—Man is like to you.—
His whirlwind passions nerve him, and he tears
The realm of nature,—marks his path with wrecks,
And chasms, and sepulchres,—and then returns
From war's dire game,—perchance to sigh away
His soul in love like the soft summer gale
On Beauty's cheek,—and then lies down to mix
With the same dust that soil'd his chariot wheels.—
—Oh Thou! who holdest in Thy powerful hand
Both the wild tempests, and the breath that moves
This mass of clay,—let us not madly trust
Our treasure to the winds, and weep at last
The harvest, when the whirlwind wasteth it:—
Nor let the blossom of our nurtured hopes
Which we have sown on earth with tears and prayers
Go up as chaff on the Dividing Day.
SONG OF THE ICELANDIC FISHER.
Yield the bark to the breezes free,
Point her helm to the far deep sea,
Where Hecla's watch-fire streaming wild
Hath never the mariner's eye beguiled,
Where in boiling baths strange monsters play
Down to the deep sea,—launch away!
Gay o'er coral caves we steer
Where moulder the bones of the brave,
Where the beautiful sleep on their humid bier,
And the pale pearl gleams in its quenchless sphere,
The lamp of their Ocean grave;
