Thursday, Dec. 4. We caught, two days since, a stormy petrel. As the bird was brought on board, the old sailors around shook their heads with ominous looks of dissatisfaction. “We’ll have a blow for that,” said an old salt; and sure enough, before the wings of the petrel were dry a storm set in. “We’ll have no more fair weather,” said another, “till that petrel is put back into the sea.” “I knew a ship,” exclaimed a third, “that had a forty days’ gale for having killed a petrel; and if that bird dies on board, we’ll escape a wreck by the skin of our teeth, or we’ll rot down in a dead calm.” Our storm continued without any token of abatement, and last evening the ominous bird was returned in safety to its element. The clouds soon swept past, the sun emerged into a bright sapphire sky, and a leading wind from the southeast sprung up.
How far the return of the petrel to the sea influenced this auspicious change in the elements, I leave to the decision of those who have more or less philosophy than myself. I must confess I was glad to see the petrel go back. There is a sacredness attached to this bird that should exempt it from violence. It is supposed to be the form in which the spirit of some one, who has been sepulchred in the sea, still floats in troubled light, and that when its penance is passed, it will be translated to some higher form which the gale and the breaker can never reach. This may all be superstition, but it is a glimmering of the great truth of man’s immortality. He who believes that man can survive death in the shape of a bird, is more than half way to the belief that he can survive in the form of an angel.
It is a tranquil eve; our ship is gliding quietly on; my thoughts, unoccupied here, run warmly back to those left behind—to the loved and lost
CATHARA.
The evening star sleeps in the moon’s pale rim,
And slumber rocks the weary world to rest;
Nor wakes a sound except the vesper hymn
Of pines, that murmur on the mountain’s crest;
And now, at this lone hour, fond thoughts of thee
Melt o’er my heart as music on the sea.