Hence, when before them stretched the sea,
Majestic, limitless and clear,
A rapturous sense of being free
Dispelled all vestiges of fear
The longed-for ocean to explore
From pole to pole, from shore to shore.
Thus all men learn the God they dread
Is kinder than they had supposed,
And that, not God, but Man hath said,—
"The door to freedom must be closed!"
Once past that door, with broadened view,
They find Him better than they knew.
Meanwhile, along the sunlit strait
My ship glides toward the saffron west,
Beyond the old Phenician gate
To ocean's gently heaving breast,
Whence, on the ever-freshening breeze,
There greet my spirit words like these;—
Sail bravely on! the morning light
Shall find thee far beyond the land;
Gibraltar's battlemented height
And Afric's tawny hills of sand
Shall soon completely sink from view
Beneath the ocean's belt of blue.
Sail on! nor heed the shadows vast
Of fabled Powers, whose fear enslaves!
Their spectral shapes shall sink at last
Below the night's abandoned waves;
Rest not confined by shoals and bars;
Steer oceanward by God's fixed stars!
FRIENDSHIP
'Tis not in the bitterest woes of life
That the love of friends, as a rule, grows cold;
Still less does it melt in the heat of strife,
Or die from the canker of borrowed gold;
For pity comes when they see us grieved,
Or forced to lie on a couch of pain,
And a hasty word is soon retrieved,
And the loan of money may leave no stain.
'Tis oftenest lost through the deadly blight
Of Society's pestilential air,
Which blackens the robe of purest white,
And fouls what once was sweet and fair.
An envious woman's whispered word,
A slander born of a cruel smile,
The repetition of something heard,
The imputation of something vile,