Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15.djvu/291

 The ships at their anchors are frozen, &emsp;&emsp;From rudder to sloping chain: Rock-like they rise: the low sloop lies &emsp;&emsp;An oasis in the plain. Like reeds here and there, the tall masts bare &emsp;&emsp;Upspring: as on the edge Of a lawn smooth-shaven, around the haven &emsp;&emsp;The shipping grows like sedge.

Here, weaving the union of cities, &emsp;&emsp;With hoar wakes belting the blue, From slip to slip, past schooner and ship, &emsp;&emsp;The ferry's shuttles flew:— Now, loosed from its stall, on the yielding wall &emsp;&emsp;The steamboat paws and rears; The citizens pass on a pavement of glass, &emsp;&emsp;And climb the frosted piers.

Where, in the November twilight, &emsp;&emsp;To the ribs of the skeleton bark That stranded lay in the bend of the bay, &emsp;&emsp;Motionless, low, and dark, Came ever three shags, like three lone hags, &emsp;&emsp;And sat o'er the troubled water, Each nursing apart her shrivelled heart, &emsp;&emsp;With her mantle wrapped about her,—

Now over the ancient timbers &emsp;&emsp;Is built a magic deck; Children run out with laughter and shout &emsp;&emsp;And dance around the wreck; The fisherman near his long eel-spear &emsp;&emsp;Thrusts in through the ice, or stands With fingers on lips, and now and then whips &emsp;&emsp;His sides with mittened hands.

Alone and pensive I wander &emsp;&emsp;Far out from the city-wharf To the buoy below in its cap of snow, &emsp;&emsp;Low stooping like a dwarf; In the fading ray of the dull, brief day &emsp;&emsp;I wander and muse apart,— For this frozen sea is a symbol to me &emsp;&emsp;Of many a human heart.

I think of the hopes deep sunken &emsp;&emsp;Like anchors under the ice,— Of souls that wait for Love's sweet freight &emsp;&emsp;And the spices of Paradise: Far off their barks are tossing &emsp;&emsp;On the billows of unrest, And enter not in, for the hardness and sin &emsp;&emsp;That close the secret breast.