Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/242

The slumberers—they who sank that hour, without a struggling breath,
With whom the unbroken dream of life so melted into death,
Say, turn'd they not, in deep amaze, to seek the scenes of time,
When first eternity's dread shore spread out in pomp sublime?

Wo, wo was with the living heart! In many a smitten home,
Where, in the garniture of grief, the weeping inmates come,
Round many a lonely hearth-stone shall Memory's touch restore
The image of the loved and lost, who must return no more.

The eye that saw that monster-mass come drifting darkly down,
Destruction in its wintry blast and on its vitreous crown,
The ear that heard the deadly crash, the thunder of the wave,
Can never lose the bitter trace but in the oblivious grave.

The rescued man, to listening groups, shall tell the fearful tale,
And mute affection clasp his hand, and childhood's cheek be pale,
And while, with quicken'd heart, they bless the great Deliverer's care,
The iceberg and the buried ship shall prompt their tearful prayer.