Toll for the lover, lost
To the summoned bridal train!
Bright glows a picture on his breast,
Beneath th' unfathomed main.
One from her casement gazeth
Long o'er the misty sea:
He cometh not, pale maiden,—
His heart is cold to thee!
Toll for the absent sire,
Who to his home drew near,
To bless a glad, expecting group,—
Fond wife, and children dear!
They heap the blazing hearth,
The festal board is spread,
But a fearful guest is at the gate;—
Room for the sheeted dead!
Toll for the loved and fair,
The whelmed beneath the tide,—
The broken harps around whose strings
The dull sea-monsters glide!
Mother and nursling sweet,
Reft from the household throng;
There's bitter weeping in the nest
Where breathed their soul of song.
Toll for the hearts that bleed
'Neath misery's furrowing trace;
Toll for the hapless orphan left,
The last of all his race!
Yea, with thy heaviest knell,
From surge to rocky shore,
Toll for the living,—not the dead,
Whose mortal woes are o'er.
Toll, toll, toll!
O'er breeze and billow free;
And with thy startling lore instruct
Each rover of the sea.
Tell how o'er proudest joys
May swift destruction sweep,
And bid him build his hopes on high,—
Lone teacher of the deep!
Mrs. Sigourney.
CCXXX.
THE STRUGGLE FOR FAME.
If thou wouldst win a lasting fame,—
If thou the immortal wreath wouldst claim,
And make the future bless thy name,—
Begin thy perilous career,
Keep high thy heart, thy conscience clear,
And walk thy way without a fear.
And if thou hast a voice within,
That ever whispers, "Work and win,"
And keeps thy soul from sloth and sin;—