* * * * *
THE DEATH-BED.
We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seemed to speak,
So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied—
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came, dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed—she had
Another morn than ours.
Thomas Hood.
* * * * *
LANDING OF COLUMBUS.
The sails were furl'd; with many a melting close,
Solemn and slow the evening anthem rose,—
Rose to the Virgin. 'Twas the hour of day
When setting suns o'er summer seas display
A path of glory, opening in the west
To golden climes and islands of the blest;
And human voices on the silent air
Went o'er the waves in songs of gladness there!
Chosen of men! 'Twas thine at noon of night
First from the prow to hail the glimmering light?
(Emblem of Truth divine, whose secret ray
Enters the soul and makes the darkness day!)
"Pedro! Rodrigo! there methought it shone!
There—in the west! and now, alas, 'tis gone!—
'Twas all a dream! we gaze and gaze in vain!
But mark and speak not, there it comes again!
It moves!—what form unseen, what being there
With torch-like lustre fires the murky air?
His instincts, passions, say, how like our own!
Oh, when will day reveal a world unknown?"
Long on the deep the mists of morning lay;
Then rose, revealing as they rolled away
Half-circling hills, whose everlasting woods
Sweep with their sable skirts the shadowy floods:
And say, when all, to holy transport given,
Embraced and wept as at the gates of heaven,—
When one and all of us, repentant, ran,
And, on our faces, bless'd the wondrous man,—
Say, was I then deceived, or from the skies
Burst on my ear seraphic harmonies?
"Glory to God!" unnumber'd voices sung,—
"Glory to God!" the vales and mountains rung,
Voices that hail'd creation's primal morn,
And to the shepherds sung a Saviour born.
Slowly, bareheaded, through the surf we bore
The sacred cross, and kneeling kiss'd the shore.