Poems by Samuel G. Goodrich Part 2

I fondly gave my hand and heart, And we were wed. Bright hour of youth!

How little did I think to part With my sweet bride, whose name was Truth!

But time pa.s.sed on, and Truth grew gray, And chided, though with gentlest art: I loved her, though I went astray, And almost broke her faithful heart.

And then I left her, and in tears-- These could not move my hardened breast!

I wandered, and for weary years I sought for bliss, but found no rest.

I sought--yet ever sought in vain-- To find the peace, the joy of youth: At last, I turned me back again, And found them with my faithful Truth.

The Surf Sprite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Surf Sprite]

I.

In the far off sea there is many a sprite, Who rests by day, but awakes at night.

In hidden caves where monsters creep, When the sun is high, these spectres sleep: From the glance of noon, they shrink with dread, And hide 'mid the bones of the ghastly dead.

Where the surf is hushed, and the light is dull, In the hollow tube and the whitened skull, They crouch in fear or in whispers wail, For the lingering night, and the coming gale.

But at even-tide, when the sh.o.r.e is dim, And bubbling wreaths with the billows swim, They rise on the wing of the freshened breeze, And flit with the wind o'er the rolling seas.

II.

At summer eve, as I sat on the cliff, I marked a shape like a dusky skiff, That skimmed the brine, toward the rocky sh.o.r.e-- I heard a voice in the surge's roar-- I saw a form in the flashing spray, And white arms beckoned me away.

Away o'er the tide we went together, Through shade and mist and stormy weather-- Away, away, o'er the lonely water, On wings of thought like shadows we flew, Nor paused 'mid scenes of wreck and slaughter, That came from the blackened waves to view.

The staggering ship to the gale we left, The drifting corse and the vacant boat; The ghastly swimmer all hope bereft-- We left them there on the sea to float!

Through mist and shade and stormy weather, That night we went to the icy Pole, And there on the rocks we stood together, And saw the ocean before us roll.

No moon shone down on the hermit sea, No cheering beacon illumed the sh.o.r.e, No ship on the water, no light on the lea, No sound in the ear but the billow's roar!

But the wave was bright, as if lit with pearls, And fearful things on its bosom played; Huge crakens circled in foamy whirls, As if the deep for their sport was made, And mighty whales through the crystal dashed, And upward sent the far glittering spray, Till the darkened sky with the radiance flashed, And pictured in glory the wild array.[A]

III.

Hast thou seen the deep in the moonlight beam, Its wave like a maiden's bosom swelling?

Hast thou seen the stars in the water's gleam, As if its depths were their holy dwelling?

We met more beautiful scenes that night, As we slid along in our spirit-car, For we crossed the South Sea, and, ere the light, We doubled Cape Horn on a shooting star.

In our way we stooped o'er a moonlit isle, Which the fairies had built in the lonely sea, And the Surf Sprite's brow was bent with a smile, As we gazed through the mist on their revelry.

The ripples that swept to the pebbly sh.o.r.e, O'er sh.e.l.ls of purple in wantonness played, And the whispering zephyrs sweet odors bore, From roses that bloomed amid silence and shade.

In winding grottos, with gems all bright, Soft music trembled from harps unseen, And fair forms glided on wings of light, 'Mid forests of fragrance, and valleys of green.

There were voices of gladness the heart to beguile, And glances of beauty too fond to be true-- For the Surf Sprite shrieked, and the Fairy Isle, By the breath of the tempest was swept from our view.

IV.

Then the howling gale o'er the billows rushed, And trampled the sea in its march of wrath; From stooping clouds the red lightnings gushed, And thunders moved in their blazing path.

'Twas a fearful night, but my shadowy guide Had a voice of glee as we rode on the gale, For we saw afar a ship on the tide, With a bounding course and a fearless sail.

In darkness it came, like a storm-sent bird, But another ship it met on the wave: A shock--a shout--but no more we heard, For they both went down to their ocean-grave!

We paused on the misty wing of the storm, As a ruddy flash lit the face of the deep, And far in its bosom full many a form Was swinging down to its silent sleep.

Another flash! and they seemed to rest, In scattered groups, on the floor of the tide: The lover and loved, they were breast to breast, The mother and babe, they were side by side.

The leaping waves clapped their hands in joy, And gleams of gold with the waters flowed, But the peace of the sleepers knew no alloy, For all was hushed in their lone abode!

V.

On, on, like midnight visions, we pa.s.sed, The storm above, and the surge below, And shrieking forms swept by on the blast, Like demons speeding on errands of woe.

My spirit sank, for aloft in the cloud, A Star-set Flag on the whirlwind flew, And I knew that the billow must be the shroud Of the n.o.ble ship and her gallant crew.

Her side was striped with a belt of white, And a dozen guns from each battery frowned, But the lightning came in a sheet of flame,[B]

And the towering sails in its folds were wound.

Vain, vain was the shout, that in battle rout, Had rung as a knell in the ear of the foe, For the bursting deck was heaved from the wreck, And the sky was bathed in the awful glow!

The ocean shook to its oozy bed, As the swelling sound to the canopy went, And the splintered fires like meteors shed Their light o'er the tossing element.

A moment they gleamed, then sank in the foam, And darkness swept over the gorgeous glare-- They lighted the mariners down to their home, And left them all sleeping in stillness there!

VI.

The storm is hushed, and my vision is o'er, The Surf Sprite changed to a foamy wreath, The night is deepened along the sh.o.r.e, And I thread my way o'er the dusky heath.

But often again I shall go to that cliff, And seek for her form on the flashing tide, For I know she will come in her airy skiff, And over the sea we shall swiftly ride!

[Footnote A: The Laplanders are said to entertain the idea that the coruscations of the Aurora Borealis, are occasioned by the sports of the fishes in the polar seas.]

[Footnote B: The loss of the United States Sloop-of-War Hornet, in the Gulf of Mexico, 1829, suggested this pa.s.sage. She was supposed to have gone down in a hurricane, but as nothing is positively known on the subject, it is not beyond lawful poetical license to imagine, at least in a dream, that the powder magazine was set on fire by the lightning, and the ship rent in pieces, by the explosion.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Vignette]

The First Frost of Autumn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The First Frost of Autumn]

At evening it rose in the hollow glade, Where wild-flowers blushed 'mid silence and shade; Where, hid from the gaze of the garish noon, They were slily wooed by the trembling moon.

It rose--for the guardian zephyrs had flown, And left the valley that night alone.

No sigh was borne from the leafy hill, No murmur came from the lapsing rill; The boughs of the willow in silence wept, And the aspen leaves in that sabbath slept.

The valley dreamed, and the fairy lute Of the whispering reed by the brook was mute.

The slender rush o'er the gla.s.sy rill, As a marble shaft, was erect and still, And no airy sylph on the mirror wave, A dimpling trace of its footstep gave.

The moon shone down, but the shadows deep Of the pensile flowers, were hushed in sleep.

The pulse was still in that vale of bloom, And the Spirit rose from its marshy tomb.

It rose o'er the breast of a silver spring, Where the mist at morn shook its snowy wing, And robed like the dew, when it woos the flowers.

It stole away to their secret bowers.

With a lover's sigh, and a zephyr's breath, It whispered bliss, but its work was death: It kissed the lip of a rose asleep, And left it there on its stem to weep: It froze the drop on a lily's leaf, And the shivering blossom was bowed in grief.

O'er the gentian it breathed, and the withered flower Fell blackened and scathed in its lonely bower; It stooped to the asters all blooming around, And kissed the buds as they slept on the ground.