And he would haste away, and pace the deck
More rapidly, as if to hide from me

The gushing tear. I marked the inward strife
Unquestioning, save by a silent prayer,

That the tear wrung so bitterly, might work
The sea-boy's good and wash away all trace
Of disobedience. Now, the same big tear
Hung like a pearl upon him, as he climbed
And grappled to the mast. I watched his toil,
With strange foreboding, till he seemed a speck
Upon the ebon bosom of the cloud.

And I remembered that he once had said,
"I fear I shall not see my home again :"
And sad the memory of those mournful words
Dwelt with me, as he passed above my sight
Into thick darkness.

The strong ship tossed.

The wild blast swept on.

Shuddering, I heard a plunge

A heavy plunge-a gurgling 'mid the wave.
I shouted to the crew. In vain! In vain!
The ship held on her way. And never more
Shall that poor delicate sea-boy raise his head
To do the bidding of those roughened men,
Whose home is on the sea. And never more
May his fond mother strain him to her breast,
Weeping that hardship thus should bronze the brow

To her so beautiful-nor the kind sire

Make glad, by his forgiveness, the rash youth

Who wandered from his home, to throw the wealth Of his warm feelings on the faithless sea.

MEETING OF THE SUSQUEHANNA WITH

THE LACKAWANNA.

RUSH on glad stream, in thy power and pride,
To claim the hand of thy promis'd bride;

She doth haste from the realm of the darken'd mine,
To mingle her murmur'd vows with thine;

Ye have met ye have met, and the shores prolong
The liquid notes of your nuptial song.

Methinks ye wed, as the white man's son,
And the child of the Indian king have done;
I saw thy bride, as she strove in vain,

To cleanse her brow from the carbon stain,

But she brings thee a dowry so rich and true
That thy love must not shrink from the tawny hue.

Her birth was rude, in a mountain cell,

And her infant freaks there are none to tell;

The path of her beauty was wild and free,

And in dell and forest, she hid from thee;

But the day of her fond caprice is o'er,
And she seeks to part from thy breast no more.

SUSQUEHANNA AND LACKAWANNA.

Pass on in the joy of thy blended tide,

Through the land where the blessed Miquon* died;
No red man's blood with its guilty stain,

Hath cried unto God from that broad domain

With the seeds of peace they have sown the soil,
Bring a harvest of wealth, for their hour of toil.

On, on, through the vale where the brave ones sleep,
Where the waving foliage is rich and deep;

219

I have stood on the mountain and roam'd through the

glen

To the beautiful homes of the western men;

Yet naught in that realm of enchantment could see,

So fair, as the vale of Wyoming to me.

* A name given by the Aborigines to their friend William Penn.

19

NAPOLEON AT HELENA.

"The moon of St. Helena shone out, and there we saw the face

of Napoleon's sepulchre, characterless, uninscribed."

And who shall write thine epitaph? thou man
Of mystery and might.

Shall orphan hands

Inscribe it with their fathers' broken swords?
Or the warm trickling of the widow's tear
Channel it slowly 'mid the rugged rock,
As the keen torture of the water-drop

Doth wear the sentenc'd brain?

Shall countless ghosts

Arise from Hades, and in lurid flame,

With shadowy finger, trace thine effigy,

Who sent them to their audit unannealed,

And with but that brief space for shrift or prayer,
Given at the cannon's mouth?

Thou who didst sit

Like eagle on the apex of the globe,