The Merchant Ship

The sun oer the waters was throwing     In the freshness of morning its beams;     And the breast of the ocean seemed glowing     With glittering silvery streams:     A bark in the distance was bounding     Away for the land on her lee;     And the boatswains shrill whistle resounding     Came over and over the sea.     The breezes blew fair and were guiding     Her swiftly along on her track,     And the billows successively passing,     Were lost in the distance aback.     The sailors seemed busy preparing     For anchor to drop ere the night;     The red rusted cables in fathoms     Were hauld from their prisons to light.     Each rope and each brace was attended     By stout-hearted sons of the main,     Whose voices, in unison blended,     Sang many a merry-toned strain.     Forgotten their care and their sorrow,     If of such they had ever known aught,     Each soul was wrapped up in the morrow     The morrow which greeted them not;     A sunshiny hope was inspiring     And filling their hearts with a glow     Like that on the billows around them,     Like the silvery ocean below.     As they looked on the haven before them,     Already high looming and near,     What else but a joy could invade them,     Or what could they feel but a cheer?          .     .     .     .     .          The eve on the waters was clouded,     And gloomy and dark grew the sky;     The ocean in blackness was shrouded,     And wails of a tempest flew by;     The bark oer the billows high surging     Mid showers of the foam-crested spray,     Now sinking, now slowly emerging,     Held onward her dangerous way.     The gale in the distance was veering     To a point that would drift her on land,     And fearfully he that was steering     Lookd round on the cliff-girdled strand.     He thought of the home now before him     And muttered sincerely a prayer     That morning might safely restore him     To friends and to kind faces there.     He knew that if once at the mercy     Of the winds and those mountain-like waves     The sun would rise over the waters     The day would return on their graves.          .     .     .     .     .          Still blacker the heavens were scowling,     Still nearer the rock-skirted shore;     Yet fiercer the tempest was howling     And louder the wild waters roar.     The cold rain in torrents came pouring     On deck thro the rigging and shrouds,     And the deep, pitchy dark was illumined     Each moment with gleams from the clouds     Of forky-shapd lightning as, darting,     It made a wide pathway on high,     And the sound of the thunder incessant     Re-echoed the breadth of the sky.     The light-hearted tars of the morning     Now gloomily watching the storm     Were silent, the glare from the flashes     Revealing each weather-beat form,     Their airy-built castles all vanished     When they heard the wild conflict ahead;     Their hopes of the morning were banished,     And terror seemed ruling instead.     They gazed on the heavens above them     And then on the waters beneath,     And shrunk as foreboding those billows     Might shroud them ere morrow in death.          .     .     .     .     .          Hark! A voice oer the tempest came ringing,     A wild cry of bitter despair     Re-echoed by all in the vessel,     And filling the wind-ridden air.     The breakers and rocks were before them     Discovered too plain to their eyes,     And the heart-bursting shrieks of the hopeless     Ascending were lost in the skies.     Then a crash, then a moan from the dying     Went on, on the wings of the gale,     Soon hushd in the roar of the waters     And the tempests continuing wail.     The Storm Power loudly was sounding     Their funeral dirge as they passed,     And the white-crested waters around them     Re-echoed the voice of the blast.     The surges will show to the morrow     A fearful and heartrending sight,     And bereaved ones will weep in their sorrow     When they think of that terrible night.          .     .     .     .     .          The day on the ocean returning     Saw stilld to a slumber the deep     Not a zephyr disturbing its bosom,     The winds and the breezes asleep.     Again the warm sunshine was gleaming     Refulgently fringing the sea,     Its rays to the horizon beaming     And clothing the land on the lee.     The billows were silently gliding     Oer the graves of the sailors beneath,     The waves round the vessel yet pointing     The scene of their anguish and death.     They seemed to the fancy bewailing     The sudden and terrible doom     Of those who were yesterday singing     And laughing in sight of their tomb.          .     .     .     .     .          Tis thus on the sea of existence     The morning begins without care,     Hope cheerfully points to the distance,     The Future beams sunny and fair;     And we as the bark oer the billows,     Admiring the beauty of day,     With Fortune all smiling around us     Glide onward our silvery way.     We know not nor fear for a sorrow     Ever crossing our pathway in life;     We judge from to-day the to-morrow     And dream not of meeting with strife.     This world seems to us as an Eden     And we wonder when hearing around     The cries of stern pain and affliction     How such an existence is found.     But we find to our cost when misfortune     Comes mantling our sun in its night,     That the Earth was not made to be Heaven,     Not always our life can be bright.     In turn we see each of our day-dreams     Dissolve into air and decay,     And learn that the hopes that are brightest     Fade soonest far soonest away.