Part 31 (1/2)

While the pale starlight laves, With its shadowy waves, A brow, that with memory's anguish is throbbing; Each quivering leaf, Seems trembling with grief, That's borne on the zephyr's low sorrowful sobbing.

For that dear form of thine, So oft pressed to mine, My angel-claimed lost one, my own Angeline!

As the stream leaps along, And I list to its song, It sounds like the surging of sorrow's dark river;

When o'er my young bride, Pa.s.sed its dark rolling tide, And bore her away from my bosum forever; Yes; bore thee to s.h.i.+ne In regions divine, Resplendently lovely, and pure, Angeline!

And _there_, as I gaze On its bright sparkling face, Where pearly white ripples are merrily gleaming, Reflecting each star That s.h.i.+nes from afar, The face of my lost one seems tenderly beaming; Yes! there beside mine, Are thy features benign, By memory mirrored, my own Angeline!

As I gently recline, 'Neath the cl.u.s.tering vine, The veil from futurity's vista is lifted, And adown life's wild tide, I rapidly glide, And into eternity's ocean am drifted; And there, soul of mine In regions divine, I meet thee, to part _nevermore_, Angeline!

A Wreck! A Wreck! ”Man the Life Boat.”

The blackness of midnight hung over the ocean, And savagely, shrilly, the Storm Spirit screamed.

Athwart the dark billows, which wild in commotion, Sublimely, yet awfully, heavenward streamed.

A bark that but rode from her moorings at morning, 'Neath bright sunny skies, and prosperous gales, With streamlet and banner, in beauty adorning Her tapering masts and snowy white sails,

Now rolls in the trough of the tempest-plowed surges!

A wreck! madly urged to a rocky bound sh.o.r.e; Where from the dark jaws of wild ocean emerges, To fear-stricken hearts its ominous roar

Her sails are in ribbons, her banners in tatters!

Her masts are afloat from the perilous wreck, And now o'er the billows the Tempest Fiend scatters With one mighty effort her hurricane deck!

The voice of the clarion-toned captain is ringing, Above the hoa.r.s.e murmuring roar of the surge, And an echoing voice, seems sepulchrally flinging, Far back o'er the waves, for the vessel, a dirge.

And now the doomed vessel is beating and cras.h.i.+ng, With violence on the dark, rough, rugged rocks; And the tempest-tossed surge, while resistlessly das.h.i.+ng Around her, each effort to save her but mocks.

The lightnings play luridly, fiercely above her, Illuming with horror the wind-cloven waves!

Displaying the wreck, as their flashes discover, The victims despairingly gaze on their graves.

For forked and furious, the fiery flung flashes, Gleam o'er the sad wreck like a funeral pyre; And louder and louder each thunder clap crashes.

The air in a roar! the billows on fire!

The heart-anguished cries o'er the pitiless waters, Are borne on the blast of the thunder-rocked air, As husbands and wives, as sons and as daughters, Unite in a wild shrieking wail of despair.

But now from the moss covered fisherman's dwelling, The _Life-Boat_ is manned by the chivalrous brave!

Though the wild howling storm of the tempest is swelling, They'll peril their own lives, the wrecked ones to save.

And now to the merciless surges they launch her, And back she is flung to the white-pebbled beach!

Now cleaves the wild surf, for never a stauncher, Or braver crew mounted a deadlier breach.

Now swift o'er the waves madly bounding and das.h.i.+ng!

The n.o.bly manned life-boat speeds on her lone way, Now sinks she below, the waves o'er her splas.h.i.+ng, Now cleaves like arrow, the white foaming spray.