
 We lay slow rocking to and fro 
 
 Beneath tbe hot sun's waning glow ; 
 Tbe waves around us lay unrolled 
 In undulating blue and gold. 
 
 With pearls and sapphires here and there 
 
 Sown in the ocean's yeUow hair ; 
 While all above, the atmosphere 
 Was full of sea-dust far and near — 
 
 Tbe bright sirocco dust brought there 
 
 By secret currents of the air. 
 And sifted down in golden rain 
 Upon the hot and helpless main. 
 
 " She was as fine a brigantine 
 As ever clove the waters green ; 
 
82 ^^^ VOICE OF A SE£LL. 
 
 A graceful outline, staunclily built, 
 Hull painted black with band of gilt, 
 A mermaid figure-head so true 
 It seemed alive when tempests blew — 
 A topman told me, looking pale, 
 He'd heard it laughing in a gale. 
 Aloft, alow, from bowsprit aft 
 She shone the model of a craft. 
 And every tar swore ' blast his eyes ' 
 She was a princess everywise ! 
 'Twas glorious to see her reel 
 The dizzy miles from off her keel, 
 A splendid sight to watch her shake 
 The frightened leagues along her wake, 
 And roll them in a mass behind 
 As she shot on before the wind ! 
 
 " The burning day was almost done 
 And I stood looking at the sun, 
 Slow sailiug to his port of rest 
 In some far harbor of the west — 
 I, with my darhng Eveline, 
 The dearest girl that e'er was seen. 
 She, with one hand upon my arm. 
 Stood bound by some mysterious charm- 
 
TEB MODEEK MAHINEE. 33 
 
 Some gem of wondrous brilliancy 
 "Wove in the garments of the sea, 
 
 Or beautiful barbaric fire 
 
 Her maiden fancy did admire. 
 She seemed a matchless work of art, 
 So motionless in every part — 
 
 A maiden made of tinted stone, 
 
 So still her lustrous beauty shone. 
 The perfumed breath seemed scarce to move 
 Between her parted lips of love ; 
 
 Around her snowy neck hung curled 
 
 The brightest hair in all the world, 
 Like golden snares the gold sun weaves 
 In autimon on the forest leaves ; 
 
 Her eyes by some mysterious law 
 
 "Were polished mirrors, where I saw 
 
 Myself without a fault or flaw ; 
 Her face was innocence and mirth — 
 The sweetest face in all the earth. 
 
 All which I loved, but loved her best 
 
 For the pure sunshine of her breast, 
 Her winsome truthfulness of heart. 
 And sweet affections free from art. 
 
 " She was the aged captain's child. 
 And all his tedious hours beguiled ; 
 
84 T^^ VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 At sea, in port, or quarantine 
 She ever at his side was seen. 
 And never wandered thence at all 
 To flirt or coquet at a ball, 
 
 Though she possessed that pliant grace 
 Which warms and wins in every place. 
 She laughed and flung the witty word, 
 And sang as sweet as any bird, 
 
 Told tales of lover's hopes and fears 
 That thrilled to joy or moved to tears. 
 And if a maid e'er loved the sea, 
 That maiden, I am sure, was she. 
 
 Rough sailors prayed for her at night 
 Though shy and bashful in her sight, 
 And blessed her for the grief she felt 
 When fate with any harshly dealt, 
 
 And blessed her for the smile she sent 
 When all was happy and content ; 
 Her manner, innocent and free. 
 Won every heart's true loyalty ; 
 The very mention of her name 
 Made every coarse thought flee in shame, 
 But what was sweeter — ^more divine, 
 Her heart, with all its worth, was mine. 
 
TEE MODERN MARINER. S5 
 
 " I never knew what I possessed 
 To win the love of such a breast, 
 
 For I was rough and tough and bold, 
 
 And free and careless of my gold ; 
 Loved the rude tempest and the fight, 
 And hailed adventure with delight ; 
 
 Admired the hardy, manly deed 
 
 Performed in sport or hour of need ; 
 And scorned as much as any can 
 All signs of weakness in a man ; 
 
 But turned with tenderness and care, 
 
 Toward the dear iefenceless fair. 
 If youth's hot blood would oft beguile, 
 I hated roguery all the while, 
 And shunned the vices of the vile. 
 
 Perhaps 'twas that I loved her more 
 
 Than any she had met before. 
 For I did love the darling one 
 With all the fervor of the sun, 
 
 Nor ever sought it to conceal, 
 
 But told her all with ready zeal, 
 And she returned my confidence 
 "With mingled modesty and sense. 
 
 I do not know, but it may be 
 
86 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 It was for this she clung to me 
 
 With such a fond fidelity^ — 
 I'm sure I cared not then to know, 
 It was enough she loved me so. 
 
 " The red sun melted in the wave 
 And left a halo round his grave — 
 The life blood of another day 
 Slain in time's terrible affray ; 
 The wrinkled face of ocean took 
 At once a worn and troubled look ; 
 His lips seemed opening with a sigh 
 And murmuring a deep good-bye, 
 
 Then wrapped in folds of mantling night 
 He seemed to shrink and sink from sight 
 But the old villain, full of guile. 
 Was planning mischief all the while ! 
 
 " * Ungracious god ! he's gone,' said she, 
 And tm-ned her laughing eyes on me, 
 * Red-faced and with an angry look 
 The fainting world he has forsook, 
 And left us here without a breeze 
 To blow us from these idle seas. 
 That we might follow in his track 
 And coax his better humor back. 
 
TEE MOBERIT MARINER. 87 
 
 !N"o doubt in his gay court above 
 Some goddess has repelled his love ; 
 
 Or in a contest with a peer 
 
 Has felt his adversary's spear, 
 So, having quarrelled with his fair, 
 And being out of favor there, 
 
 ThinTiS doubtless to appease the sting 
 
 With outishness to everything.' 
 
 '* Charmed with her rosy fancy, I 
 Sought instantly some apt reply, 
 
 And having caught it, turned to speak, 
 
 When something struck my starboard cheek, 
 A little puff of wind — a breath — 
 Yet chilling as the touch of death ; 
 
 A blow without a sting or smart — 
 
 And yet it reached my very heart ! 
 I felt my limbs grow sudden weak, 
 I felt the warm blood fly my cheek, 
 
 And turned my startled eye away 
 
 Lest she should note its altered ray ; 
 I did not think — did not divine, 
 That she could read that quiet sign, 
 
 Did not suppose a child like her 
 
 Could understand that messenger — 
 
88 ^^^ VOICE OF A SEELL, 
 
 Precursor of the hurricane, 
 That winged monster of the main, 
 That dreadful enemy of all 
 Who climb the south seas' slippery wall ; 
 But she had felt the dread caress 
 Upon her cheek, and in distress, 
 Turned with a look upon her face 
 That haunts me yet in many a place, 
 And saw the fear that filled her heart 
 Was in my own in counterpart. 
 A moment in each other^s eyes 
 We gazed in trouble and surmise, 
 And then she spoke in whispered tone, 
 That sounded all unlike her own, 
 *!N'ay, do not turn your eyes away, 
 For fear your trouble to betray I 
 The warning spirit did not pass 
 Without his cold salute ; alas ! 
 
 His touch has left me chill and weak, 
 I cannot think, and scarce can speak, 
 As if that touch had stayed in me 
 The tide of life that ran so free. 
 But there's no time save to prepare 
 To meet the fiend that broods the air ! 
 
TSB MOBEEN MARINER. 89 
 
 Be brave and pass the warning call, 
 
 And I will pray to God for all. 
 
 You made lie strong — me only fair, 
 Brave men for toil, weak girls for prayer. 
 
 " One long fond look, one long deep sigh 
 That spoke a love in agony — 
 
 A depth of trust and tenderness 
 
 'Ko heart can sound or head can guess — 
 Affection stronger than our hold 
 Upon the world a hundred fold. 
 
 And then she slowly turned to go, 
 
 And leave me tugging with my woe ; 
 But that one fond look fired my soul 
 "With yearning I could not control. 
 
 An energy of love — a fire — 
 
 A heathen spirit's strong desire," 
 
 Yet pure as raptures of the lyre. 
 I spoke no word, but one loud cry " 
 Tore from my lips in agony, 
 
 My hearts' whole love rushed to my brain, 
 
 And made me reckless and insane ; 
 I sprang and caught her to my breast 
 And on her lips fierce kisses pressed — 
 
 Such kisses as immortals drink 
 
 When in the last embrace they sink, 
 
90 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Her cheeks to mine, her lips to mine — 
 My God ! my God ! it was divine ! 
 And were I doomed a hundred years 
 To sail through boundless seas of tears, 
 "Without another hope for me 
 Than that soul-lasting memory, 
 That very memory alone 
 Would for my every ill atone. 
 
 '' But while I feasted on her charms 
 She blushed and struggled in my arms, 
 And when at last I let her free 
 She turned with lightning eyes on me, 
 Her bosom heaving like a sea. 
 Cheeks hot and cold alternately, 
 And looked, in her indignant mien, 
 The wrathful presence of a queen. 
 But almost instantly her face 
 Lost of its anger every trace, 
 And in its place a tenderness 
 Came, blended with a dear distress, 
 As if her heart had power to read 
 The fondness that had urged the deed. 
 Had depth to understand the rage 
 Of passion bursting from its cage. 
 
TEE MOBEEX MAEINEE. 91 
 
 "While pardoning the daring freak 
 
 That shamed her heart and blushed her cheek; 
 
 So, smiling at my abject air, 
 
 She left me with the shadows there. 
 
 m. 
 
 " I shall not linger o'er the things — 
 The perils and the buffetings 
 
 That followed close upon the rear 
 
 Of that low warning note of fear, 
 And weary patience with a part 
 The most of you have got by heart — 
 
 Not from the lips of any man, 
 
 But as true sailors only can ; 
 iNo need now to enumerate 
 All the events of that dark date, 
 
 A few facts will suffice to show 
 
 How we received and bore the blow; 
 How, in the middle of the night, 
 The fiend came down with all his might, 
 
 And found us all prepared as far 
 
 As lay in human power and prayer ; 
 How, in the first rush of the gale, 
 We tore the ocean's streaming veil ; 
 
 How, to the tempest's frenzied song, 
 
 We danced the shrieking seas along, 
 
92 TRE VOICE OF A SSELl. 
 
 Now walled above and all around — 
 A prisoner in sea-dungeons bound, 
 Then sbot into a moving bell 
 Of glassy wave that foamed and fell, 
 Then seized and pitched aloft so high 
 The slim masts seemed to rake the sky, 
 While red blades circled everywhere 
 As fiend encountered fiend in air. 
 And black bombs tumbled to and fro 
 And burst and shook the deep below — 
 The crazy scare was as a lair 
 Of wild beasts goaded to despair, 
 That fiercely fought and grimly growled, 
 And flashed their lightning eyes and howled ; 
 Still we, though toys in hands like these, 
 Stood firm and battled with the seas, 
 Fought hand to hand with steady nerve. 
 The enemy, nor deigned to swerve, 
 Fought as men fight with mortal foes 
 When multitudes the few enclose, 
 Till one fierce monster, black as sin, 
 Stove all our starboard bulwarks in, 
 And pouring on us with his horde 
 Swept half our brave crew overboard, 
 
THE MODERN MAEIKEE. 93 
 
 And others, rushing through the breach, 
 Swept everythmg within their reach, 
 ' And then in terror and amaze 
 
 We clung to braces and to stays, 
 And shuddering beheld the wreck 
 Of everything about the deck, 
 
 Exposed to constant blows and shocks 
 
 From loosened booms and falling blocks ; 
 The sturdy topmasts writhed and bent, 
 Stout shrouds were from their "dead-eyes rent, 
 
 The massy timbers of the hull 
 
 Groaned audibly through every lull 
 Or ebb of conflict ; still the rush 
 Of winds pursued each transient hush, 
 
 Until we drove with scarce a mast 
 
 Full at the mercy of the blast ! 
 
 "That night — a day — another night, 
 With short cessations of the fight, 
 
 We stood the brunt of wind and wave, 
 
 With promise of a speedy grave — 
 A time of terror and of grief 
 Almost surpassing man's belief, 
 
 Of ceaseless effort to maintain 
 
 A foothold on the reeling main, 
 
94 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Pitclied, tossed and tumbled, with the cries 
 Of mates, swept from before our eyes, 
 From time to time arising out 
 Of that wild elemental rout — 
 Borne crying to a restless grave, 
 While none could stretch a hand to save. 
 
 " The rising sun one lovely morn 
 Looked on a black hulk scarred and worn, 
 Slow rolling in the quiet wave 
 That soon was to become her grave; 
 And us — us four, the weary few 
 Remaining of her gallant crew — 
 But four — the captain and his child, 
 The hardy boatswain Alfred Wilde, 
 Myself — and we were all — afloat 
 On ocean in an open boat. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Long in that sea of liquid gold 
 The wreck of that proud vessel rolled, 
 As loath to leave the brilliant day 
 And pass to unknown scenes away j 
 For evermore to blindly creep 
 Through mazes of the nether deep ; 
 
TEE MOBERK MAEIKEE, 95 
 
 To grope in mystery and fear 
 
 O'er sunken isles and hemisphere ; 
 Bound to a cold and fearful dream 
 Unbroken by a single beam 
 
 From joy-bestowing worlds that tread 
 
 Their shining circles overhead ; 
 Rebelling 'gainst the strange decree 
 That bade her 'scape an angry sea, 
 
 Outride the storm of nights and days 
 
 'Midst thunder's clash and hghtning's blaze, 
 At last to vanish from the scene 
 When all is quiet and serene. 
 
 " Like some intoxicated beast 
 
 Who reels and staggers from the feast, 
 
 And moans in his dyspeptic mood, 
 
 O'er heavy with rich wine and food, 
 The helpless monster heaved and rolled. 
 Laughed at by mocking tongues of gold, 
 
 While flags of hemp and tattered sail 
 
 Streamed round her in the playful gale 
 With bated breath and anguish keen 
 We waited for another scene, 
 
 The second in that tragedy 
 
 No human genius could supply — 
 
96 THE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 When suddenly a change ! the wreck 
 Stopped as a steed by sudden check, 
 Or as a quarry when the pack 
 Has closed around upon his track — 
 Fixed as a rooted rock that stands 
 Alone in wide and silent lands, 
 A moment, then a shudder came 
 That shook her worn and feeble frame, 
 A tremor as of fear or cold 
 That ran along her timbers old, 
 And then there struggled up a cry 
 As from a soul in agony, 
 Wrung fi'om her overburdened breast 
 By alien elements oppressed ; 
 
 Then, while the waves seemed to rejoice, 
 And hail her fate with gleeful voice. 
 We rose involuntarily 
 With heads bared reverentially, 
 While each heart beat a sad adieu 
 As for a comrade tried and true, " 
 On whom some mad and dumb disease 
 Exerts its deadly energies ; 
 Stood still as images of stone 
 Misplaced and left to drift alone. 
 Forgotten — lost — ^heeded by none , 
 
TSE MOBBUN MAmNEIt. 97 
 
 Saw foot by foot the waves encroach, 
 Impatient at fate's slow approach ; 
 
 Saw the sad hulk by sure degrees 
 
 Sink low and lower in the seas, 
 'Till o'er the broken bulwarks poured 
 The eager and impatient horde, 
 
 To join the prisoned waves compressed 
 
 "Within the dying monster's breast — 
 A mingled tide that surged and rolled 
 With noise like fog-bells faintly tolled — 
 
 A plunge — a struggle — a rebound 
 
 Of parted waves — a gurgling sound, 
 A close fierce grapple smothered in 
 A reeling caldron's foam and din, 
 
 A trembling motion round the pole, 
 
 A smoothing over of the whole, 
 And then the happy waves danced by 
 With naught between them and the sky. 
 
 " A hush fell on us like a wave 
 Of silence wafted from the grave, 
 
 A sense of loneliness and dread 
 
 That simk upon our hearts like lead, 
 A gloom that not the tropic day 
 With all its splendor could allay. 
 
98 TRE VOICE OE A SWELL, 
 
 A sadness that the liquid swell 
 Of ocean harps could not dispel — 
 A shade — a ghost of ugly hue 
 That quite obscured the mental view, 
 While all the air was softly stirred 
 As by the wing of a phantom bird. 
 
 *' We sank back in our little space, 
 A pall each heart, a shroud each face, 
 Each cold hand holding in its clasp 
 A hand as cold — a deathly grasp. 
 
 Y. 
 
 " The golden chariot of day 
 Passed on its noiseless wheels av/ay, 
 And following upon its rear 
 Came twilight's army creeping near ; 
 Advancing slowly, stealthily, 
 Its mottled footprints marked the sea, 
 And sweeping onward down the west 
 Left us to meet that darker guest 
 And to prepare as best we might 
 Some shelter from the dews of night, 
 Those exhalations charged with bane 
 That rise from the o'erheated main, 
 
TEE MOBBUN MARINER. 99 
 
 As fatal as the prison beam 
 
 The full moon sheds on those who dream 
 Unsheltered 'neath her mystic spell, - 
 And wake to find their brains a hell. ' 
 
 " Stowed in a locker safe and sound 
 A fragment of a jib we found, 
 Also an awning and a shred 
 Of black tarpaulin ; these we spread, 
 The awning stretching overhead, 
 And with the broken pieces found 
 We housed a little space around, 
 
 And made a cabin for our charge 
 
 In the after portion of the barge, 
 Divided from us by a screen 
 Of ample breadth that hung between, 
 
 And when this pleasant task was o'er 
 
 We looked into our little store 
 Of poor provisions which our care 
 Saved from the wreck for future fare, 
 
 Food scarce sufficient to sustain 
 
 Life through five days, should life remain ; 
 A few small cans of navy meat 
 (Half cooked already by the heat), 
 
100 . TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 A can of crackers, snugly stored 
 (To keep from crawling overboard), 
 And that was all ; but oh, more dear 
 To sea- worn souls than lordly cheer ! 
 A beaker of pure water, cold 
 As ever came from vessel's hold ! 
 With grateful hearts we blessed the fare 
 And took each man a scanty share, 
 But not till sAe, the first and best, 
 Had eaten of the tenderest. 
 And with a bright word and smile 
 Withdrawn from us a little while. 
 
 " And now the sentries of the sky 
 Were slyly taking post on high, 
 
 As up the clear ethereal arch 
 
 The shining hosts commenced their march, 
 Each brilliant band to take its place 
 Among the glories of its race, 
 
 As southwest winds with gentle force 
 
 Urged us upon our lonely course. 
 Set by those constant guides which God 
 Has set above the wanderer's road. 
 
 '*It was arranged that I should keep 
 The early watch, for I could not sleep 
 
:ee:e mobebi^ mariner. iqi 
 
 From utter wretchedness of heart, 
 
 And fears that I feared to impart — 
 The awful fear that she must share 
 The fate that threatened us, whose stare 
 
 I fancied oft upon us bent 
 
 Already with its dire intent, 
 In spite of every effort made 
 To throw the phantom in the shade- 
 To rout it and supply its place 
 
 With forms of loveliness and grace. 
 And so when gentle sleep had laid 
 Her hand upon each brave comrade 
 
 I sat upon my quiet post, 
 
 Watching the while the heavenly host ! 
 But wondering in my troubled mind 
 If site a sweet repose could find, 
 
 Or whether in deep loneliness 
 
 She sat and brooded our distress, 
 When suddenly, as if from out 
 Some star along the brilliant route. 
 
 An angel clothed in light had stept 
 
 To walk the world while mortals slept, 
 With noiseless step and anxious mein 
 Stole to my side my Eveline, 
 
102 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 And with a look of trust and love 
 That would have graced a saint above. 
 Yet saddened somewhat by a hue 
 Of secret grief that struggled through, 
 Settled as softly down by me 
 As weary sea bird 'neath the lee 
 Of some rough rock when wind and sea 
 Are striving for the mastery — 
 Without a word — without a sign 
 Save what those dear eyes spake to mine. 
 
 " Too full of blessed love to speak, 
 I stooped and kissed her lily cheek, 
 
 While one white hand I caught and prest 
 In silent rapture to my breast, 
 That she might feel the mighty force 
 Of passion smothered at its source — 
 The passion that had once betrayed 
 Itself o'erpowering and unstayed. 
 And thus for hours did we sit there, 
 Nor with a whisper stirred the air, 
 But holding each a consciousness 
 Of some overburdening distress — 
 Each knowing in the breast of each 
 Affliction lay too deep for speech, 
 
TEE MODEEK MARINER. 103 
 
 By silent mutual consent 
 Left to pursue its own event. 
 
 '* Till oft repeated clasp and kiss 
 Had plunged us in a dream of bliss 
 
 Sat we. We heeded not tlie song 
 
 That trilled the tumbling waves along, 
 Nor heeded in our rapt heart-charm 
 Those dark and boding shapes of harm 
 
 That gathered round us dull and dumb, 
 
 Forerunners of some woe to come. 
 Great hungry sharks two fathoms long 
 Swam round us in a growing throng, 
 
 And eyed us with dull frightful eyes, 
 
 As marking each his future prize. 
 Still, though our eyes could watch them glide 
 Like constant guardians by our side, 
 
 Those dark portentious things did seem 
 
 But harmless creatures of a dream, 
 As strangely injBnitely far 
 As beings of the fancy are, 
 
 So deep were we in love's blind trance- 
 So lost to time and fate and chance. 
 
 YI. 
 '* Oh, comrades ! 'tis a fearful thing, 
 rhis lonesome long sea-suffering— 
 
104 T^^ VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 These burning, thirsting, famished days 
 Lost in the ocean's mingled ways ; 
 Blown like a feather to and fro 
 By tides that come and tides that go ! 
 These nights of sleepless agony 
 Looking for sign in sky or sea, 
 For sign in sky with dread and fear 
 Lest some storm-token should appear 
 For sign in sea of sail or shore 
 To wing the famished hope once more 5 
 This earnest and continuous prayer 
 Amidst distortion and despair, 
 For water ! water ! blessed drink, 
 Of which 'tis maddening to think ! 
 To drown the awful thirst that burns 
 Like a soul that unto sin returns — 
 All desolate and dying while 
 The calm stars mock us with their smile. 
 
 " Had we been strong men one and all 
 Trained for the worst that could befall, 
 "When fate had sent us to the wall — 
 Had suffering of nature been 
 The only terrors known or seen, 
 We could unflinching to the close, 
 Have borne the body's pains and throea— • 
 
TEE MODERN 3fARINEE. IQj 
 
 Could have sustained them to the end 
 
 And died with friend embracing friend, 
 Or hopeless of a will to save 
 Have sought at once a handy grave, 
 Consigning torture to the wave. 
 
 But oh ! how fearful when combined 
 
 "With constant anguish of the mind, 
 Itself more terrible by far 
 Than pains and ills of body are ; 
 
 When quick imagination fed 
 
 By sorrow's bitter wine and bread 
 Conspires with every other ill 
 The draughts of madness to distil. 
 
 While circumstance with joy intense, 
 
 Stirs up the gross ingredients, 
 Till terror seizes on the bowl 
 And pours it foaming o'er the soul. 
 
 " Who would not have been crazed with care 
 When one so innocent and fair, 
 
 So dearly sweet — so fondly true, 
 
 So lovely and so loving too, 
 As she, my patient Eveline, 
 Was forced upon that desperate scene ; 
 
 Torn rudely from her woman's place 
 
 To meet what stout men shake to face ; 
 
X05 ^^^ rOICB OF A SHELL. 
 
 To feel midst frenzy and despair 
 
 What manhood would have shrieked to bear ? 
 2Viis was the awful thought that stung 
 Each heart and every mind unstrung ; 
 
 This was the tireless bird that preyed 
 
 On souls not easily dismayed, 
 
 O'ershadowing with gloomy wings 
 The bosom's pure refreshing springs. 
 
 " But while for her we inly pined 
 
 She seemed both patient and resigned, 
 And strove by every winning art 
 To make the mind forget its smart, 
 
 Told cheerful tales to cheer us up, 
 
 And sweetened many a bitter cup ; 
 And while her happy fancy wrought 
 Its charming romances, it taught 
 
 That lesson which so many spurn, 
 
 The hardest for a man to learn, 
 That woman, spite her tenderness, 
 Her grief and pity for distress, 
 ^ Her lovable and loving arts, 
 
 Those outward proofs of mobile hearts ; 
 Her infinite resource of mood. 
 By sterner minds misunderstood, 
 
TEE MODHJRIf MAEINEE. 107 
 
 When stung by fate's or passion's heat, 
 Or forced to danger's front can meet 
 
 With more than manly fortitude 
 
 Misfortune's many-handed brood, 
 And with her pure strength put to shame 
 All mean traducers of her name. 
 
 " The time toiled tediously away 
 And dim night broadened into day ; 
 
 Then broad day narrowed down to night, 
 
 And yet no sign — no sail in sight 
 No blessed moment of release 
 From gnawing cares, no spell of peace 
 
 'Midst all this outward smilingness, 
 
 This nature in her gayest dress, 
 This wealth of oriental peace 
 That seemed too heavenly to cease ; 
 
 No change ; but day succeeding day 
 
 Still saw us on our hopeless way, 
 Each formal day and night that passed 
 But repetition of the last, 
 
 Until the sun had done his march 
 
 Four times through the empyreal arch, 
 Until the moon four times had come 
 And looked upon us dull and dumb, 
 
108 THE VOICM OJT A SMELL. 
 
 Until the fifth unhallowed dawn, 
 And then our wretched food was gone. 
 
 YII. 
 
 " But I must hasten with my tale, 
 Or else impatience will prevail ; 
 Must make an effort to condense 
 My yarn or lose my audience ; 
 For did my narrative aspii-e 
 To give each scene and act entire 
 
 That helped to make the matchless play 
 Which I endeavor to portray ; 
 Should I endeavor to impart 
 To each its just degree of art, 
 
 This simple tale would grow as long 
 And tedious as an epic song, 
 And ere I reached my middle point 
 Would twist attention out of joint. 
 A verbal tale devoid of art 
 Should echo to the hearer's heart, 
 Move with the measure and the force 
 With which the blood performs its course, 
 Accompany the pulse along. 
 And yours is rapid now and strong. 
 
TE.M MOBERK MARINER. ]^9 
 
 Yiii. 
 
 " Methinks I see him jDlainlj now, 
 A dark sombrero on his brow ; 
 
 His close-cui'led Saxon locks — his eyes 
 
 Deep blue and humorously wise ; 
 His sunbrowned face, whose quiet smile 
 Told of a nature free from guile ; 
 
 His ruddy cheeks and brilliant flash 
 
 Of teeth behind a blonde mustache ; 
 His heavy chin and bronzen neck, 
 A sculpture without flaw or fleck ; 
 
 His body's perfect symmetry, 
 
 His calm demeanor, manners free — 
 As fine a type of manly grace 
 As e'er enriched the Grecian race. 
 
 And yet a thorough ocean child. 
 
 The hardy boatswain Alfred Wilde. 
 
 *' It was the strangest thing to all 
 That he should be the first to fall ; 
 
 'Twas what we could not understand 
 
 That he was chosen of our band 
 The first to launch upon the sea 
 Of an unknown eternity. 
 
110 TEE rOICI! OF A SEELL. 
 
 'Twas strange that while there yet remained 
 In the water cask a drop undrained, 
 
 His spirits held their wonted flow 
 
 Nor rose above nor sunk below; 
 
 But when the final draught was drunk 
 His humor failed — his body shrunk, 
 
 His speech grew surly in its tone 
 
 And he preferred to be alone , 
 Then, growing timid and afraid, 
 His words in mazy channels strayed, 
 
 "Which ended in a common sea 
 
 Of strangest grief invariably, 
 From out whose depths of mingled woes 
 At times a storm of curses rose 
 
 Too terrible for man to hear 
 
 "Without a thrill of mortal fear. 
 
 *' But all this came to terminate 
 In tme grand master-stroke of fate, 
 That fell more forcibly because 
 It seemed averse to nature's laws ; 
 Because it lopped our staunchest limb 
 "With the nest of hopes that clung to him — 
 Tore the gigantic sprout away 
 And spared the young unseasoned spray; 
 
TEE 3I0DERN- MAEINEB. 
 
 Cut off a fine vitality 
 
 Formed bj the medicinal sea, 
 And passed by in immortal scorn 
 The aged and the tender-born. 
 
 " 'Twas on a night — a pure sad night, 
 And we lay drowned in seas of light 
 Poured by the moon the waves along 
 As they sang low their evening song ; 
 The southwest wind had ceased to sing 
 And slumbered 'neath his folded wing ; 
 So we had furled our little sail 
 To wait the freshening of the gale, 
 If we indeed should ever feel 
 Another billow lift our keel. 
 My precious fading Eveline 
 Keposed apace behind the screen, 
 The captain, worn with pain and care, 
 Sat in the bows with his despair ; 
 I, in a mockery of rest, 
 Was leaning 'gainst a pistol chest, 
 While Wilde sat looking o'er the side 
 With wide eyes fixed upon the tide, 
 Watching the ugly shapes below 
 Noiselessly gliding to and fro — 
 
 n] 
 
112 TRE VOICE OF A SEEIL. 
 
 Seemed in his contemplative trance 
 Interpreting each frightful glance 
 
 Shot from those still and boding eyes, 
 So liquid black and fiendish wise — 
 Coldly engaged in studying 
 For the very madness of the thing 
 The structure of those deadly orbs 
 Whose power imperils and absorbs. 
 I let my heavy eye-lids close, 
 And passed with a nervous doze, 
 
 Painful and plagued ; but by and by 
 I was awakened by a cry — 
 An awful yell that drove the blood 
 Back to my heart in a hurried flood, 
 And in that solitude serene 
 Cut to the quick like weapon keen — 
 Filled for a breath the startled ear 
 With its terrific note of fear. 
 And then without an echo fell 
 Flat on the surface of the swell. 
 
 " I leapt upon my feet and saw 
 A sight that struck me dumb with awe, 
 A spectacle that chained me there 
 With the still fett'ers of despair, 
 
TSE MOBERK MARINER. 113 
 
 Until my dazed and reeling brain 
 Was master of itself again, 
 
 And then came drifting o'er my mind 
 
 A sense of humor undefined, 
 A wave of silent laughter blown 
 Through temples lying spoiled and prone — 
 
 A sudden broad and geuial beam 
 
 That made the whole transaction seem 
 
 The solemn waggery of a dream. 
 
 " He stood with body backward thrown, 
 As rigid as a man of stone, 
 
 And on his lips and in his eyes, 
 
 A spirit lurked in shocking guise, 
 A sign most perfectly expressed 
 Of some fierce torture at the breast, 
 
 Some boundless fantasy of brain 
 
 That clothed him with a garb insane, 
 And sunk the chin, relaxed the cheek, ^ 
 
 With terror that he might not speak. 
 
 But what was that before him there. 
 
 That thin and wavering thing of air 
 
 The moon shone through with yellow glare — 
 That formless fluctuating light 
 So warm and luminously bright ? 
 
114 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Pshaw ! but a mist before the eye, 
 A cloud upon the visual sky ! 
 "What else but that I'd like to know 
 One moment could deceive me so ! 
 I smiled with unbelieving lips 
 And pressed two icy finger tips 
 Upon my aching lids, and then 
 Looked up with confidence again — 
 But lo ! the cloud had taken form 
 And darkened like a growing storm, 
 Had formed proportions and a plan 
 And stood the semblance of a man ; 
 Its look — its face I could not see, 
 The figure's back was turned to me, 
 But I could note the well-known style 
 And bearing of its frame the while, 
 Its every aspect did denote 
 A man-of-war's-man well afloat. 
 But suddenly as in alarm 
 The phantomraised its long right arm, 
 Quick beckoned in the boatswain's face 
 And then withdrew a single pace, 
 And he, without a sign or word. 
 Or moan or whisper to be heard, 
 
THE MODERN MARINER. \\^ 
 
 Moved with it to the gunwale where 
 
 They stood as if in doubt or prayer 
 A moment, and the next the wave 
 Enclosed them in a common grave. 
 
 '' That night and the succeeding day 
 Wrapped in a death-like trance she lay, 
 
 So purely fair, so sweetly weak, 
 
 With lovely languor on her cheek,. 
 With dreamy sweetness in her eyes 
 And on her lips unuttered sighs, 
 
 So pearly beautiful ! O, sight 
 
 That brought a lost and deep delight ! 
 O vision of such happiness 
 As lover mad alone can guess ! 
 
 O glimpse of pure unearthly love 
 
 Vouchsafed to mortals from above- 
 Immortal triumph of the heart 
 O'er every earthly thought or part, 
 
 Bright breaking of celestial day 
 
 Into a prison-house of clay ! 
 
 " The stricken parent pale and wild 
 In tearless grief hung o'er his child — » 
 
 Sat like a frozen image there 
 
 Communmg with his fixed despair — 
 
116 THE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 Bound in a grief too deep for speech 
 His parent's love his only leech ; 
 Sat there so long — sat there so fast, 
 I thought to rouse him up at last — 
 I spoke — he answered not a word, 
 I spoke again — he never stirred, 
 I gently pushed him with my hand, 
 And still he would not understand. 
 And then persisting in my way 
 I took his iiand ... a shadow gray 
 Had slid between us stealthily, 
 So I desisted with a sigh, 
 And ere the moon had set the sea 
 Had closed on all but her and me. 
 
 " And next my mind grew wild and lost 
 In ways that ever crossed, re-crossed, 
 And turned and twisted in and out 
 By many a dark and reckless route, 
 Through scenes of every shade and hue 
 That longer seen the wilder grew; 
 Then in a region vast, so vast, 
 So lonely, voiceless to the last ; 
 A breathless chaos wide, so wide, 
 So desolate and dead beside , 
 
THE MODERN MARINER. \YJ 
 
 A space so destitute and gray 
 
 It seemed the grave of life and day — 
 All lifeless save a spotless thing 
 Soaring high up on balanced wing, 
 
 The likeness of a bird of snow, 
 
 That winged its upward way sublime and slow. 
 
 " I never clearly knew what space 
 Of time we lingered in that place ; 
 
 I know not, yet it scarcely may 
 
 Have been for more than a single day; 
 I've always thought it scarcely might 
 Have been for more than another night, 
 
 For human nature hardly could 
 
 For a longer season have withstood 
 The awful pressure brought to bear 
 Upon those human natures there — 
 
 That clime in which my spirit dwelt 
 
 N"o change of time has ever felt. 
 
 "But there were intervals of change, 
 When flashed across my mental range 
 
 A transient intermittent ray 
 
 Which in that vast had lost its way, 
 Emitting brief uncertain gleams, 
 Now here, now there, in broken beams, 
 
118 TBE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 But e'er presenting to my view 
 A face that more familiar grew 
 The more its presence haunted me, 
 Until at last it came to be 
 
 A constant guest, the only thing 
 In all my world that took not wing, 
 The only thing that did abide 
 Amidst that region wild and wide — 
 That likeness of a bird of snow 
 That kept its way sublime, and slow. 
 I had this consciousness alone, 
 Though dim through an eclipse it shone, 
 That in my dire extremity 
 She was ministering to me. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " At last I woke, as one would wake 
 Who had been buried by mistake, 
 
 And who had struggled through the gloom 
 And torment of a living tomb, 
 Till in exhaustion and in dread 
 He lay like one more truly dead, 
 
 Yet scarcely less than dead when day 
 Broke brilliant through his prison clay, 
 Kecalling him from death and night 
 To walk the world in life and light. 
 
TEE MODERN MARINER. 119 
 
 " I rose — I looked — I closed my eyes — 
 I looked again in deep surmise, 
 
 For how was this ? I shook — I feared — 
 
 The sea — its scenes had disappeared, 
 And where the horizon had shone 
 Were fom* white walls like walls of stone , 
 
 I flmig a glance toward the sky — 
 
 A lofty ceiling met my eye — 
 Ah, yes ! I see ! another phase 
 Of my disease perverts my gaze ! 
 
 Content with this solution I 
 
 Sank on my p'Uow with a sigh. 
 Was this a pillow ? strange to see 
 A pillow in the boat with me ! 
 
 Is this the boat in which I lie ? 
 
 Am I myself, or who am I ? 
 Sure I'm awake, I see — I feel 
 My brain is clear and sharp as steel — 
 
 Good grace ! is that my face within 
 
 Yon mirror on the wall ? how thin — 
 How white and wasted of its flesh 
 That used to be so full and fresh I 
 Are those my eyes reflected there, 
 Meeting my gaze with hollow stare ? <,^ 
 
120 THE VOICi: OF A SRELL. 
 
 Well, it was curious at best, 
 And I could not perceive the jest, 
 So, feeling weak I sank again to rest. 
 
 " It was a hospital, they said. 
 Whither, a madman, I'd been led 
 
 Some months before, and by the hands 
 Of men who came from foreign lands, 
 Some seamen who found me afloat 
 In ocean in an open boat, 
 
 With one female companion who, 
 Though dying, had found strength to do 
 \11 which in that place might be done 
 To aid a loved and stricken one ; 
 Who, at the moment of relief. 
 Yielded to suffering and grief, 
 And lay for many a day and week 
 Without the power to think or speak ; 
 Receiving every tender care 
 'Twas possible to meet with there, 
 Until the crisis passed at length 
 And she recovered health and strength. 
 But I, a gentle madman still. 
 Could not be brought to yield to skill, 
 Which, when all remedies were spent, 
 Pronounced my madness permanent. 
 
THE MODERN MAEINEE. 121 
 
 So when at last the vessel lay 
 
 At anchor in a native bay, 
 I was conveyed with others where 
 I could receive more constant care, 
 
 And there proficient men had found 
 
 At least a hope to make me sound. 
 
 " And this was all that they could tell, 
 'Not learned I aught of what befell 
 
 Her whom I loved ; whither she turned 
 
 When my revolting fate she learned, 
 Although I left no means untried 
 To ascertain — sought far and wide, 
 
 Roamed like a spirit up and down 
 
 Through seaside city vast and town ; 
 Pursued my ceaseless inquiry 
 Where'er men dwelt beside the sea, 
 
 Until my name and tale were known 
 
 Wherever ocean winds have blown — 
 For months and yearSj and all in vain — 
 No far voice answered from the main, 
 
 No tidings came of her or hers, 
 
 No answer from our rescuers, 
 Not even an illusive ray 
 To cheer me for a single day 
 
122 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Rose ignis fatuus-\\k.Q from out 
 That marsh of mystery and doubt. 
 
 " O, mournful, mournful fate ! O heart. 
 Shot through with disappointment's dart ! 
 Doomed like a guilty exiled thing 
 To walk the world a sorrowing ! 
 O, sacred passion marked for years 
 To battle with life's wasting fears, 
 Yet brave in sorrow, beautifiil in tears ! 
 
 X. 
 
 " Years passed and I became again 
 A wanderer from the homes of men; 
 Bowed with a hopeless misery 
 I sought again the friendly sea 
 And found at last some sympathy; 
 Wept first my sorrows on its breast, 
 And rose comforted and caressed — 
 Rose with a calmer mind, a gaze 
 Bent hopefully on future days ; 
 A lighter heart — a purer soul. 
 And passions under calm control, 
 And with a strong presentiment 
 Of some approaching glad event 
 
TEE MODEEN MAHIKER. 123 
 
 To recompense me for the past, 
 And give me life and peace at last. 
 
 " Eighteen full years up to a day 
 Since my shipwreck had wound away; 
 
 Eighteen complete illusions whirled 
 
 From off the great reel of the world, 
 Rolled with their vast loads of decay 
 Down old oblivion's sloping way. 
 
 I said 'twas eighteen years, I say 
 
 'Twas eighteen years up to a day, 
 And I again looked on that scene. 
 That sky, that sun, those seas serene — 
 
 As calm — as beautiful as when 
 
 Their beauty so deceived my ken ; 
 "When other eyes were there to drink 
 Their charms, and other lips to link 
 
 Their scattered gems into a chain 
 
 Of beauty coiling round the brain — 
 There found ourselves without a breeze 
 Rolled in those golden Indian seas, 
 
 Becalmed upon the sultry tide. 
 
 With sea-dust glistening far and wide ; 
 When suddenly arose a hail 
 From a lookout — ' A sail ! a sail ! ' 
 
124 THE VOICE OF A SEELL, 
 
 And every eye was turned upon 
 
 The faint and hazy horizon, 
 To catch the ever-welcome gleam 
 Of sun on canvas. On our beam — 
 
 Our starboard beam, with glass to aid 
 
 My sight, a little speck I njade, 
 A brilliant point so far away 
 At times I almost lost the ray, 
 When ' man the barge ! ' I heard the captain say. 
 
 " I did not pause to question why 
 
 Such haste ; but in the captain's eye 
 I read an intense interest 
 That was not otherwise expressed. 
 
 His glass, more powerful than mine, 
 
 Had shown him some unusual sign, 
 Some point about that sail which he 
 Did not communicate to me ; 
 
 And I chose not in any sense 
 
 To worm into his confidence, 
 So I said not a word at all, 
 But helped to tend the barge's fall, 
 
 And as she plashed into the tide 
 
 Took my position by his side. 
 Then all impatiently the boys 
 Pulled lustily and without noise — 
 
THE MOBERX MARINER. 125 
 
 Pulled and perspired until at last. 
 After a goodly distance past, 
 
 The object of our search appeared 
 
 Close on our bow, and as we neared 
 An influence of awe and fear 
 Seemed to pervade the atmosphere, 
 
 An air so odorous of death 
 
 It nearly took away my breath, 
 And made a sinking sickness fall 
 Upon my heart, and shook a pall. 
 
 Torn from the coffin of the past, 
 
 Around my senses waning fast — 
 Drew it so close about my brain 
 It made me nervously insane, 
 
 And caused all things around to seem 
 
 The memory of an ancient dream ; 
 As near and nearer we advanced 
 This strange sensation was enhanced — 
 
 But hold ! what sight is here revealed ! 
 
 "What ! do I dream with lids unsealed ? 
 I shake myself and look once more, 
 But all these things I've seen before ! 
 
 My thoughts flash back across the years, 
 
 And there this self-same scene appears ! 
 
126 TRE VOICE GF A SHELL. 
 
 My memory deceives me not, 
 This seems indeed the very spot, 
 And this the sky, and this the sea 
 That still reflect that memory. 
 Great heaven ! these wonders but increase ! 
 What starved and dying souls are these 
 That greet our eyes all wonder-wide 
 As we swiftly shoot to that vessel's side ? 
 That exile female form so fair 
 I'm almost sure I've seen somewhere, 
 That pale sweet face I too have seen — 
 My God ! my God ! my Eveline ! 
 The same dear love of other days 
 In everything ! I gasp — I gaze — 
 Yes, there she stands "before my ken, 
 As young and beautiful as when 
 "We were alone upon the sea 
 And she arose and tended me, 
 
 When I was mad and did not know 
 Aught but the love that loved me so ! 
 Yes, there she stands above a form 
 Which the quick life has ceased to warm, 
 A clod — a sod — a thing of death 
 O'er which she bends with bated breath I 
 
TEE MOBBEK MARINER. 127 
 
 But I no longer could restrain 
 The forward impulse of my brain, 
 
 The mastering sense of mystery, 
 
 That drew me on impulsively, 
 I cried out like a wounded thing 
 And cleared the cutter with a spring — 
 
 Leapt like a panther from my seat 
 
 And landed lightly on my feet 
 Beside the living and her dead, 
 And spoke in haste ; she raised her head, 
 
 And met me with a pair of eyes 
 
 So full of sorrowful surprise, 
 So full of speechless questionings 
 And a hundred other mournful things, 
 
 My heart leapt in a quick response 
 
 And bound me to her cause at once, 
 But while my lips strove to repeat 
 She wilted flower-like at my feet. 
 
 " And now I have but to relate 
 Haw kindly my attendent fate 
 Smoothed out the wrinkles of his hate ; 
 
 How my life-path led quickly out 
 
 Of that thick-tangled land of doubt, 
 
128 TEE VOICE OF A SEELL, 
 
 And in among the pleasant ways 
 Of peaceful nights and balmy days : 
 Encircled by that magic ring 
 From which all perfect pleasures spring ; 
 !N^o more to pierce the middle dim 
 Of years, but lightly tread their rim, 
 Skirt life's delightful yellow verge 
 Where virtue's paths at last emerge ; 
 Where passion's hot mischievous blaze 
 Melts into faith's refulgent haze, 
 
 And storms and tumults of the past 
 Beat faint and far and cease at last. 
 
 " Strange was the story that was told 
 When sickness had released his hold 
 Upon her tender frame, and health 
 And youthful bloom their pristine wealth 
 Restored ; and harmony and song, 
 Rang from sweet heart-strings silenced long, 
 And life and light danced in her ee 
 The life and light that were for me — 
 For with my history she learned 
 To love the soul that strongly yearned 
 
 Through years and years of blasting dearth 
 And yet retained its wealth and worth. 
 
THE MODERN 3IAEINER. 129 
 
 " I'm now an old and stricken man, 
 Whose life has nigh fulfilled its plan, 
 
 But there survives through all these years, 
 
 Bright from their joys and ills and tears, 
 The marvel and the mystery 
 With which I heard her history — 
 
 That part, I mean, closed by the line 
 
 Where hers became as one with mine, 
 That part of suffering and grief 
 Almost transcending man's belief, 
 
 And as your eager looks betray 
 
 Your wish to hear without delay, 
 I'll haste to render you the key 
 Of access to this mystery, 
 
 Although the facts thereof befell 
 
 Later than what remains to tell. 
 
 " When eighteen years had passed away 
 From our unhappy shipwreck day, 
 
 There were enacted o'er again. 
 
 Upon that far-off Indian main, 
 
 Those very scenes of gloom and pain 
 Whose crude recital moved you so — 
 The wreck and its succeeding woe. 
 
 Recall that portion of my tale 
 
 Begmning with the midnight gale, 
 
130 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 And follow on to the event 
 When my wild soul a wandering went ; 
 lecall each incident inwrought 
 In that bewildering war of thought ; 
 Review each episode that went 
 To form that cursed imprisonment ; 
 Remember every scene and act 
 In that wild tragedy in fact ; 
 And then consolidate the whole 
 In one huge horror of the soul, 
 And you possess her history 
 As she related it to me. 
 Though strange and startling it may seem, 
 And like the substance of a dream, 
 These scenes enacted in my sight. 
 Long years ere she beheld the light, 
 In their minutest details came 
 To her in manner just the same; 
 
 By some strange law of fate it passed, 
 Both streams were in one channel cast ; 
 So strict — precise in every sense, 
 And perfect the coincidence, 
 That only one event befell 
 Unknown in the original, 
 
TEE MODERN MARINER, 131 
 
 And that, the last that did betide, 
 When the ill-fated lover died. 
 
 " Strange was the tale, and who would guess 
 That after all I should possess 
 
 My precious long-lost love of old 
 
 With all its azure and its gold ; 
 Untarnished by the dust of years, 
 XJnwasted by life's wasting fears I 
 
 But so it was, my Eveline, 
 
 Alone, an orphan, having seen 
 Her fated lover borne away 
 To linger out life's dismal day, 
 
 As she supposed, in mindless gloom, 
 
 More bitter than an early tomb, 
 After a fitting time was spent 
 In giving pent-up sorrow vent. 
 
 And months of quietness and calm 
 
 Had rendered her restoring balm, 
 Yielded to the unperjured art 
 Of one who sought her hand and heart, 
 
 And if her heart was hopeless flown 
 
 The honor of her hand alone ; 
 Leant quiet ear to the appeal 
 Of a warm nature true as steel, 
 
132 THE VOICE OF A SEEXL. 
 
 And to his earnest suit replied 
 That if he could be satisfied 
 With what of love remained to her 
 That willingly would she confer 
 On him, her friend and rescuer, 
 Her friend — the only one below 
 Who knew her griefs, or cared to know. 
 They wed, and never o'er life's sea 
 Did drift two lives more peacefully ; 
 And if her early losses pressed 
 At times upon her matron breast, 
 Or if a yearning for the old 
 First love that never could grow cold, 
 With sadness, like a garb divine, 
 Enfolded her, 'twas all, no sign, 
 Or outward trace was ever seen 
 Of a regret for what had been ; 
 
 And when unto her charge was given 
 The third bright angel fresh from heaven, 
 She slept in death's forgetfulness 
 And earth possessed one angel less ; 
 Departed and unconsciously 
 Bequeathed immortal wealth to me — 
 A perfect joyous little elf, 
 The image of her former self j 
 
SFEAY. 133 
 
 The bright embodiment divine 
 Of all the love that had been mine : 
 A passion of celestial birth 
 Permitted to remain on earth ; 
 A jewel of unchanging ray- 
 Preserved in casket of sweet clay, 
 For one who sought with woes untold 
 To clasp it in the former mould. 
 And thus I won my Eveline, 
 ThQ Bweetest girl that e'er was seen, 
 Turned to outwitted death and smiled, 
 And clasped the mother in the child." 
 
 SPRAY. 
 
 A SEA TROUBLE. 
 
 Beyond the light-house, far asea, 
 The wind and waves are quarrelling 
 In angry tones about something 
 
 That is a mystery to me. 
 
 Low down along the threatening South 
 I hear the breakers wildly curse, 
 Each moment growing worse and worse — 
 
 I see them foaming at the mouth. 
 
134 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Some faint far lightnings flash and die 
 On the black border of the bay, 
 In passionate and hateful play 
 
 Like amorous angers of an eye. 
 
 The sails lie o'er on their sides, 
 
 Warped by the inward blowing wind 
 That rides with furious rush behind. 
 
 And drives them through opposing tides. 
 
 Gaunt shapes are stalking overhead — 
 Gigantic squadrons on their march 
 Through heaven's overshadowing arch 
 
 With stealthy and avenging tread. 
 
 They ever move me painfully, 
 And I do wish that they would end — 
 These strifes I cannot comprehend ; 
 For thought is mystery to me 
 And these bring thought and mystery. 
 
TO EVA, 
 
 TO EVA. 
 
 135 
 
 Thy smile could wring from senseless clay 
 The sweetest song that e'er was sung, 
 
 And call from darkness into day 
 A soul to lyric madness strung, 
 
 To twine, with heart and mind aflame, 
 
 Unfading wild-flowers round thy name ! 
 
 Thy scorn could summon from the past 
 
 The genius of old tragedy 
 With thoughts like the continuous blast 
 
 Of headlong tempests on the sea, 
 Such as old Marlowe felt of yore 
 Break on his life's unquiet shore. 
 
 A wish of thine could rend the mesh 
 That fetters young idea's wing, 
 
 And make the empire of the flesh 
 Subservient to creation's spring, 
 
 While she erects o'er reason's throne 
 
 A burning kingdom all thy own. 
 
136 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Thy swift thoughts span the circling sea 
 ( How beat these joy-throbs on my brain ! ), 
 
 And straight I feel an ecstacy — 
 A sweetly-agonizing pain 
 
 Pierce down into the secret cells, 
 
 Where love with all her mystery dwells, 
 
 A burning hunger of the lips, 
 An intense energy of heart, 
 
 An iron hand that tightly grips 
 My brain with unrelenting smart, 
 
 A rushing of the blood along, 
 
 A burst of wild barbaric song ! 
 
 In midnight watches on the sea. 
 
 In island city's gleaming walls, 
 Thy tireless spirit comes to me 
 
 In tempests and in bacchanals. 
 Sowing in furrows of my breast 
 The quick seeds of a wild unrest. 
 
 On shores where years have piled their wrecks. 
 And piled and heaped them o'er again, 
 
 Till one high moss-grown barrier checks 
 The marching legions of the main. 
 
 Thy searching spirit, life-endued, 
 
 Did people all my solitude ! 
 
TO EVA. 137 
 
 Whene'er I pierce, by land or sea, 
 To fiery isles or tropic lakes, 
 
 Thy still thought ever follows me 
 And on my antique fancy breaks — 
 
 Breaks up the primal gloom of soul 
 
 That otherwise would all control. 
 
 If, while thy endless chain I wear, 
 And feel it tightening link by link, 
 
 Another aspiration dare 
 
 To mount above my passion's briak 
 
 It soars but to reveal to me 
 
 Thy power and imj infirmity. 
 
 Could mortals claim but one delight 
 And right of choice to me were given. 
 
 To bide a saint in spotless white, 
 Or cling to thee and forfeit heaven 
 
 I'd quaff thy cup of lotus bloom, 
 
 And plunge me into heathen gloom. 
 
138 TOB VOICE OF A SKELL. 
 
 LOVE'S REVIVAL. 
 
 Oh, Florence ! Florence ! do you know 
 What a sweet pleasure of surprise 
 Lurks in the depths of your dear eyes ? 
 How in their shy and winy glow 
 I feel my heart blood swell and flow, 
 And hear its old instinctive cries ? 
 
 Those hot sweet cries I thought were hushed 
 And dumb, drowned down to rise no more 
 With their fierce clamor, as before. 
 When youth's great torrent roared and rushed. 
 Till one too vivid heart was crushed, 
 And one was stricken to its core. 
 
 I might have known — ^I might have guessed 
 
 That love dies not so easily 
 
 In tropic hearts, but secretly 
 Will nurse the deep wound in his breast, 
 Regaining in his death-like rest 
 
 His wonted fierce vitality. 
 
LOVE'S REVIVAL. 139 
 
 Till some fond phrase of eye or lip 
 Thrills in between his prison bars, 
 Then vanish ancient wounds and scars, 
 
 His rozy limbs their fetters slip, 
 
 Pride withers in his lusty grip, 
 
 While wisdom flies to join the stars. 
 
 Ah, foolish human brain ! to think 
 
 To conquer with your wise conceits 
 
 The darling rogue who ever cheats 
 The reason of his boasted scope ; 
 Ah, silly pride ! how now you grope — 
 
 "Where now your pure exalted seats ? 
 
 Oh, Florence ! Florence ! what have you 
 
 Been doing to this heart of mine — 
 
 What wondrous work of art divine 
 Has your bright fancy found to do ! 
 This golden mist I see jovl through 
 
 Is sure some deep-wrought charm of thine ! 
 
 jSTo faint and languid breeze of sighs 
 
 Is it that stirs this current so, 
 
 No pleasant airs that lightly blow 
 'Keath amorous suns and smiling skies, 
 But some still force that has its rise 
 
 In hidden caverns far below. 
 
140 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 I feel its power — I pause — I yield — 
 I toss a kiss up to the sun 
 To seal the victory he's won ; 
 I ground my sorry lance and shield, 
 And stretch my bare arms from the field, 
 For you to slip the fetters on. 
 
 You've won ; but never yet so strange 
 A captive as you'll find in me, 
 So true — so false ; so tame — so free ; 
 So blessed — so cursed with every change 
 Of mood within the mind's wide range, 
 And yet so fixed in constancy. 
 
 You held the straws for me to draw — 
 I drew — the shortest, let it stay, 
 I'll not cry " unfair " any way ; 
 One more content you never saw 
 To bide by love's delightful law, 
 Sweet tyranny ! for aye and aye. 
 
FLORA. 141 
 
 FLORA. 
 
 Flqka is a tender flower, 
 
 Growing in the world's broad meardo-w, 
 Nursed by summer's sun and shower, 
 
 Clouded never by a shadow. 
 
 Flora is a mirthful creature, 
 
 Full of infant rhyme and measure^ 
 
 Every grace of form and feature 
 Eloquent of love and pleasure. 
 
 I can scarce believe her mortal, 
 
 But some playful little fairy, 
 Hovering at life's rosy portal, 
 
 Doubtful if to fly or tarry. 
 
 Some delightful angel comer 
 
 Sowing seeds of love before her, 
 
 Shedding hope's delightful summer 
 O'er the fond hearts that adore her. 
 
 Flora's eyes are brown and browner, 
 Flora's ways are fresh and rosy, 
 
 Blushing health and beauty crown her, 
 Flora is a mountain posy. 
 
142 ^-2^ VOICE OF A SHELL, 
 
 THE SACRIFICE. 
 
 She gives him to the deep with many tears, 
 Resigns her darling to the tempter main, 
 
 And mingles fervent blessings with her prayers — 
 Recalls him oft and kisses him again. 
 
 He is hers only ; early death has torn 
 
 From her choice care the others ere their hearts 
 
 Had groT^m to wander, or their feet had worn 
 The patient earth, or mingled in its marts. 
 
 She sees his young heart lives where ocean sweeps, 
 
 His first affection centered in the sea, 
 And recognizes even while she weeps 
 
 The genius that directs his destiny. 
 
 Spurning his toys she sees him seek its side 
 And glory in the aspect of its charms ; 
 
 His fresh thoughts chafing with impatient pride, 
 Fierce for the pressure of its reaching arms. 
 
 The curious things that it has cast ashore 
 She sees him scrutinize with meaning gaze — 
 
 The windings of some rare shell to explore, 
 
 He quits his playmates and their thoughtless ways= 
 
TEE SACBIFICE. 143 
 
 When tempests stir the ocean up to wrath 
 And all the powers are banded to destroy, 
 
 High up the rocks on some perilous path 
 
 She sees him stand and fling his arms for joy. 
 
 And ofttiraes when the waves in pleasant dance 
 Brush with light footsteps the enamored sands, 
 
 She notes him in imaginative trance, 
 His fleet thoughts sailing on to other lands, 
 
 And realizes how the irksome chain 
 
 Which binds a free young spirit to enthrall, 
 
 In after years may rust into the brain, 
 
 And charge the bosom with its deadly gall. 
 
 She muses o'er the tales that man has told 
 
 Of dire disaster and a watery grave, 
 When chiefest of the bold in vain are bold, 
 And valor's soul cannot avail the brave. 
 
 Then springs triumphant fancy on the scene, 
 And opes her vivid canvas to the eye — 
 
 Wrecks, battles, whirlpools, terrors submarine. 
 In scenic sections pass exultant by. 
 
 " Just God ! a portion of Thy spirit bums 
 Strong in the bosom of my noble boy — 
 
 Oh, keep the jewel bright till it returns 
 With added lustre to its crown of joy I 
 
X44 T^^ VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 *' When tossed by tempests, fearful and alone, 
 His brave bark hangs upon destruction's brink, 
 
 Oh, calm the storm, or bear him bravely on 
 To brighter seas, where no hot whirlpools sink 
 
 " And shield him from those tempests of the soul, 
 More terrible than storms of ocean are — 
 
 The witchery of passion and the bowl 
 That drowns the lustre of the brightest star ! 
 
 ** Teach him to drink full deep the grand sad song 
 
 The sad sea sings in its Creator's praise, 
 And ope his bosom to the angel throng 
 
 That guards the wanderer o'er the ocean ways." 
 
 'Tis done ! the ocean, like an eager bride. 
 
 Has drawn the youthful dreamer to its breast ; 
 
 There, dreaming his grand dreams, may he abide, 
 A poet, wooed, protected and caressed. 
 
WAIFS. 145 
 
 WAIFS. 
 
 I. 
 
 I LOVE to breathe tlie mountain air, 
 And feel my spirit high and free ; 
 
 I love to linger musing where 
 
 The freebom streams rush merrily, 
 By mossy rock and aged tree ; 
 
 I love to hear the wild bird fling 
 
 Her notes of rapture through these bowers, 
 
 As pausing on her homeward wing 
 She fills the air with vocal showers 
 'Midst rustling leaves and wakening flowers. 
 
 I love to climb the mountain high, 
 
 O'er wooded slope, through deep ravine, 
 
 When darkly lowers the summer sky 
 Above the gray cliffs dimly seen 
 Through ever-shifting waves of green ; 
 
 To catch the quivering incense borne 
 On wings of wayward zephyrs o'er 
 
 The valley's wealth of gold-haired com 
 From flowers that bloom along the shore 
 Of lakes flushed with the day-god's gore. 
 
146 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 I love to stand upon the rock 
 
 And see the tempest pass beneath, 
 
 To hear the thunder's rattling shock 
 And see the fiery lightning wreath, 
 Like weapon flashing from its sheath ; 
 
 To hear the heavy swollen waves 
 Beat at the mountain's granite gates, 
 
 While voices from its inner caves, 
 "Where some imprisoned wind awaits, 
 Moan hollow answer to their mates. 
 
 I love to thread the deep morass 
 
 That stretches at the mountain's foot, 
 
 Through dank and serpent-haunted grass. 
 O'er quaking bog and tangled root, 
 Where spires of venomed herbage shoot ; 
 
 And stand at midnight all alone, 
 And watch the mystic star-beam glide. 
 
 And see the moon's refulgent zone 
 Reflected in the listless tide 
 That floats round islands wild and wide. 
 
 Plunged in the city's noisy whirl. 
 Where human life beats like a sea 
 
 On which no ship her sails may furl 
 Because of rocks upon the lee 
 That loom up grim and threateningly, 
 
WAIFS. 147 
 
 I love to note the race of arts 
 
 And sciences and industries, 
 And grasp the lesson each imparts, 
 
 And shape them into prophecies 
 
 Of future great consistencies. 
 
 But oh, the grand mysterious sea ! 
 
 My muse's most abiding theme, 
 The source of mighty joy to me, 
 
 The substance of the grandest dream 
 
 That ever stirred the mind's deep stream; 
 'Tis here, amidst the whirlwind's reel, 
 
 The strife of dark gigantic foes, 
 Nerved by a high and wild appeal, 
 
 I reach, and as truth's gates unclose, 
 
 Grasp solace for my ills and woes. 
 
 'Twas in these budding isles of green 
 
 That bloom along the southern foam, 
 "Where central summer reigns serene 
 
 And savage beauty has its home. 
 
 And scorns to toil nor cares to roam ^ 
 'Twas here, wooed by the lotus-breath 
 
 Of deep and languor-loving seas, 
 I caught the bird that tastes not death 
 
 And made it love the northern breeze, 
 
 To cheer me in my hours of ease. 
 
148 THE VOICE OF A SHELL, 
 
 I love the beautiful and rare — 
 The strong, the deep, and darkly free — 
 My ever-changing moods declare 
 
 My spirit's strange inconstancy, 
 
 A sad but sweet infirmity; 
 Some dear fair face will charm awhile, 
 
 And paint me love in crimson hue, 
 And trouble me with frown or smile, 
 
 When some huge shape looms on my view, 
 
 With tumbling thunders breaking through. 
 
 II. 
 
 Go, bring us coffee, dainty cigarettes, 
 
 And luscious fruits, the guava and the pine ; 
 
 Fetch tender fish caught in soft silken nets 
 
 Webbed by the hands of dark-haired girls divine, 
 Who sit and weave in these deep shades of thine j 
 
 To-day the ocean wanderer shall be free, 
 His ship rides idly on the painted tide — 
 
 Forgotten he the dangers of the sea, 
 And the vexations that the spirit tried ; 
 In thy endearing arais, my island bride ! 
 
 The weary days are over, and the sun 
 
 Of thy warm love shines out across the track — 
 
WAIFS. 149 
 
 The dreary track o'er which my bark has run 
 Since on this paradise I turned my back 
 And went down into ocean's hollows black , 
 
 Swifl-running sands had brought the time of toil, 
 And toil is good that cometh in its turn ; 
 
 All these sweet draughts of pleasure are its spoil, 
 For these I strove — this dear reward to earn — 
 Full well I filled my task, for fee I burn. 
 
 And thou hast waited too a weary spell, 
 Gazing adown the golden track of morn. 
 
 Gazing while eve upon the waters fell 
 
 And in the heavens hung up her silver horn. 
 To see a sail of shifting shadows born; 
 
 And then, perhaps, as none led up the steep 
 To tell of sea-worn wanderer's return. 
 
 Those eyes so brilliant now first learned to weep, 
 That careless bosom first to fondly yearn 
 Beyond thine isle with hopes that made thee burn. 
 
 The dream is weaving that shall cover me 
 Surround me — hide me from the outer world 
 
 Where thou art not ; my soul is full of thee. 
 And where thy mystic golden chain lies curled 
 The wings that felt the tempest shall be furled ; 
 
150 THE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Love, we will feast on all that nature gives, 
 And drunk with kisses feel no more of earth ; 
 
 Plunged in the burning wild where passion Uvea 
 We'll call an unknown rapture into birth, 
 Distilled of love, forgetfulness and mirth. 
 
 Haste, dusky boy, and bring an ample share 
 Of every sweet this tropic garden grows ; 
 
 Spread wide our emerald tent with dainty fare, 
 And drink in which no maddening demon glows ; 
 Gold shall reward thee and make light thy woes ; 
 
 This hour shall wake the senses' bacchanal 
 The revel of the emancipated heart, 
 
 Long time obedient to duty's call — 
 
 How sweet at last to feel its fetters part, 
 
 And love and feast and song drown every smart t 
 
 Love is the wine of youth, and we are young — 
 Oh, love ! how glorious in this bright clime I 
 
 'Twas 'mong such luxuries the cherub sprung 
 Resplendent in unwaning summer-time, 
 Chambered in blossomed walls of palm and lime ; 
 
 Can aught less dear than love such cradle know, 
 Such richness nurse a sterner infancy ? 
 
 Lulled on a bosom that doth overflow, 
 
WAIFS, 151 
 
 The darling here attains maturity, 
 Unchilled by winter's stern inclemency. 
 
 Thinkest thou his chubby little feet are cold 
 With such a soft warm carpet everywhere, 
 
 Woven in green luxuriance fold in fold, 
 Matted and knotted with especial care, 
 And soft and yielding as a couch in air ? 
 
 Thinkest thou he lacketh an abundant store 
 Of sweets to hold his joyous blood unspent. 
 
 With all this glorious fruitage beading o'er 
 His leafy canopy profusely blent, 
 In all the stages of development ? 
 
 But wine is sweetest taken after toil. 
 
 So love is richest after time of pain ; 
 How sweet to feel amidst the mind's turmoil 
 
 Its grateful drops fall warm upon the brain, 
 
 Recalling its fresh fantasies again ; 
 Here on our yielding couch we'll taste the sweets 
 
 That flow spontaneous through this wilderness. 
 While every zephyr that so fondly greets 
 
 The languid sense, inspires the fond caress, 
 
 And all the joys that wedded loves possess. 
 
152 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL, 
 
 Look yonder ! at the ocean's open gates 
 Stands the resplendent architect of day, 
 
 In all the splendor that upon him waits 
 
 When to the court of dawn he takes his way 
 To view the world that joys to own his sway ; 
 
 Before the light of his great golden eye 
 Behold the shapeless shadows disappear. 
 
 And vapors that lie piled along the sky 
 Sink down supine or flee away in fear, 
 To hide in dense morasses wet and drear. 
 
 See how his gay light flashes on our shore, 
 Where lie the little wavelets fast asleep, 
 
 Yet murmuring in their slumber o'er and o'er 
 As day's dream-images around them creep, 
 Weaving a net of sunbeams o'er the deep ; 
 
 Look how the crescent curve of shining beach 
 Is by a million slender shell-wrecks sown. 
 
 Their little pilots dead who used to teach 
 
 What course to set when by hot whirlwinds strown, 
 And cast away in currents not their own. 
 
 When they are wrecked no grim old wrecker springs 
 Forth from hisj rocks on wings of canvas borne, 
 
 To glut upon the spoil disaster brings, 
 
 As when some prouder barks by tempests torn 
 Spread cut their treasures on the sands at morn ; 
 
WAIFS. 153 
 
 No sea can crush their'triple ermine walls, 
 Or wedge or grind them in the riven rocks ; 
 
 But desolate within his winding walls 
 The gritty little Spartan lies and mocks 
 In gradual death all timber-tearing shocks. 
 
 Does that bright thing far off against the sky, 
 That slowly- drifting fairy-moulded thing, 
 
 So like f fair hand waving some one nigh, 
 With the light grace of silent beckoning, 
 A cooling sense of airy freedom bring ? 
 
 Does it appear to thy far sight a sail, 
 Or anything by human labor wrought ? 
 
 Nay, keep thy glass, its power would spoil the tale — 
 The heavenly bright idea I have caught, 
 And hidden in the temple of my thought. 
 
 Are not these groves a dream in which we dream ? 
 A lovelier dream was never dreamed before ; 
 
 On yon cocoa's green there is a gleam 
 Reflected from the ocean's polished floor. 
 Expanding from our covert's tap'stried door; 
 
 Pluck me yon golden orange from its bough, 
 Its wine is sweetest taken from thy hand — 
 
 That flamed-winged Bird has ceased his rattling now, 
 Lightly he hangs upon his bamboo wand 
 As if awaiting thy supreme command. 
 
154 TEE VOICE OF A SEELL, 
 
 His big round eyes in belts of gaudy bues, 
 Filled with amusing wonderment, look down, 
 
 His gay bead cocked, as if be fears to lose 
 One draught thy beauty offers, darling clown 1 
 So careless-happy though be wears a crown ! 
 
 His life is one f)erpetual holiday, 
 
 His love the love that has no after sting ; 
 
 And he is wondrous wise, too, in his way, 
 Can wield a tongue that is unwearying. 
 And laugh and chat and flirt his purple wing. 
 
 And every tree that blooms or fructifies 
 Has its sweet poet lifting up bis voice 
 
 From heart o'erflowing in such eulogies 
 That one is bound to listen and rejoice^ 
 Forgetting that his lay entreats a choice ; 
 
 For who has drunk a j)oet's living song. 
 
 And drunk and drunk till full of wild delight, 
 
 And questioned why he sang so well and long, 
 Or what inspired bis spirit's daring flight 
 Beyond the circle of our frailer sight ? 
 
 Ho ! ho ! by George 1 the woods have devils too ! 
 And hideous little dried-up imps they seem, 
 
 Piercing the tangled foliage through and through, 
 With madman gestures uttering scream on scream, 
 Dancing like demons in a drunken dream ; 
 
WAIF3. 155 
 
 How like quick idiots for all the world, 
 
 With sick brains drowned in white fantastic light ! 
 
 In a wild vortex of light vision whirled, 
 They feel a diseased force to mirth incite. 
 Fling their swift jokes and laugh with all their might. 
 
 See yon old scoundrel, with his snake-like tail 
 Securely whipped around his mangrove spar, 
 
 Crouched, as I've seen in many an ocean gale, 
 Some grimy little shaggy-coated tar, 
 High up aloft and peering out afar ; 
 
 Mark how he squints at us with ferret eyes, 
 Grinning in such a knowing-comic way. 
 
 That one would think the wretch malicious wise — 
 Or cynic sneering at our lovers' play. 
 But start and see how quick he climbs away. 
 
 The hour of poetry is the hour of mom, 
 
 When up the East the new glad light is breaking, 
 
 When songsters rise to greet the day new-born, 
 And drowsy plants are from still slumber waking. 
 And from their tresses night's pure tear-drops skaking; 
 
156 THE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 When from the azure chambers of the sky 
 
 The gold-haired seraphs throng with airy motion. 
 
 To fetch celestial wine of crimson dye 
 And sprinkle it upon the face of ocean, 
 Where curling lips laugh as they quaff the potion. 
 
 Hand me my harp — I'll wake the soul again 
 That solaced me in time of bitter woe, 
 
 Although I wake it to a sweeter strain 
 
 Than that which swept its wild cords long ago, 
 Ere love had taught the minstrel how to glow ; 
 
 It still perhaps will recognize the hand 
 
 Whose touch called forth its genius so of yore, 
 
 Although transplanted from its own stern land 
 To sing beside a painted sunshine shore — 
 Hail, grand companion ! rise and speak once more ! 
 
 SOKG. 
 
 Dreamer of the mountain stream, 
 
 Wake thee ! wake thee ! to my lay ! 
 See ! the east is all agleam 
 
 With the rosy flush of day ! 
 Look ! the genial god has sprung 
 
 Reddening from the eastern main, 
 While the ocean's liquid tongue 
 
 Welcomes him to earth again ! 
 
JTAIFS, 157 
 
 Wake thee, dreamer ! wake once more, 
 
 From thy long and troubled dream, 
 Storms and cloudy climes are o'er. 
 
 Wake thee in the tropic beam ! 
 In these richest island bowers, 
 
 In this seat beside the sea, 
 Languid with the breath of flowers, 
 
 Love is calling low to thee ! 
 
 Dreamer of the languid eye, 
 
 Rouse thee while I strike the strings ! 
 Sound a sweet glad symphony, 
 
 Made of love's love murmurings ; 
 When thy gush of joy is o'er 
 
 I will hang thee on a tree, 
 Where the willing winds will pour 
 
 O'er thy soul new melody. 
 
 Thine eyes, my love, are wells from which I drink 
 A more intoxicating wine by half 
 
 Than that which sparkles o'er the goblet's brink. 
 When gods right merry and right mellow quafi^, 
 And wake the winking stars with song and laugh 
 
158 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Thy cheeks are like the fig's — but I forbear, 
 For waDt of glowing epithet divine ; 
 
 For those which paint the charms of other fair 
 Are so insipid when applied to thine, 
 I cease, and let my silence be their sign. 
 
 But love, behold ! what tempting treasures lie 
 Spread out before us in confusion meet, 
 
 Waiting the praise of the delighted eye 
 
 Whose ravished glance they slyly blush to greet. 
 Lying so dearly conscious at our feet ; 
 
 Boy, thou hast done with more than skill thy task, 
 (I marvel at such taste in one like thee), 
 
 Here is thy gold — nay, take it, and go ask 
 Thy dusky mate to join thee 'neath thy tree, 
 And lay the yellow pieces on her knee. 
 
 Here the dead-ripe bananas are, and here 
 
 The purple figs blush through a cloud of green; 
 
 And here the luscious guavas too appear, 
 While yonder, peeping from its leafy screen, 
 The glorious sapadilla may be seen ; 
 
 And they that love the kisses of the sun, 
 The orange, plantain, and the juicy pine. 
 
 Combine their various odors into one 
 
WAIFS. 159 
 
 Concentrated breath of luxury divine, 
 
 That works upon the sense like mingled wine. 
 
 They look too beautiful to mar, and yet 
 
 They are so tempting ! come, we'll test their worth ! 
 Ah ! here's a draught the gods would not regret — 
 
 Truer than wine and of as choice a birth, 
 
 And freely flows to all alike on earth ; 
 With genial gratitude to Him who fills 
 
 Our arms with gifts on this our holiday, 
 Partake we of the many things He wills 
 
 His humbler children have without repay, 
 
 So feast and chat the morning hours away. 
 
 Lo ! mark what rare poetic forms obtrude 
 To claim the praises of the vagrant gaze, 
 
 Bewildered by profusion beauties nude. 
 
 And beauties clothed in bright barbaric blaze 
 Some bold, distinct, and some that fade in haze ; 
 
 The giant cactus, armed in every leaf. 
 Stands up defiant, with his single eye 
 
 Flaming the vivid passion of a chief 
 Upon the humbler beauties standing by, 
 Clothed in a rich and humid luxury. 
 
160 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 And see how gaily yo^n ambitious vine 
 
 fas hung his painted pennant from the crest 
 
 Of that rude-sculptured pillar-palm of mine — 
 The one I chose apart from all the rest 
 To guard the entrance of our wildwood nest ; 
 
 A fancied cord of woven leaves and flowers 
 
 Dropped from the casement of some dwelling-place 
 
 Among celestial palaces and towers, 
 
 For fairies weary of the sport and chase 
 
 To mount upon through pathless realms of space. 
 
 Like pillars of a massy temple wrought 
 And finished with minutest handicraft, 
 
 Devices far too infinite for thought, 
 
 To trace the which would turn a mortal daft, 
 Dark carvings that on carvings dark engraft ; 
 
 The stately forest stems in order stand, 
 
 Some bearded with white mosses, some embraced 
 
 In the ripe clasp of royal vines in grand 
 And rich habiliment, and proudly chaste, 
 As warmest trusting maiden undisgraced. 
 
 Here life is one long dream voluptuous 
 Of softest joys in warm and love-lit ways, 
 
 And it is good, for God has willed it thus — 
 Secure from peril He has made their days 
 Who idle uninquiring through this maze ; 
 
WAIFS. 161 
 
 But woe to him who reared in sterner clime 
 Quits it to find a locked enjoyment here — 
 
 To languish 'neath the shade of palm and lime, 
 And sip the lotus till his latest year, 
 For fiends shall seize him ere his leaf be sear ! 
 
 But, oh ! to weary mariner what joy 
 
 To see those dark hiUs rising on his track ! 
 
 For there he knows the pleasures of the boy, 
 E'en though his sun be waning, shall come back 
 To rout the thoughts of toil and tempests' rack ; 
 
 When close confinement of torturous weeks, 
 
 The master's harsh command and shipmates' growl 
 
 Are reckoned with the wind that filled the cheeks 
 Of the fat boatswain through the tempest's howl — 
 Gone and forgot, like all that blows him foul. 
 
 Oh, spot of strange and fatal loveliness, 
 
 No soul is safe beneath thy green arcades ! 
 A peril lurks in every green recess, 
 And demons stalk disguised among thy glades, 
 To trap the heart that vice in vain invades ; 
 Thy more than earthly beauty is thy curse, 
 
 And those who yield to it are lost to all- 
 Lost to life's dear anxieties, and worse, 
 
162 TBE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Lost to tlie soul's inspiring trumpet-call, 
 Held satyr-like in nature's sensuous thralL 
 
 Soon I must turn me toward that stormy land 
 Where pure Lake George's crystal waters lie 
 
 Asleep in hills magnificent and grand, 
 Eternal guardians of their chastity. 
 Looking forever on them from on high ; 
 
 Must shake me from these sea's embracing arms, 
 Where I have lived a wrapt delightful dream, 
 
 To seek 'mong hardier scenes and homelier charms 
 The hidden fountain of contentment's stream. 
 While youth and love yet shed a magic beam. 
 
 And thou, my love, shalt be a star to light 
 A lovely beacon on these noble hills, 
 
 Where moons flash cold along the snow-robed height, 
 And skies weep frozen tears, and tardy rills 
 Are caught and prisoned in a wall that chills ; 
 
 Chills their light singing hearts, and prisoned long, 
 Mourn deep down in their bosoms for release. 
 
 Till youthful spring comes dancing in with song, 
 And wealth of hope and passion and increase 
 To melt their bonds and let them go in peace. 
 
WAIFS. 163 
 
 So we have talked and feasted till tlie sun 
 
 In his proud station in the middle sky, 
 Rejoices at the height that he has won 
 
 Above the glories that beneath him lie, 
 
 Glad in the fire of his benignant eye ; 
 And now our sweet siesta will we take, 
 
 From his hot glance so slyly hid away — 
 But stop ! once more the charm of song I'll wake, 
 
 Ere our blithe spirits leave the brilliant day. 
 
 Among the flowery paths of sleep to stray. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Sleep, my bride, in slumber fiiir, 
 Olive shades are in thy hair ; 
 On thy cheeks in brown disguise 
 Are the tints of southern skies ; 
 
 Tropic loves are slyly hid 
 
 Underneath each pearly lid. 
 
 Fays that lurk in orange bloom, 
 Blending with luxuriant gloom. 
 
 Hover o'er in fairy glee 
 
 At their glad discovery. 
 Longing for a kiss, but shy, 
 Lest the darling wake and fly. 
 
164 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 Sleep and dream on balmy bed 
 Of the joys tbat we have wed ; 
 Sleep and dream, and have no fear, 
 Love will guard thy pillow, dear ; 
 
 But when sleep withdraws his charms, 
 Waken, dreamer, to my arms ! 
 
 III. 
 
 SEA MUSIC. 
 
 SoKGS of the sea ! can I resist the spell 
 
 Which their old lonely prophecies have wrought 
 
 Upon my saddened spirits ? Can I quell 
 
 Those sole inspirers of my drooping thought, 
 And set their solemn warnings all at naught ? 
 
 Can I forego that deep enjoyment now 
 The only rapture that my soul can grasp, 
 
 My heart assimilate, my mind avow — 
 
 That friend who holds me with close careful clasp 
 Back from the brink of silence where I gasp ? 
 
WAIFS. 165 
 
 Songs of the sea ! breathiogs of the immense, 
 Steadily sounding through the hollow years 
 
 That rise to smother them, what joy intense 
 Works up this settled sediment of tears 
 Choked down, when they come chantmg in my ears," 
 
 Oh, while I scale this old and crumbling wall, 
 Slipping and stumbling o'er the loosened stones, 
 
 Painfully guarding 'gainst a fatal fall, 
 
 Bravely I'll hail the pleasure that atones* 
 
 For 'periled soul sustained 'midst throes and groans ! 
 
 Songs of the sea ! what witching numbers flow 
 With the full stream of their divinest strain ! 
 
 Filling the endless epic with the glow 
 
 That stings the bosom with delicious pain, 
 Sweet mysteries that plague me not in vain ; 
 
 Wonderful melodies that in my ears 
 Are ever ringing, though far, far away 
 
 From Father Ocean my lost vessel steers — 
 In vaui I climb my cliffs, in vain essay 
 Life's common course, they chain — charm me alway ! 
 
 ^ongs of the sea — ^hush ! they are on me now — 
 Do you not see their shadow in my eyes ? 
 
 Do you not see the mystery on my brow — 
 The vague mist of perplexity that lies 
 Upon it like a thin cloud on the skies ? 
 
166 T^^ VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 You speak and I but hear you in a dream, 
 You laugh and your vain mirth sounds faint and far, 
 
 My old sad soul is where white whirlpools gleam, 
 Where yellow typhoons wheel the blazing car, 
 And tempests stalk 'midst flame and thunder-jars. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WEAYmG. 
 
 Ik this odd brain of mine there seems to be 
 V loom whose noiseless shuttles night and day 
 
 Are busy with the threads of memory, 
 Weaving of tangled ends so all astray 
 A gauzy garment, various and gay ; 
 
 A secret swift machine that works by stealth 
 This wonder-wrought poetic cloth-of-gold, 
 
 Dearer to me than heaps of golden wealth 
 Piled higher than the pyramids of old. 
 Or treasures that beneath the sea shine cold. 
 
 Set in the waves that around me float and flow, 
 And shift and glitter, with delight I view 
 
 As in the texture of a shifting shore, 
 
 Past thoughts of every lovely shape and hue 
 Worked in and blended marvelously true ; 
 
WAIFS. 157 
 
 How strange ! with what amused perplexity 
 I strive to read the inextricable sign ! 
 
 THe characters are so complex to me — 
 So mixed and intermingled line in line, 
 I cease, and cry impatient " 'Tis divine ! " 
 
 A RAGE. 
 
 Ope wide thy awful armed mouth, O sea, 
 And roar and bellow till the big earth quake 
 
 In fear and terror, and then scornfully 
 
 Spit full upon her face, and beat and shake 
 Her dry old carcass till the dead awake ; 
 
 Dip thy long fingers down into the slime. 
 And rake up all the bodies of thy dead 
 
 And build thyself a wall no man can climb — 
 A barrier 'twixt thee and a race whose tread 
 Would brand with shame thy gray and honored head ! 
 
 Yea, frighten and appall him, wall him in. 
 
 Seize on and shake him, crush him in thy hold, 
 
 And overwhelm and craze him with thy din, 
 Or he will turn thy waters into gold, 
 And part thee piecemeal as his soul he sold ; 
 
168 THE VOICE OF A SEELL. 
 
 Concentrate all thy strength into one blow, 
 
 And sweep his monstrous sodoms from thy breast— 
 * These dens of evil passing to and fro 
 
 Beneath the shadow of the eagle's crest, 
 Yile blots upon God's noblest works and best 
 
 SEA SOjSTGS. 
 
 SEA DREAM. 
 
 They told me of an isle upon the deep 
 
 Broad bosom of a far unfathomed sea, 
 Where, in the blest serenity of sleep, 
 
 Fed by bright visions lay sweet Poesy. 
 
 They told me in a thrilling whisper how, 
 Lured by some captive spirit of the sky, 
 
 A few fond ones had stolen from his brow 
 Some glorious leaves of immortality. 
 
 How they abandoned in mid sea the craft 
 Which erst their daily care it was to guide, 
 
 And stretched away where new waves danced and 
 laughed 
 In fairy shell-boat o'er an unknown tide. 
 
SEA SONGS, 169 
 
 They hinted, too, of perils and of straits — 
 
 Of rocks and whirlpools feared and tempted long; 
 
 The fair false beacons of wild wrecker hates, 
 And sweet temptation's haunting siren-song. 
 
 They pictured then in colors like the sun 
 A bright isle swimming in a crimson haze ; 
 
 Unfolding all its beauties one by one, ^ 
 
 They spread them out before my ravished gaze. 
 
 Such loveliness as tongue cannot report 
 
 Dawned slow revealed on my untrammeled sight, 
 
 Such scenes as fancy in her wildest sport 
 
 Ne'er furnished forth to dazzle and delight. ' 
 
 '' This is the region of perpetual youth, 
 For which so many struggle, few attain, 
 
 Here only those who dare to know the truth 
 Awake the harp to an undying strain. 
 
 " Only the intrepid ones who dare to quaff 
 
 The draught of maddening knowledge, dregs of earth. 
 
 And hold aloft the empty cup and laugh 
 Fulfill the glory of a poet's birth. 
 
 " 'Neath the deceitfiil quiet of these waves 
 Lie hid the demon guardians of the land ; 
 
 Woe, wantj misfortune, lurk where countless graves 
 Lie strewn along ocean's glittering sand. 
 
170 TKE VOICE OF A SKELL. 
 
 '' They are the potent powers that ever haunt 
 The unguarded footsteps of the son of song, 
 
 They wield the scourges formed to disenchant 
 His habitation of its airy throng ! 
 
 " Whirled in the vortex of terrestrial fears, 
 Beholding giant shadows veil their skies, 
 
 Thousands have crowned with folly all their years. 
 Or died with glory dawning on their eyes. 
 
 *' Or eager for a fruit so long withheld 
 
 Have stooped to pluck its semblance by the way, 
 
 And yielding where its subtle power impelled, 
 Lost hope forever by their fond delay. 
 
 " IN'ot theirs the sturdy hearts designed to bear 
 Unbroke the ills that prey upon mankind ; 
 
 Hate spread his dire enchantments from his lair 
 And smote the unstable fabric of the mind. 
 
 " Oh, thou who feel'st within thy breast the sting 
 Of precious pains dealt by no mortal hand ! 
 
 If thou wouldst stretch away on boundless wing 
 To win the treasures of that matchless land — 
 
 " If thou wouldst reach secure this isle of fame, 
 Live in earth's love, wring from its misery 
 
 Those priceless drops which feed the sacred flame 
 Upon the altar of humanity ! " 
 
ROVER 'S 10 VE SOXG. 171 
 
 The wondrous music ceased, and I awoke 
 
 To see the bright dawn break o'er coral isles ; 
 
 And ocean, throwing off his cloudy cloak, 
 
 Leap laughing forth to meet her maiden smiles. 
 
 ROVER'S LOVE SONG. 
 
 Dear stranger, wheresoe'er thou art, 
 That crosses thus a wanderer's way, 
 
 Thy wondrous eyes have found my heart 
 And left therein a deathless ray! 
 
 A'deathless ray, and oh, so sweet ! 
 
 And now the star to guide me on ; 
 Above the storm's confused retreat 
 
 I see a port that may be won. 
 
 The lamp that guided me for years 
 Has sunk beneath the solemn sea, 
 
 And on the horizon appears 
 A prophet star of hope for me. 
 
 And chains that fettered me to woe 
 Have fallen, and behind me lie, 
 
 Their deadening gall no more I know — 
 T/iy magic chain their place Supply, 
 
172 TSE VOICE OF A SHELL, 
 
 Thy fairy form, thy angel face, 
 The marvel of thine eyes, and all, 
 
 Combine to form that nameless grace 
 Which doth my every sense enthrall. 
 
 Sweet bondage ! happy captive, I, 
 In such immortal bonds to serve — 
 
 I sigh and look, and look and sigh, 
 
 "While boundless love thrills every nerve ! 
 
 One kiss from those red lips of thine — 
 Away ! I must but look and sigh. 
 
 The thought is like forbidden wine, 
 Which burns but cannot satisfy ! 
 
 Mine is the first fierce love of youth — 
 
 Life's highest, truest ecstacy, 
 A spark of that divinest truth 
 
 Which bums through all eternity. 
 
 We have not spoken — words of mine 
 Could never half this heart reveal ; 
 
 Thou'st read my soul as I have thine — 
 Enough ! we know what each must feel. 
 
 And so through all the tropic day, 
 And while night sleeps upon the sea, 
 
 I'll let my sail drift on its way, 
 And dream of happiness and thee. 
 
A SEA SONG. 173 
 
 A SEA SONG. 
 
 The main ! the main ! the Spanish Main ! 
 I'm on the boundless wave again ! 
 
 I feel my pulses wildly thrill, 
 
 A frenzied joy my senses fill, 
 The wave that bears me bounds less free 
 Than my heart in its ecstacy ! 
 
 I live ! I breathe ! I burn ! I flame — 
 I have a bliss I cannot name ! 
 
 The essence of a fiercer soul 
 
 Leaps through my blood without control, 
 The spirits of the sea and sky 
 Are reveling with my fantasy ! 
 
 I wake as from a torpid sleep 
 To feel the wave beneath me leap, 
 To see the airy cloudlet driven 
 Across the blue expanse of heaven, 
 And know the breeze that fans my brow 
 Is wafting me from madness now. 
 
 The main ! the main ! the joyous main ! 
 The world of wonders ! I would fain 
 
174 THE VOICE OF A SSELL. 
 
 Forever guide my little sail 
 Before its balm-redolent gale, 
 
 And on, and on, forever free — 
 
 A thing without a destiny ! 
 
 My bride no mortal maid shall be, 
 
 I'll wed alone the sea ! the sea ! 
 
 Though treacherous h6r breast may seem, 
 It holds a wild and thrilling dream, 
 
 It holds a glorious mystery — 
 
 A sweet and new eternity. 
 
 A:Nr mvocATio^. 
 
 Come, child of might, 
 
 From the storm-chambers of the painted west, 
 Come with thy torch plucked from the towers of night, 
 
 And fire this breast ! 
 
 Come, while the sea, 
 
 Touched by the gray look of expiring day, 
 Sounds from his deep-toned harp in sympathy 
 
 A farewell lay ! 
 
AN INVOCATION, I75 
 
 Not like the breath 
 
 Of the soft zephyr stealing o'er the sea, 
 Nor like the silent step of gentle death, 
 
 Come thou to me. 
 
 Nor like the flight 
 
 Of the pure white-winged messenger of peace. 
 Nor the sweet stealth of wedded love at night, 
 
 With fond disease 
 
 Not thus of yore 
 
 To the earth's darlings wert thou wont to steal. 
 But midst the rack of tempests, and the roar 
 
 01 whirlwind's reel ! 
 
 Come with the charge 
 
 Of the strong warriors of the upper deep, 
 And rouse my languid spirit from the marge 
 
 Of loathsome sleep. 
 
 Come like the flight 
 
 Of the bold sea bird beautiful and free. 
 Laden with treasures from the Infinite, 
 
 Come thou to me ! 
 
 Come, loved of God, 
 
 To this low valley in the realm of years 1 
 Come oft to cheer us in our sad abode 
 
 Of hopes and fears ! 
 
176 2S"£ VOICE OF A SHELL, 
 
 PORT ROYAL. 
 
 I EEST me where for ages the old years 
 
 Have hung their shaggy beards upon the oaks — 
 
 The hoary honors of departed seers, 
 
 Which playful zephyrs smooth with gentle strokes, 
 And pull about with whispered laughs and jokes ! 
 
 I watch with eyes half closed in dreamy ease 
 The smoke go curling up from my cigar, 
 
 And wind like chains of phantoms 'mong the trees, 
 Until they seem as infinitely far 
 As telescopic creatures of a star. 
 
 How sweet the breezy calm of this retreat 
 After so many years of ocean's din ! 
 
 How strange to feel the firm sod 'neath my feet 
 Instead of quaking timbers toiling in 
 A tumbled mass of waves that reel and spin ! 
 
 Ah, how dehghtful to behold on high 
 
 The green of nature, 'stead of hollow sails 
 
 Like wings of some great bird outstretched to fly 
 Afar o'er ocean's shifting hills and vales — 
 My heart bursts wide its doors, and peace prevails ! 
 
FORT EOrAL. 177 
 
 Peace ! what a mighty meaning in the word, 
 For one whose days were one continued strain 
 
 Of closest contest with the foes that stirred 
 To hot rebellion this combative brain, 
 Though they assailed the loyal heart in vain ! 
 
 So new — so foreign the transition seems, 
 I start and pass my hand across my brow, 
 
 Where blended memories lie dim like dreams, 
 And question when I died, and where, and how, 
 And is this paradise that I see now. 
 
 The streams slip by upon their winding ways 
 Among the shrubs and grasses, while the lines 
 
 Of giant stems stand up as if to gaze 
 
 Upon their pictures, framed in curling vines, 
 Within the liquid mirror oaks and pines — 
 
 Rough-sculptured columns of this vast arcade, 
 Whose one roof arches upward high and cool, 
 
 Mapped with a hundred landscapes, where light shades 
 Come first and dance like shadows on a pool, 
 With noises like the bees in busy school. 
 
 A score of winged embodied melodies 
 
 Fall fluttering down around me without fear. 
 
 And peep at me with sweet and funny eyes, 
 Singing as if to hail my presence here, 
 Brimful of fairy joy and wildwood cheer ; 
 
178 TEE VOICE OF A SHELL. 
 
 The epicurean squirrel up aloft, 
 
 The refuse of his feast drops in my face, 
 
 And chuckles with a mirth full sly and sofc, 
 Then climbs away with swift and nimble pace, 
 Amused at his own wit and my disgrace. 
 
 The bees grope blindly among the flowers and mossj 
 In search of sweets deep hidden from the day — 
 
 Feel in and out, and creep and crawl across 
 The hearts of stately plants, then reel away. 
 Like little drunkards trying to be gay ; 
 
 While countless winged creatures swim about 
 In the thin rivers of the atmosphere 
 
 Shot through and through with sunbeams, in and out, 
 Like counter rays they dart, their fleet career 
 Flashing bright sparkles down the currents clear. 
 
 Behind me lies the ocean's lonely waste, 
 
 Dim with the years that I've thrown overboard — 
 
 The rinds of fruit once pleasant to my taste, 
 
 But I have sucked their sweetness — I have cored 
 Their hearts of that which lay within them stored ; 
 
 Drawn them as you would draw an orange dry 
 And fling the dead and shrivelled skin away, 
 
 To grasp a larger riper one ; thus I 
 
 Turn from the dead unto the living day. 
 And pluck the good of life ere its decay. 
 
FOET ROYAL. I79 
 
 Before me coils a circle of blue hills, 
 Whose blackened bones show through their tattered 
 cloaks 
 
 The winds attem^Dt to mend ; at intervals 
 
 Out from their bosoms drift tall ships of smoke, 
 With guns athunder, scarred and battle-broke ; 
 
 And looming near discover to my gaze 
 The placid features of each passive crew 
 
 Looking and smiling on me through the haze, 
 That warms their features with a sunset hue — 
 When lo I they are long wished for friends I view ! 
 
 Thus sally forth the loving hearts of home 
 To find me resting in this border land. 
 
 Between the barbarous ocean with his foam, 
 And that calm region stretching me a hand, 
 Where culture smiles, and genial arts expand ; 
 
 Lo ! I ^vill shake the sea-dust from my locks. 
 Uncoil the sea-knot^ that enthrall my tongue, 
 
 And hie me to that dear nook 'mong the rocks, 
 Where oft the crazy cataract has sung 
 My poet heart to rest when passion-strung. 
 
180 ^-2-^ VOICE CF A SHELL, 
 
 VALE. 
 
 Blow soft, O winds, along the southern sea ; 
 Sing low, O sea, your wildest, sweetest song — 
 
 Sad, like the one with which you welcomed me 
 When first I rested on thy bosom strong, 
 A homeless wanderer fleeing from my wrong ; 
 
 When from my woe and sin I shook me clear, 
 
 And came and poured my sorrows on your breast ; 
 
 For unto me you have been very dear, 
 E'en in your rages, yielding me a rest, 
 A balm, a peace, a love the tenderest ! 
 
 Then winds, blow soft, and sea, sing low and wild, 
 Once more before I speak my last farewell, 
 
 Depart a man, who sought you as a child, 
 Changed by the soothing magic of your spell. 
 Taught how to labor and to combat well ; 
 
 Perhaps that after years your thrilling voice 
 Will reach me in my mountain solitude ; 
 
 Then, if my heart has wearied of its choice, 
 And pineth like a sea-bird tamely mewed 
 I'll fly to you and have my joy renewed, 
 
 THE EKD. 
 
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