Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/105

Rh  —Man is like to you.— His whirlwind passions nerve him, and he tears The realm of nature,—marks his path with wrecks, And chasms, and sepulchres,—and then returns From war's dire game,—perchance to sigh away His soul in love like the soft summer gale On Beauty's cheek,—and then lies down to mix With the same dust that soil'd his chariot wheels.— —Oh Thou! who holdest in Thy powerful hand Both the wild tempests, and the breath that moves This mass of clay,—let us not madly trust Our treasure to the winds, and weep at last The harvest, when the whirlwind wasteth it:— Nor let the blossom of our nurtured hopes Which we have sown on earth with tears and prayers Go up as chaff on the Dividing Day.

 

Yield the bark to the breezes free, Point her helm to the far deep sea, Where Hecla's watch-fire streaming wild Hath never the mariner's eye beguiled, Where in boiling baths strange monsters play Down to the deep sea,—launch away!

Gay o'er coral caves we steer Where moulder the bones of the brave, Where the beautiful sleep on their humid bier, And the pale pearl gleams in its quenchless sphere, The lamp of their Ocean grave; 