Since then my home has been the pirate's deck; my heart has grown harder and harder with the lapse of time. I love the sight of blood better than I love the flowing wine—the agonizing shriek of death better than the sweetest music—like an emissary of evil I gloat over the tortures of man. I have learned to hate the land of my birth, and all who first drew breath upon her detested soil. I have been foremost in every conflict, yet have I not met death—the only foe whom I cannot conquer by my fierce will and dark heart.
I could not long remain a subordinate in command. I had become the idol of our lawless crew, and a single blow from my sword laid our captain low in death upon his own deck; and I filled his place, smiling with a fiendish pleasure, as I saw his body thrown into the waves, and the hungry sharks severing the limbs yet throbbing with life. I have no feeling for my kind—yet I was not meant for this. Under happier auspices, I might have been a leader in the ranks of God as I am now in those of Satan; my sword might have been drawn for my native land with the purest and loftiest feelings of patriotism, instead of being turned against her and her children. Even now, in the midst of my crimes and desolation, my heart throbs when I think of the great and good of earth, and I feel that, like them, I might have left a name of boast and pride to mankind; now, I shall perish, unknown and unwept; the annals of my house shall never record that one of its scions led a pirate crew to deeds of bloody cruelty and death. Long since I have buried my name in oblivion—I am dead to my kindred, dead to the world; the caves of ocean are yawning for the body of the pirate-chief, and there will he sleep with the howling ocean and the shrieking storm to sing his requiem and his dirge.
[To be continued.
DREAMS.
Yes, there were pleasant voices yesternight,
Humming within mine ear a tale of truth,
Reminding me of days ere the sad blight
Of care had dimmed the brightness of my youth:
Yes, they were pleasant voices; but, forsooth,
They threw a kind of melancholy charm
Around my heart; as if in vengeful ruth,
Our very dreams have knowledge of the harm
Ourselves do to ourselves, without the least alarm!
I love such dreams, for at my couch there stood
One who, in other lands, with magic spell,
Had taught my untaught heart to love the good,
The pure, the holy, which in her did dwell.
It was a lovely image, and too well
I do remember me the fatal hour,
When that bright image—but I may not tell
How deep the thraldom, absolute the power—
My very dreams decide it was her only dower.
Sandwich Islands.
What are our dreams? A sort of fancy sketches,
Limned on the mind's retina, with a grace
More subtle than the wakeful artist catches,
And tinted with a more ethereal trace.
Our dreams annihilate both time and space,
And waft us, with magnetic swiftness, back
O'er an oblivious decade to the place
Where youth's fond visions clustered o'er our track;
Of youth's fond hopes decayed, alas! there is no lack!
I love such dreams, for they are more than real;
They have a passion in them in whose birth
The heart receives again its beau ideal—
Its Platonized embodiment of worth.
Call ye them dreams! then what a mortal dearth
Throws its gaunt shadow o'er our little life!
Our very joy is mockery of mirth,
And our quiescence agony of strife:
If dreams are naught but dreams, what is our real life?
E. O. H.