The Merchant Ship
The sun o’er the waters was throwingIn the freshness of morning its beams;And the breast of the ocean seemed glowingWith glittering silvery streams:A bark in the distance was boundingAway for the land on her lee;And the boatswain’s shrill whistle resoundingCame over and over the sea.The breezes blew fair and were guidingHer swiftly along on her track,And the billows successively passing,Were lost in the distance aback.The sailors seemed busy preparingFor anchor to drop ere the night;The red rusted cables in fathomsWere haul’d from their prisons to light.Each rope and each brace was attendedBy stout-hearted sons of the main,Whose voices, in unison blended,Sang many a merry-toned strain.
Forgotten their care and their sorrow,If of such they had ever known aught,Each soul was wrapped up in the morrow—The morrow which greeted them not;A sunshiny hope was inspiringAnd filling their hearts with a glowLike that on the billows around them,Like the silvery ocean below.As they looked on the haven before them,Already high looming and near,What else but a joy could invade them,Or what could they feel but a cheer?
. . . . .
The eve on the waters was clouded,And gloomy and dark grew the sky;The ocean in blackness was shrouded,And wails of a tempest flew by;The bark o’er the billows high surging‘Mid showers of the foam-crested spray,Now sinking, now slowly emerging,Held onward her dangerous way.The gale in the distance was veeringTo a point that would drift her on land,And fearfully he that was steeringLook’d round on the cliff-girdled strand.He thought of the home now before himAnd muttered sincerely a prayerThat morning might safely restore himTo friends and to kind faces there.He knew that if once at the mercyOf the winds and those mountain-like wavesThe sun would rise over the waters—The day would return on their graves.
. . . . .
Still blacker the heavens were scowling,Still nearer the rock-skirted shore;Yet fiercer the tempest was howlingAnd louder the wild waters roar.The cold rain in torrents came pouringOn deck thro’ the rigging and shrouds,And the deep, pitchy dark was illuminedEach moment with gleams from the cloudsOf forky-shap’d lightning as, darting,It made a wide pathway on high,And the sound of the thunder incessantRe-echoed the breadth of the sky.The light-hearted tars of the morningNow gloomily watching the stormWere silent, the glare from the flashesRevealing each weather-beat form,Their airy-built castles all vanishedWhen they heard the wild conflict ahead;Their hopes of the morning were banished,And terror seemed ruling instead.They gazed on the heavens above themAnd then on the waters beneath,And shrunk as foreboding those billowsMight shroud them ere morrow in death.
. . . . .
Hark! A voice o’er the tempest came ringing,A wild cry of bitter despairRe-echoed by all in the vessel,And filling the wind-ridden air.The breakers and rocks were before themDiscovered too plain to their eyes,And the heart-bursting shrieks of the hopelessAscending were lost in the skies.Then a crash, then a moan from the dyingWent on, on the wings of the gale,Soon hush’d in the roar of the watersAnd the tempest’s continuing wail.The “Storm Power” loudly was soundingTheir funeral dirge as they passed,And the white-crested waters around themRe-echoed the voice of the blast.The surges will show to the morrowA fearful and heartrending sight,And bereaved ones will weep in their sorrowWhen they think of that terrible night.
. . . . .
The day on the ocean returningSaw still’d to a slumber the deep—Not a zephyr disturbing its bosom,The winds and the breezes asleep.Again the warm sunshine was gleamingRefulgently fringing the sea,Its rays to the horizon beamingAnd clothing the land on the lee.The billows were silently glidingO’er the graves of the sailors beneath,The waves round the vessel yet pointingThe scene of their anguish and death.They seemed to the fancy bewailingThe sudden and terrible doomOf those who were yesterday singingAnd laughing in sight of their tomb.
. . . . .
’Tis thus on the sea of existence—The morning begins without care,Hope cheerfully points to the distance,The Future beams sunny and fair;And we—as the bark o’er the billows,Admiring the beauty of day,With Fortune all smiling around us—Glide onward our silvery way.We know not nor fear for a sorrowEver crossing our pathway in life;We judge from to-day the to-morrowAnd dream not of meeting with strife.This world seems to us as an EdenAnd we wonder when hearing aroundThe cries of stern pain and afflictionHow such an existence is found.But we find to our cost when misfortuneComes mantling our sun in its night,That the Earth was not made to be Heaven,Not always our life can be bright.In turn we see each of our day-dreamsDissolve into air and decay,And learn that the hopes that are brightestFade soonest—far soonest away.
These lines were written in 1857, and were suggested by the wreck of the Dunbar, but the writer did not confine himself in particular to a description of that disaster, as may be seen from perusal.—H.K.