Page:Poems Hoffman.djvu/555

But a bitterness deeper than tears or emotion
Makes the dark eyes grow darker, the pale face more white,
As the land of his fathers, the home of his childhood,
Grows dim in the distance and fades from his sight.

Farewell, noble ship, may the waves bear thee onward,
Till in some sunny harbor thy anchor is cast,
And oh, mighty deep, may thy wonderful music,
Bring mercy and peace to the erring at last!

Chapter V
(The wreck)

A storm fierce and sudden swept over the waters,
The lightning's red gleam glanced afar on the wave,
A mingling of voices in helpless appealing,
A struggle in vain from a watery grave;

A man clings alone to a fragment of timber,
His eye on the tempest, his thoughts far away,
Traversing the past with its thousand green islands,
And the mirage that beckoned his footsteps astray.

The cold, chilling sea-spray all glistening and sparkling
Falls damp on his brow, but it breaks not the chain
That binds him to days that have vanished forever,
And wakens the dream of his boyhood again.

He thinks of the love that for him never faltered,
Till slighted by cruel untruth and neglect,
And the heartless coquette whose unprincipled scheming
Had the hope of two lives in an evil hour wrecked;

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