The breath of the moist air is light
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds', the birds', the ocean-floods',
The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.
I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple sea-weeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore
Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown :
I sit upon the sands alone;
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet, did any heart now share in my emotion!
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that Content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,
And walked with inward glory crowned,
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
Others I see whom these surround;
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
Yet now despair itself is mild
Even as the winds and waters are ;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
Down to the wharves, as the sun goes down,
And the daylight's tumult and dust and din
Are dying away in the busy town,
I go to see if my ship comes in.
I gaze far over the quiet sea,
Rosy with sunset, like mellow wine, Where ships, like lilies, lie tranquilly, Many and fair, but I see not mine.
I question the sailors every night
Who over the bulwarks idly lean,
Noting the sails as they come in sight,
O, mine was a vessel of strength and truth,
Her sails were white as a young lamb's fleece,
She sailed long since from the port of Youth,
Her master was Love, and her name was Peace.
And like all beloved and beauteous things,
She faded in distance and doubt away,
With only a tremble of snowy wings
She floated, swan-like, adown the bay,
Carrying with her a precious freight,
All I had gathered by years of pain;
A tempting prize to the pirate, Fate,
And still I watch for her back again;
Watch from the earliest morning light
Till the pale stars grieve o'er the dying day,
To catch the gleam of her canvas white
Among the islands which gem the bay.
But she comes not yet, she will never come
To gladden my eyes and my spirit more;
And my heart grows hopeless and faint and dumb,
As I wait and wait on the lonesome shore,
Knowing that tempest and time and storm
Have wrecked and shattered my beauteous bark;
Rank sea-weeds cover her wasting form,
And her sails are tattered and stained and dark.
But the tide comes up, and the tide goes down,
And the daylight follows the night's eclipse,-
And still with the sailors, tanned and brown,
I wait on the wharves and watch the ships.
And still with a patience that is not hope,
For vain and empty it long hath been,
I sit on the rough shore's rocky slope,
And watch to see if my ship comes in.
ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN
(FLORENCE PERCY).
AFAR in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the present, I cling to the past;
When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fled
Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead,
"Have you seen my beautiful ship come in?" Bright visions of glory that vanished too soon ;
Day-dreams, that departed ere manhood's noon;
Attachments by fate or falsehood reft;
Companions of early days lost or left;
And my native land, whose magical name
Thrills to the heart like electric flame;