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In spiral motion first, as seamen deem,

Swells, when the raging whirlwind sweeps the stream.
The swift volution, and the enormous train,
Let sages versed in nature's lore explain.
The horrid apparition still draws nigh,
And white with foam the whirling billows fly.
The guns were primed; the vessel northward veers,
Till her black battery on the column bears:
The nitre fired, and, while the dreadful sound
Convulsive shook the slumbering air around,
The watery volume, trembling to the sky,
Burst down, a dreadful deluge, from on high!
The expanding ocean trembled as it fell,
And felt with swift recoil her surges swell;
But soon, this transient undulation o'er,
The sea subsides, the whirlwinds rage no more.
While southward now the increasing breezes veer,
Dark clouds incumbent on their wings appear;
Ahead they see the consecrated grove
Of Cyprus, sacred once to Cretan Jove.
The ship beneath her lofty pressure reels,
And to the freshening gale still deeper heels.

William Falconer.

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

SOUTHWARD

with fleet of ice

Sailed the corsair Death;

Wild and fast blew the blast,

And the east-wind was his breath.

His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;

On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.

His sails of white sea-mist

Dripped with silver rain;

But where he passed there were cast Leaden shadows o'er the main.

Eastward from Campobello

Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed; Three days or more seaward he bore, Then, alas! the land-wind failed.

Alas! the land-wind failed,

And ice-cold grew the night; And nevermore, on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light.

He sat upon the deck,

The Book was in his hand; "Do not fear! Heaven is as near," He said, "by water as by land!"

In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,

Out of the sea, mysteriously,

The fleet of Death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star

Were hanging in the shrouds;

Every mast, as it passed,

Seemed to rake the passing clouds.

They grappled with their prize,

At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.

Southward through day and dark,
They drift in close embrace,

With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.

Southward, forever southward,

They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

KANE.

DIED FEBRUARY 16, 1857.

LOFT upon an old basaltic crag,

A Which, scalped by keen winds that defend the Pole,

Gazes with dead face on the seas that roll
Around the secret of the mystic zone,
A mighty nation's star-bespangled flag
Flutters alone,

And underneath, upon the lifeless front

Of that drear cliff a simple name is traced; Fit type of him who, famishing and gaunt,

[graphic]

But with a rocky purpose in his soul,
Breasted the gathering snows,

Clung to the drifting floes,

By want beleaguered, and by winter chased, Seeking the brother lost amid that frozen waste.

Not many months ago we greeted him,

Crowned with the icy honors of the North,

Across the land his hard-won fame went forth, And Maine's deep woods were shaken limb by limb. His own mild Keystone State, sedate and prim, Burst from decorous quiet as he came.

Hot Southern lips, with eloquence aflame, Sounded his triumph. Texas, wild and grim, Proffered its horny hand. The large-lunged West, From out his giant breast,

Yelled its frank welcome. And from main to main, Jubilant to the sky,

Thundered the mighty cry,

Honor to Kane!

In vain, — in vain beneath his feet we flung
The reddening roses! All in vain we poured
The golden wine, and round the shining board
Sent the toast circling, till the rafters rung
With the thrice-tripled honors of the feast!
Scarce the buds wilted and the voices ceased
Ere the pure light that sparkled in his eyes,
Bright as auroral fires in Southern skies,

Faded and faded! And the brave young heart That the relentless Arctic winds had robbed

Of all its vital heat, in that long quest
For the lost captain, now within his breast
More and more faintly throbbed.

His was the victory; but as his grasp
Closed on the laurel crown with cager clasp,
Death launched a whistling dart;

And ere the thunders of applause were done
His bright eyes closed forever on the sun!
Too late, - too late the splendid prize he won
In the Olympic race of Science and of Art!
Like to some shattered berg that, pale and lone,
Drifts from the white North to a Tropic zone,
And in the burning day

Wastes peak by peak away,

Till on some rosy even

It dies with sunlight blessing it; so he
Tranquilly floated to a Southern sea,
And melted into heaven!

He needs no tears who lived a noble life!
We will not weep for him who died so well;
But we will gather round the hearth, and tell
The story of his strife:

Such homage suits him well,
Better than funeral pomp or passing bell!

What tale of peril and self-sacrifice!
Prisoned amid the fastnesses of ice,

With hunger howling o'er the wastes of snow! Night lengthening into months; the ravenous floe Crunching the massive ships, as the white bear

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