His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
A SPRING LANDSCAPE.
The green trees whispered low and mild:
It was a sound of joy!
They were my playmates when a child,
And rocked me in their arms so wild!
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, 5 Still they looked at me and smiled,
He saw his Native Land.
Wide through the landscape of his dreams
The lordly Niger flowed;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode;
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain-road.
Beside some hidden stream; And it passed, like a glorious roll drums,
Through the triumph of his dream.
The forests, with their myriad tongues,
Shouted of liberty;
And the blast of the Desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep, and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.
He did not feel the driver's whip,
Nor the burning heat of day;
As if I were a boy;
And ever whispered, mild and low,
'Come, be a child once more!'
And waved their long arms to and fro,
And beckoned solemnly and slow;
Oh, I could not choose but go
Into the woodlands hoar.
Into the blithe and breathing air,
Into the solemn wood,
Solemn and silent everywhere!
Nature with folded hands seem'd there,
Kneeling at her evening pray'r!
Like one in pray'r I stood.
Before me rose an avenue
Of tall and sombrous pines;
Abroad their fan-like branches grew,
And where the sunshine darted through,
Spread a vapour soft and blue,
In long and sloping lines.
And, falling on my weary brain,
Like a fast-falling shower,
The dreams of youth came back again;
Low lispings of the summer rain,
Dropping on the ripened grain,
As once upon the flower.
THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP. 'Build me straight, O worthy Master! Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!" The merchant's word,
of Delighted the Master heard;
For his heart was in his work, and the heart
Giveth grace to every Art.
A quiet smile played round his lips,
As the eddies and dimples of the tide
Play round the bows of ships,
That steadly at anchor ride.
And with a voice that was full of glee
He answered, 'Ere long we will launch
A vessel as goodly, and strong, and stanch,
As ever weathered a wintry sea!'
And first, with nicest skill and art,
Perfect and finished in every part,
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep, A little model the Master wrought,
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away!
Which should be to the larger plan
What the child is to the man,
Its counterpart in miniature;
That with a hand more swift and sure
The greater labour might be brought
To answer to his inward thought.
And as he laboured, his mind ran o'er
The various ships that were built of yore,
And above them all, and strangest of all,
Towered the Great Harry, crank and tall,
Whose picture was hanging on the wall, 30
With bows and stern raised high in air,
And balconies hanging here and there,
And signal lanterns and flags afloat,
And eight round towers, like those that
frown
From some old castle, looking down
Upon the drawbridge and the moat.
When he had built and launched from land
And he said with a smile, 'Our ship, I wis, What the elder head had planned.
Shall be of another form than this!'
It was of another form, indeed;
Built for freight, and yet for speed,
A beautiful and gallant craft;
Broad in the beam, that the stress of the
blast,
Pressing down upon sail and mast,
Might not the sharp bows overwhelm;
Broad in the beam, but sloping aft
With graceful curve and slow degrees,
That she might be docile to the helm,
And that the currents of parted seas,
Closing behind, with mighty force,
Might aid and not impede her course.
In the shipyard stood the Master,
With the model of the vessel,
That should laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!
Covering many a rood of ground,
Lay the timber piled around;
Timber of chestnut, and elm, and oak,
And, scattered here and there, with these,
The knarled and crooked cedar knees;
Brought from regions far away,
From Pascagoula's sunny bay,
And the banks of the roaring Roanoke!
Ah! what a wondrous thing it is
To note how many wheels of toil
One thought, one word, can set in motion!
There's not a ship that sails the ocean,
But every climate, every soil,
Must bring its tribute, great or small,
And help to build the wooden wall!
The sun was rising o'er the sea,
And long the level shadows lay,
As if they, too, the beams would be
Of some great, airy argosy,
Framed and launched in a single day.
That silent architect, the sun,
Had hewn and laid them every one,
Ere the work of man was yet begun.
Beside the Master, when he spoke,
A youth, against an anchor leaning,
'Thus,' said he, 'will we build this ship!
Lay square the blocks upon the slip,
And follow well this plan of mine.
Choose the timbers with greatest care;
Of all that is unsound beware;
For only what is sound and strong
To this vessel shall belong.
Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine
Her together shall combine.
A goodly frame, and a goodly fame,
And the Union be her name
For the day that gives her to the sea
Shall give my daughter unto thee!'
He saw the form of his promised bride.
The sun shone on her golden hair,
And her cheek was glowing fresh and fair,
With the breath of morn and the soft sea air.
Like a beauteous barge was she,
Still at rest on the sandy beach,
Just beyond the billow's reach;
But he
Was the restless, seething, stormy sea!
Ah, how skilful grows the hand
That obeyeth Love's command!
It is the heart and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain,
And he who followeth Love's behest
Far exceedeth all the rest!
Thus with the rising of the sun
Was the noble task begun,
And soon throughout the shipyard's bounds Were heard the intermingled sounds
With vigorous arms on every side;
Of axes and of mallets, plied
Plied so deftly and so well,
Listened, to catch the slightest meaning. so That ere the shadows of evening fell, 135
And when the hot, long day was o'er,
The young man at the Master's door
Sat with the maiden calm and still.
And within the porch, a little more
Removed beyond the evening chill,
The father sat, and told them tales
Of wrecks in the great September gales,
Of pirates upon the Spanish Main,
And ships that never came back again;
The chance and change of a sailor's life,
Want and plenty, rest and strife,
His roving fancy, like the wind,
That nothing can stay and nothing can bind;
And the magic charm of foreign lands,
With shadows of palms, and shining sands,
Where the tumbling surf,
O'er the coral reefs of Madagascar,
Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar,
As he lies alone and asleep on the turf.
And the trembling maiden held her breath
At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea,
With all its terror and mystery,
The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,
That divides, and yet unites mankind!
And whenever the old man paused, a gleam
From the bowl of his pipe would awhile
And at the bows an image stood,
By a cunning artist carved in wood,
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
With robes of white, that far behind
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,
It was not shaped in a classic mould,
Or Naiad rising from the water,
But modelled from the Master's daughter!
On many a dreary and misty night,
"Twill be seen by the rays of the signal
light,
Speeding along through the rain and the
dark,
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,
By a path none other knows aright!
They fell,-those lordly pines!
Those grand, majestic pines!
Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething Caldron, that glowed,
Panting beneath the goad,
Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive kings so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming hair,
And, naked and bare,
To feel the stress and the strain
Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar
With the black tar, heated for the sheathing. Would remind them for evermore
That flag unrolled,
'Twill be as a friendly hand Stretched out from his native land,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock-
Spake, with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart
Of the sailor's heart,
All its pleasures and its griefs,
All its shallows and rocky reefs,
255 All those secret currents, that flow
With such resistless undertow,
Filling his heart with memories sweet and And lift and drift, with terrible force,
The will from its moorings and its course.
Therefore he spake, and thus said he:-
'Like unto ships far off at sea,
260 Outward or homeward bound, are we.
Before, behind, and all around,
Floats and swings the horizon's bound, 320
Seems at its outer rim to rise
And climb the crystal wall of the skies,
And then again to turn and sink,
As if we could slide from its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea,
It is not the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves,
270 That rock and rise
With endless and uneasy motion,
Now touching the very skies,
Now sinking into the depths of ocean.
Ah! if our souls but poise and swing
275 Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level, and ever true
Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,
Ready to be
The bride of the gray, old sea.
On the deck another bride
Is standing by her lover's side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sunny fleck,
Fall around them on the deck.
The prayer is said,
The service read,
The joyous bridegroom bows his head:
And in tears the good old Master
Shakes the brown hand of his son,
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster
Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor-
The shepherd of that wandering flock,
That has the ocean for its world,
To the toil and the task we have to do,
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining
beach
The sights we see, and the sounds we hear
Will be those of joy and not of fear!'
Then the Master,
With a gesture of command,
285 Waved his hand.
And at the word,
Loud and sudden there was heard
All round them and below,
The sound of hammers blow on blow,
290 Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs!
She starts, she moves, she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
295 She leaps into the ocean's arms!
How beautiful she is! How fair
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
360 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
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward
steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear!
Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!
Thou, too, sail on, O ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 385 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 roar, In spite of false lights on the shore, Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,-are all with thee!
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born at Cummington, Massachusetts, on the 3d of November 1794. He was educated for the bar, but after passing ten years in the courts he abandoned an uncongenial profession, and removed to New-York, where he assumed the chief direction of the 'Evening Post.' He wrote the famous poem 'Thanatopsis' in his eighteenth year, and published
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go +25
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude
swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon.
The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy
mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou
wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
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