Thou see'st not the binnacle light that glistens
Upon the slippery deck;
Thou markest not the mariner who listens;
Thou see'st not the wreck.
Vain is thy challenge—vain thy admonition—
To all who hear or pass;
Having not Love nor Pity — thy condition
Is but "as sounding brass."
O formal Dervish ! rocking in thy tower,
That looks across the deep,
Cry, O Muezzin, "God is God!" each hour—
But let believers sleep.
Thou hast the word, O too insensate preacher,
But having nought beyond,
The fate thou criest, and thyself the teacher,
Alike by man are shunned.
We listened some minutes to the steady, monotonous, and mournful pealing of the fog-bell, then hurriedly retraced our steps to the canon in which we had left our guide and the horses. The horses were all right; but the guide lay stretched at full length upon the ground, motionless and rigid as the Cardiff giant. We were by his side in a moment. "Asleep!" said Lloyd. "Dead!" suggested the Doctor. "In a fit !" hazarded your humble servant. He was drunk—simply, but terribly drunk—our bottle lying empty beside him, and our hearts were unutterably sad and full, aye, even slopping over—of bitterness. We found a flat rock of suitable proportions, and erected it, with an appropriate inscription, scrawled with the end of a burned stick, as a tombstone at his head; placed another at his feet, inserted a soft boulder under his head as a pillow, laid two smaller ones gently on his eyes, and rode away in sorrow and in silence.
