Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/349

 ODE TO OBLIV/OJV 339

Who hath of wind and wave no fear ; She, our physician, whose mild skill Shall keep the crew all healthful still.

��But, above all, let Hope be there ;

She, 'midst the whirlpools of despair.

To thread each narrow channel knows ;

She cares not for the whirlwind's shocks,

And safe o'er shoals and sunken rocks

Ploughs singing as she goes.

Truth for our captain, and I'll trust the sea,

But let far-seeing Hope the pilot be ;

With her for guide, all dangers shall be past ;

With fearless skill she'll come to port at last,

And in heaven's azure Avave her golden anchor cast..

��ODE TO OBLIVION.

O Night-descended, that with sable wing

Through the far past art veiling everything !

How briefly, as thy mists roll onward, aught

Shines through their depths, or work of hands or thought

As clouds that cast afar their shadows gray

Sweep the bright sunbeams from the hills away.

So truth thou veilest, light grows dark in thee.

And History hides in thine obscurity.

All things melt in thee; an unnumbered host

Time urges on, till all in thee are lost ;

His children all, the days, the months, the years,

Thou dost o'erwhelm, heedless of prayers and tears;

Each in thy silent realm in darkness disappears.

Fame, strength, power, beauty, in thine eyes are nought ; Worthless all works that genius' hand hath wrought.

�� �