[THE NIGHT-FISHER.]
Grey liegeman of sundown and dawn, who chides
With a lone song the ocean-murmuring trees,
I haste with thee at dusk to stalk the seas
Where feed the finny flocks of shepherding tides.
O wild the pulses beat as round us glides
The tidal spirit, like a midnight breeze,
Burdened with moan of life-and-death decrees,—
The deep night's tide-line pacing with our strides!
More weird than winkings of the ruddy Mars
These flitting gleams and breaths of hell and heaven,
Searching the shadowy folds 'twixt peace and dread!—
Nor dreamed I such solemnities did leaven
Life's daily meal and league its dole of bread
With unseen forces vaster than the stars'.
[A DEEP-SEA SHELL.]
[GEORGE V. DEARBORN.]
Arrived from out abysmal deeps of brine,
A regal splendor glows within thy whorl,
Like pomp of rosy morn in shimmering pearl.
Surely "the hand that made thee is divine"!
Ah, why so richly dight for beauty's shrine?
No eye can feast on walls of gemmëd burl
Far down the overwhelming rush and swirl
Of awful wastes scarce plumbed of fathom-line!
Fit for the palace of high seneschal!
Inlaid with colors which the Tyrian King
Vain sought to rival on his royal scroll,
And echoing yet the ocean's trembling string:
Methinks the Master wrought this ivory hall
To please the love of beauty in His soul.