HIS story of the sea,
Full of weird mystery,
’Twere vain to tell to thee
’Mid dusty lore I found it!
You still might doubt its truth,—
The truest tale, in sooth,
(Such as Boaz and Ruth)
Has gathered skeptics round it!
Yet, should you deign to read
Where’er the Muse may lead,
The tale, as you proceed,
Will wake some tender feeling,
Till, like a pleasant dream,
The Corsair’s Maid will seem
To throw a hallowed beam
Where phantom-shades were stealing!
The Corsair.
Nor florid prose,
Nor honied lies of rhyme,
Can blazon evil deeds,
Or consecrate a crime.
—Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
The whirligig of Time
Brings in his revenges.
—Shakespeare.
IS said, in ancient times,
Cursed with a thousand crimes,
Blood-stained in all the climes,
Sailed hither a Pirate;—
Flax’n was his flowing hair,
Rake-like his haughty air,
Eyes that revealed despair,
His passions fierce and irate.
Sprung from the Vikings bold,—
Sea-kings they were of old
Who held their warlike hold
On Norway’s stormy shore,—
He made the sea his home,
And hoped, where he might roam,
The waves would be his tomb
When he should be no more!
His Norman castle lost,
His fate by battle crossed,
His life like ship a-tossed,
The raging seas pursuing,
He reared a stronger hold,
Afar from winter’s cold,
And filled its cells with gold
From many a ship subduing.
He’d sailed o’er tropic seas;
’Mong sun-bright Cyclades;
Before the gelid breeze,
And gales Siberian;—
Upon the Spanish Main
Captives many he had slain,
Blood running there like rain
From veins Iberian!