Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

JUST above yon sandy bar,

As the day grows fainter and dimmer, Lonely and lovely, a single star

Lights the air with a dusky glimmer.

Into the ocean faint and far

Falls the trail of its golden splendor, And the gleam of that single star

Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender. Chrysaor, rising out of the sea, Showed thus glorious and thus emulous,

Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe,

Forever tender, soft, and tremulous. Thus o'er the ocean faint and far

Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly;

Is it a God, or is it a star

That, entranced, I gaze on nightly!

THE LIGHTHOUSE.

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 tremor 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 splendor in the 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.

And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but
mark;

The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,

As suddenly, from out the fire Built of the wreck of stranded ships, The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,

We thought of wrecks upon the main, Of ships dismasted, that were hailed And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames, The ocean, roaring up the beach, The gusty blast, the bickering flames, All mingled vaguely in our speech

Until they made themselves a part

Of fancies floating through the brain. The long-lost ventures of the heart, That send no answers back again.

O flames that glowed! O hearts tha yearned!

They were indeed too much akin, The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

RESIGNATION.

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair!

Let us be patient! These severe afflic tions

Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and

vapors;

Amid these earthly damps

And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children

crying,

Will not be comforted!

May be heaven's distant lampe.

There is no Death! What seems so is

transition;

This life of mortal breath