Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

I see him in the blazing sun,
And in the thunder-cloud;
I hear him in the mighty roar

That rusheth through the forests hoar
When winds are raging loud.

I feel him in the silent dews,

By grateful earth betrayed;

I feel him in the gentle showers,

The soft south wind, the breath of flowers,
The sunshine, and the shade.

I see him, hear him, everywhere,
In all things-darkness, light,
Silence, and sound; but, most of all,
When slumber's dusky curtains fall

In the silent hour of night.

ANONYMOUS.

WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

SAY, watchman, what of the night?

Do the dews of the morning fall?

Have the orient skies a border of light,
Like the fringe of a funeral pall ?—-

The night is fast waning on high,

And soon shall the darkness flee,

And the morn shall spread o'er the blushing sky,
And bright shall its glories be.

But, watchman, what of the night,
When sorrow and pain are mine,

And the pleasures of life, so sweet and bright,

No longer around me shine?—

That night of sorrow thy soul

May surely prepare to meet,

But away shall the clouds of thy heaviness roll,

And the morning of joy be sweet.

But, watchman, what of the night,

When the arrow of death is sped,

And the grave, which no glimmering star can light,
Shall be my sleeping bed?—

That night is near, and the cheerless tomb

Shall keep thy body in store,

Till the morn of eternity rise on the gloom,

And night shall be no more!

ANONYMOUS.

THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.

COME, see the Dolphin's Anchor forged; 'tis 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-O Vulcan, what a glow! 'Tis blinding white, 'tis 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 hail; the rattling cinders strow

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;

S

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 bur

den be,

"The Anchor is the Anvil King, and royal craftsmen we; Strike in, strike in, the sparks begin to 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-o, and the Heave-away, and the sighing seaman'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 monster's palaces! methinks what joy 'twere

now

To go plump plunging down amid the assembly of the

whales,

And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their

scourging tails!

Then deep in tangled 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 shark, to laugh his jaws to

scorn;

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-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love, To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands,

To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands.

O broad-armed Fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine?

The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable

« ForrigeFortsæt »