SABBATH MEDITATIONS.
Toss'd on the angry deep, with riven sails,
The bark, long struggling 'gainst the tempest's wrath,
Meets the rich perfume breathed from land-born gales,
And skims more lightly o'er her billowy path;
While the glad sailor marks the misty line
Where his loved native hills the blue horizon join.
Spent, on his broken raft, the swimmer lies,
A noteless speck mid ocean's stormy spray,
While round his head the shrieking seagull flies,
And warns her comrades of the expected prey;
See! see! the lifeboat! Lo, its deck he gains,
And mid protecting friends forgets his fearful pains.
The traveller, faint amid the desert sands,
Thinks of his native clime with bitter tear,
Fast by his side his drooping camel stands,
Hark to the cry of hope! a fountain near!
A green oasis mid the burning plain,
And 'neath the palm-tree shade he dreams of home again.
And art not thou, O glorious Sabbath morn,
A lifeboat to the outcast on the main?
A sight of home to mariner forlorn?
A sound of waters mid the burning plain?
