THE LIGHTHOUSE.

.169

In the tempest of life when the wave and the gale
Are around and above, if thy footing should fail,
If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart,
"Look aloft," and be firm, and be fearless of heart.
If the friend, who embraced in prosperity's glow,
With a smile for each joy and a tear for each woe,
Should betray thee when sorrows like clouds are arrayed,
"Look aloft" to the friendship which never shall fade.
Should the vision which hope spreads in light to thine eye,
Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly,
Then turn, and, through tears of repentant regret,
"Look aloft" to the sun that is never to set.

Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart,
The wife of thy bosom, in sorrow depart,

"Look aloft" from the darkness and dust of the tomb,
To that soil where "affection is ever in bloom."

And, oh! when death comes in his terrors, to cast,
His fears on the future, his pall on the past,
In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart,
And a smile in thine eye, "look aloft," and depart!

JONATHAN LAWRENCE.

XXI. THE LIGHTHOUSE.

"IT is among the noblest functions of genius to devise forms of beauty and sublimity for the structures destined for the performance of man's homage to his Maker. Within those limits which, fortunately for the purification of that homage, were exceeded by Leo, it has been a wise devotion of wealth which has enabled that genius to embody its bright visions in enduring and costly materials. Next, however, to the great testimonials which men like Ictinus and Buonarotti have reared to the consciousness of our spiritual nature and immortal destinies, we can imagine no triumph of constructive skill more signal, no labours more catholic in their purpose, and more deserving in their success of human gratitude and applause, than those of Smeaton and the two Stevensons, father and son, men of whom Father Ocean, could he exchange for articulate language the ampio por yedaoua* of his summer calm, or the sterner accents of his equinoctial mood, might say

"Great I must call them, for they conquered me."

"There is a passage in Byron, often selected for quotation, in which, towards the close of his greatest poem, he brings the power and immensity of the sea into contrast with the weakness and littleness of man. The charm of verse has, in our opinion, seldom been more abused than in this splenetic pæan to the brute strength *"Countless smile."

of winds and waves, leaving, as it does, unnoticed the great fact of their habitual submission to the moral and intellectual powers of man. To make the pervading sentiment of these famous stanzas as sound as their cadence is sonorous, shipwreck should be the rule, and safe passage the exception. Among the greatest assertions of that qualified supremacy which Providence has delegated to the human race over the destructive agencies of the billow and the storm, the architects of such buildings as the Eddystone and the Bell Rock Lighthouses are pre-eminent; and the story of their construction is well worthy of the minute detail and costly illustration with which it has been recorded."- Quarterly Review.

THE rocky ledge runs far into the sea,

And on its outer point, some miles away,
The lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.
Even at this distance I can see the tides

Upheaving, break unheard along its base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides
In the white lip and tremour of the face.
And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,
Through the deep purple of the twilight air,
Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light,
With strange, unearthly splendour in its glare.
Not one alone; from each projecting cape

And perilous reef along the ocean's verge,
Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,

Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge.
Like the great giant Christopher, it stands
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,
Wading far out among the rocks and sands,

The night-o'ertaken mariner to save.

And the great ships sail outward and return,
Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells,
And ever joyful, as they see it burn,

They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.
They come forth from the darkness, and their sails
Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,

And eager faces, as the light unveils,

Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.

The mariner remembers when a child,

On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink;

And, when returning from adventures wild,
He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink.

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same

Year after year, through all the silent night
Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,
Shines on that unextinguishable light!

It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp

The rocks and sea sand with the kiss of peace,
It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,
And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.
The startled waves leap over it; the storm
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,
And steadily against its solid form

Press the great shoulders of the hurricane.
The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din
Of wings and winds and solitary cries,
Blinded and maddened by the light within,
Dashes himself against the glare, and dies.
A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,
Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,
It does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,
But hails the mariner with words of love.

"Sail on"! it says, "sail on, ye stately ships!
And with your floating bridge the ocean span;
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse,
Be yours to bring man nearer unto man !"

171

LONGFELLOW.

XXII. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

6

"WHEN the wind abated, and the vessels were near enough, the admiral was seen constantly sitting in the stern with a book in his hand. On the 9th of September, he was seen for the last time, and was heard by the people of the Hind to say, We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.' In the following night the lights of the ship suddenly disappeared. The people in the other vessel kept a good look out for him during the remainder of the voyage.

"On the 22nd of September, they arrived through much tempest and peril at Falmouth. But nothing more was seen or heard of the admiral."-Belknap's American Biography.

SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair death;
Wild and fast blew the blast,

And the east wind was his breath.

His lordly ships of ice
Glistened in the sun,

On each side like pennons wide
Flashing crystal streamlets run.

His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with a silver rain,
But where passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello

Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed,
Three days or more eastward he bore,
Then alas! the land-wind failed.

Alas! the land-wind failed,

And ice-cold grew the night,
And never more on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.

He sat upon the deck,

The book was in his hand,

"Do not fear! heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land."
In the first watch of the night
Without a signal's sound
Out of the sea mysteriously,

The fleet of death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds.
Every mast as it passed,

Seemed to rake the passing clouds.

They grappled with their prize

At midnight black and cold,

As of a rock was the shock,

Heavily the ground swell rolled.

Southward through day and dark,
They drift in close embrace,
With mist and rain to the Spanish Main,
Yet there seems no change of place.

Southward for ever southward

They drift through dark and day, And like a dream in the gulf stream Sinking vanish all away.

LONGFELLOW.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

XXIII. THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

173

"THERE arose even with the sun a veil of dark clouds before his face, which shortly, like ink poured into water, had blacked over all the face of heaven, preparing, as it were, a mournful stage for a tragedy to be played on. For, forthwith the winds began to speak louder, and, as in a tumultuous kingdom, to think themselves fittest instruments of commandment; and blowing whole storms of hail and rain upon them, they were sooner in danger than they could almost bethink themselves of change. For then the traitorous sea began to swell in pride against the afflicted navy, under which, while the heaven favoured them, it had lain so calmly; making mountains of itself, over which the tossed and tottering ship should climb, to be straight carried down again to a pit of hellish darkness, with such cruel blows against the sides of the ship, that, which way soever it went, was still in his malice, that there was left neither power to stay nor way to escape. And shortly had it so dissevered the loving company, which the day before had tarried together, that most of them never met again, but were swallowed up in his never-satisfied mouth." -Sir Philip Sydney.

It was the schooner Hesperus,

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter,

To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,

Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,

That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,

With his pipe in his mouth,

And watched how the veering flaw did blow,

The smoke now west, now south,

Then up and spake an old sailor,
Had sailed the Spanish main,

I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

“Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to night no moon we see

The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,

And a scornful laugh laughed he.