Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

its sport;

167

I cannot spare the luxury of believing That all things beautiful are what they

seem,

Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing

Would, like the Patriarch's, soothe a dying hour;

With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing,

As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlit bower;

With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil;

With motions graceful as a bird's in air, —

Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil That e'er clenched fingers in a captive's

hair!

That in thy breast there springs a poison fountain,

Deadlier than that where bathes the
Upas-tree;

And in thy wrath, a nursing cat-o'mountain

Is calm as her babe's sleep compared with thee!

And there's one rare, strange virtue in And underneath that face, like summer

thy speeches,

The secret of their mastery, they are short.

The monarch mind, the mystery of commanding,

The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon, Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, balding

The hearts of millions till they move

as one,

[blocks in formation]

Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have Hatred—of missionaries and cold water;

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

I LOVED to hear the war-horn cry,
And panted at the drum's deep roll,
And held my breath, when, floating high,
I saw our starry banners fly,
As, challenging the haughty sky,
They went like battle o'er my soul.

For I was so ambitious then,
I longed to be the slave of men!

I stood and saw the morning light,
A standard swaying far and free,
And loved it like the conquering flight
Of angels, floating wide and bright
Above the storm, above the fight
Where nations strove for liberty;
And heard afar the signal-cry
Of trumpets in the hollow sky.

I sailed with storm upon the deep,
I shouted to the eagle soaring;
I hung me from the rocky steep
When all but spirits were asleep,
To feel the winds about me sweep,
And hear the gallant waters roaring:
For every sound and shape of strife
To me was as the breath of life.
But I am strangely altered now:
I love no more the bugle's voice,
The rushing wave, the plunging prow,
The mountain with its clouded brow,
The thunder when the blue skies bow
And all the sons of God rejoice.

I love to dream of tears and sighs,
And shadowy hair, and half-shut eyes!

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

And e'en the form we loved to see,
We canna lang, dear though it be,
Preserve it as a token.

But Mary had a gentle heart,
Heaven did as gently free her;
Yet lang afore she reached that part,
Dear sir, it wad ha'e made ye start
Had ye been there to see her.

Sae changed, and yet sae sweet and fair,
And growing meek and meeker,
Wi' her lang locks o' yellow hair,
She wore a little angel's air,
Ere angels cam' to seek her.

And when she couldna stray out by,
The wee wild flowers to gather,
She oft her household plays wad try,
To hide her illness frae our eye,
Lest she should grieve us farther.

But ilka thing we said or did
Aye pleased the sweet wee creature ;
Indeed, ye wad ha'e thought she had
A something in her made her glad
Ayont the course o' nature.

But death's cauld hour cam' on at last,
As it to a' is comin';

And may it be, whene'er it fa's,
Nae waur to others than it was
To Mary, sweet wee woman!

SAMUEL FERGUSON.

THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 'tis at a white heat now: The bellows ceased, the flames decreased, though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound;

And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round,

All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare;

Some rest upon their sledges here, some

work the windlass there.

The windlass strains the tackle-chains,

the black mound heaves below; And, red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at every throe:

It rises, roars, rends all outright, 0 Vulcan, what a glow!

'Tis blinding white, 't is blasting bright; the high sun shines not so! The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery, fearful show,

The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy, lurid row

Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe;

As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow

Sinks on the anvil, — all about the faces fiery grow,

"Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out, leap out"; bang, bang, the sledges go: Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low;

A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow;

The leathern mail rebounds the hai; the rattling cinders strew

The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant "Ho!"

Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load!

Let's forge a goodly anchor; a bower, thick and broad:

For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,

And I see the good ship riding all in a perilous road;

The low reef roaring on her lea; the roll of ocean poured

From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board;

The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains; But courage still, brave mariners, the bower yet remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high, Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing, here am I!"

Swing in your strokes in order; let foot and hand keep time,

Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime: But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be, The Anchor is the Anvil King, and royal craftsmen we!

Strike in, strike in,

FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER PROUT).

171

-the sparks begin to | O broad-armed fisher of the deep, whose dull their rustling red;

Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped:

Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array

For a hammock at the roaring bows, or
an oozy couch of clay;

Our anchor soon must change the lay of
merry craftsmen here,
For the yeo-heave-ho, and the heave-away,
and the sighing seamen's cheer,
When, weighing slow, at eve they go far,
far from love and home,
And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail
o'er the ocean foam.

In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last;

A shapely one he is, and strong as e'er from cat was cast.

O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me,

What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea!

O deep sea-diver, who might then behold
such sights as thou?

The hoary monsters' palaces! methinks
what joy 't were now
To go plumb plunging down amid the
assembly of the whales,
And feel the churned sea round me boil
beneath their scourging tails!
Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the
fierce sea unicorn,

And send him foiled and bellowing back,
for all his ivory horn;

To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn;

And for the ghastly-grinning

laugh his jaws to scorn;

shark to

To leap down on the kraken's back, where

mid Norwegian isles

He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles,

Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls;

Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far

astonished shoals

Of his back-browsing ocean calves; or,
haply in a cove,

Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some
Undine's love,

To find the long-haired mermaidens; or,
hard by icy lands,

Towrestle with the sea-serpent upon cerulean sands.

The

sports can equal thine? Dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable line;

And night by night 't is thy delight, thy glory day by day,

Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play;

But,

A

shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave,fisher's joy is to destroy, thine office is

to save.

-

O
Whose be the white bones by thy side,
or who that dripping band,
Slow swaying in the heaving waves that
round about thee bend,

lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst
thou but understand

With sounds like breakers in a dream
blessing their ancient friend :
O, couldst thou know what heroes glide
with larger steps round thee,
Thine iron side would swell with pride;
thou 'dst leap within the sea!
Give honor to their memories who left the
pleasant strand

To shed their blood so freely for the love
of fatherland,

Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave

So freely for a restless bed amid the tossing wave;

O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung,

Honor him for their memory, whose bones he goes among!

FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER
PROUT).

[1805-1865.]

THE BELLS OF SHANDON.

WITH deep affection
And recollection,
I often think of

The Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would
In days of childhood
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder,
Where'er I wander,

« AnteriorContinuar »