English

The lonely sailor, when the night
O'er ocean's glimmering waste descends,
Sets at the peak his signal light,
And fondly dreams of absent friends.

Starless the sky above him broods,
Pathless the waves beneath him swell;
Through peril's spectral solitudes
That beacon flares, and all is well.

So, on the wandering sea of years,
When now the evening closes round,
I show the signal flame that cheers,
And scan the wide horizon's bound.

The night is dark, the winds are loud,

Here on this barren fragment unreclaimed
Of coral reef o'ersurged by tidal brine,
Shifting each fluctuant hour its border-line,
I did not think to hear, loud-clarion-famed,
Or whispered to my solitude unblamed,
Rumor of Politics; but o'er the shine
Of watery waste, and continental fine,
Sounded the Nations and great names were named!
Then I rejoiced with an exceeding awe
And the religious rapture patriots know,
Who in their love of country love the Race,
Enjoining equal privilege and law!
A Citizen! a Man! how can I go

Captured! Along the beach those shouts reveal
The fisherman exultant victor! Hark!
The Karcharos, from out his crystalline, dark
Blue lair by rud of flesh and lurking steel
Bewrayed, hath ravined down with his last meal
Death as a gobbet. On the hot sand, stark,
He gasps and shudders agonizing. Mark!
With horrible grin those bloody jaws appeal
Unto his gloating murderers.—No more
Those serried ranks sextuple of fanged white
Shall scare the shallows and appall the shore,
Never again wreak havoc and affright,

In a shaggy forest I know a glen
Where the were-wolf made his lair;
'T was haunted of owls, but 't was shunned of men,
For a demon dwelleth there.
When the night was dismal, and wild, and wet,
And yells were on the gale,
I rode a black steed to the glen and met
That demon, grisly pale.

I sprang from my charger where he stood,
And I hailed the spectre dire:
The ground was rank with a smell of blood,
And hot with a smouldering fire:
I called him by his loathly name,
Unmeet for a Christian ear,

The books of childhood,
Which of old I used to learn,
I read to-day; and,
As their faded leaves I turn,
Am a boy again, a boy.

In my rhyme I fable anguish,
Feigning that my love is dead,
Playing at a game of sadness,
Singing hope forever fled,—

Trailing the slow robes of mourning,
Grieving with the player's art,
With the languid palms of sorrow
Folded on a dancing heart.

I must mix my love with death-dust,
Lest the draught should make me mad;
I must make believe at sorrow,
Lest I perish, over-glad.

Oh, what has become of the Mugwumpbird
In this weather of wind and snow,
And does he roost as high as we heard
He roosted a year ago?

A year ago and his plumes were red
As the deepest of cardinal hues,
But in the year they 've changed, 't is said,
To the bluest of bilious blues!

A year ago and this beautiful thing
Warbled in careless glee;
But now the tune he is forced to sing
Is pitched in a minor key.

It 's oh, we sigh, for the times gone by
When the Mugwump lived to laugh—

Like seas flashing in caves
Where stalactites gleam,
Like the sparkling of waves
Where Northern lights beam;
Like the swift drops that fall
Where the sun brightly shines,
Like a clear crystal hall
Amid clustering vines;

Like emerald leaves
All transparent with light,
Where the summer breeze weaves
Its song of delight,
Like wild flickering dreams,
Is the light which lies,
Which flashes and beams
In Angela's eyes.

Like ripples slow circling
Where a stone has been thrown,

Summer came lingering north;
She passed through the valley, I wist,
For the hillsides all put forth
And pilfered her veil of mist.
She danced through the meadows, fleet,
And the buttercups, brazen-bold,
Stole from her rosy feet
The little sandals of gold.

She slept in the upland field
And the daisies plotted, I trow,
To hold her till she should yield
Her gold-starred kirtle of snow.
And after she fled to the wood
The oak and the ash were seen
Flaunting, in hardihood,
Her flowing mantle of green.

They stand to me, these men of mine,
Brigaded end to end,
And though we send nor hint nor sign,
All comprehend.

We raise the crimson falling flanks,
Ensanguin'd battles done;
Then, in well-knit, beseeming ranks,
We march from sun to sun.