THE FIRST THREE DAYS AT SEA.
5
the youngest—the little brother at his school—who
in the intensity of his loving, timid nature, could not lift his large violet eyes through their dewy fringes, when I bade him farewell!
Fade, visions, fade! Hence, memories that shake me like a reed. Soul! look abroad upon the mighty ocean, and up to the glorious sky where God reigneth. Trust in Him, and be content.
Three days at Sea! I little thought
'T would be so hard to say
Farewell to home and cherished ones,
And boldly launch away;
For from my childhood I had longed
Through classic climes to rove,
Where yellow Tiber proudly rolls,
Or Sappho sang of love,
Or where o'er Snowden's forehead gushed
The Cambrian harp,—but tears
That round my hearth-stone rained that morn,
Made dim the hope of years.
Three days! As long as he of old,
The recreant prophet, staid
In living casket, strangely sealed
Amid the sea-weed s shade;
He who from crime-stained Nineveh
Withheld the warning cry,
And in a ship of Tarshish dreamed
To scape the all-seeing Eye;