Yet was there light around her brow,
A holiness in those dark eyes,
Which show'd though wandering earthward now,
Her spirit's home was in the skies.
Yes - for a spirit pure as hers
Is always pure, ev'n while it errs;
As sunshine, broken in the rill,
Though turn'd astray, is sunshine still!
So wholly had her mind forgot
All thoughts but one, she heeded not
The rising storm the wave that cast
A moment's midnight, as it pass'd-
Nor heard the frequent shout, the tread
Of gathering tumult o'er her head
Clash'd swords, and tongues that seem'd to vie
With the rude riot of the sky. -
But, hark! that war-whoop on the deck
That crash, as if each engine there,
Mast, sails, and all, were gone to wreck,
Mid yells and stampings of despair!
Merciful Heaven! what can it be?
"Tis not the storm, though fearfully
The ship has shudder'd as she rode
"Forgive me "-shriek'd the maid, and knelt,
Trembling all over for she felt
As if her judgment-hour was near;
While crouching round, half dead with fear,
Her handmaids clung, nor breath'd, nor stirr’d—
And now, as if a bolt of thunder
Had riv'n the labouring planks asunder,
The deck falls in- - what horrors then!
Blood, waves, and tackle, swords and men
Come mix'd together through the chasm,-
Some wretches in their dying spasm
Still fighting on and some that call
"For GoD and IRAN!" as they fall!
Whose was the hand that turn'd away
The perils of the' infuriate fray,
And snatch'd her breathless from beneath
This wilderment of wreck and death?
She knew not for a faintness came
Chill o'er her, and her sinking frame
Amid the ruins of that hour
Lay, like a pale and scorched flower,
Beneath the red volcano's shower.
But, oh! the sights and sounds of dread
That shock'd her ere her senses fled!
The yawning deck the crowd that strove
Upon the tottering planks above-
The sail, whose fragments, shivering o'er
The strugglers' heads, all dash'd with gore
Flutter'd like bloody flags the clash
Of sabres, and the lightning's flash
Upon their blades, high toss'd about
Like meteor brands *-as if throughout
* The meteors that Pliny calls "faces."
The elements one fury ran,
One general rage, that left a doubt
Which was the fiercer, Heav'n or Man!
"Twas fancy all-yet once she thought,
While yet her fading eyes could see,
High on the ruin'd deck she caught
A glimpse of that unearthly form,
That glory of her soul,—ev'n then,
Amid the whirl of wreck and storm,
Shining above his fellow-men,
As, on some black and troublous night,
The Star of EGYPT*, whose proud light
Never hath beam'd on those who rest
In the White Islands of the West, †
Burns through the storm with looks of flame
That put Heav'n's cloudier eyes to shame.
'twas but the minute's dream
A fantasy and ere the scream
Had half-way pass'd her pallid lips,
A death-like swoon, a chill eclipse
Of soul and sense its darkness spread
Around her, and she sunk as dead.
How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone;
* "The brilliant Canopus, unseen in European climates.”—BROWN † See Wilford's learned Essays on the Sacred Isles in the West.
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off, and leave the land and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity,—
Fresh as if Day again were born,
Again upon the lap of Morn!-
When the light blossoms, rudely torn
And scatter'd at the whirlwind's will,
Hang floating in the pure air still,
Filling it all with precious balm,
In gratitude for this sweet calm;
And every drop the thunder-showers
Have left upon the grass
and flowers
Sparkles, as 'twere that lightning-gem*
Whose liquid flame is born of them!
When, 'stead of one unchanging breeze,
There blow a thousand gentle airs,
And each a different perfume bears, –
As if the loveliest plants and trees
Had vassal breezes of their own
To watch and wait on them alone,
And waft no other breath than theirs:
When the blue waters rise and fall,
In sleepy sunshine mantling all;
And ev'n that swell the tempest leaves
Is like the full and silent heaves
* A precious stone of the Indies, called by the ancients, Ceraunium, because it was supposed to be found in places where thunder had fallen. Tertullian says it has a glittering appearance, as if there had been fire in it; and the author of the Dissertation in Harris's Voyages supposes it to be the opal.
Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest,
Too newly to be quite at rest.
Such was the golden hour that broke
Upon the world, when HINDA woke
From her long trance, and heard around
No motion but the water's sound
Rippling against the vessel's side,
As slow it mounted o'er the tide.
But where is she? - her eyes are dark,
Are wilder'd still-is this the bark,
The same that from HARMOZIA's bay
whose bloody way
no strange and new
Is all that meets her wondering view.
Upon a galliot's deck she lies,
Beneath no rich pavilion's shade,-
No plumes to fan her sleeping eyes,
Nor jasmine on her pillow laid.
But the rude litter, roughly spread
With war-cloaks, is her homely bed,
And shawl and sash, on javelins hung,
For awning o'er her head are flung.
Shuddering she look'd around-there lay
A group of warriors in the sun,
Resting their limbs, as for that day
Their ministry of death were done.
Some gazing on the drowsy sea,
Lost in unconscious reverie;
And some, who seem'd but ill to brook
That sluggish calm, with many a look
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