Classic Poem

BY HUGH PETERS .

Their bark is out upon the sea,
She leaps across the tide: —
The flashing waves dash joyously
Their spray upon her side:
As if a bird, before the breeze
She spreads her snowy wings,
And breaking through the crested seas,
How beautiful she springs.

The deep blue sky above her path
Is cloudless, and the air
That pure and spicy fragrance hath
Which Ceylon's breezes bear —
And though she seems a shadowless
And phantom thing, in sport,
Her freight I ween is Happiness,
And Heaven her far-off port.

Mild, tearful eyes are gazing now
Upon that fleeting ship,
And here, perhaps, an ashy brow,
And there a trembling lip,
Are tokens of the agony,
The pangs it costs to sever
A mother from her first born child,
To say — farewell, forever.

And they who sail yon fading bark
Have turned a yearning eye
To the far land which seems a line
Between the sea and sky.
And as that land blends with the sea,
Like clouds in sunset light,
A soft, low voice breathes on the wind,
" My native land, good night. "

And they who stand upon the shore,
And bend them o'er the sea,
To catch the last, faint shadow of
The shrouds' dim tracery, —
I ween if one could hear the sigh,
Could catch the mother's tone,
He 'd hear it say, " Good night — good night,
" My beautiful — my own. "

That ship is gone, lost to the eye;
But still a freshening breeze
Is o'er her wake, and drives her on
Through smooth and pleasant seas.
Right onward thus, she will dash on,
Though tempests shake the air,
For hearts that fear not ocean's wrath
I ween will aye be there.

*****

That sea is Life. — That bark is but
The Hopes of wedded Love:
The wind which fills its swelling sails
I trust is from above.
And ever may its progress be
Through summer seas right on,
Till blended with Eternity's
Broad ocean's horizon.