At Home And Abroad eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 587 pages of information about At Home And Abroad.

At Home And Abroad eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 587 pages of information about At Home And Abroad.

  But the wild ocean rolled before her home;
    And, listening long unto its fearful moan,
  She thought of myriads who had found their rest
    Down in its caverns, silent, deep, and lone. 
  Then rose the prayer within her heart of hearts,
    With the dark phantoms of a coming grief,
  That “Nino, Ossoli, and I may go
    Together;—­that the anguish may be brief.”

  The bark spread out her pennons proud and free,
    The sunbeams frolicked with the wanton waves;
  Smiled through the long, long days the summer sea,
    And sung sweet requiems o’er her sunken graves. 
  E’en then the shadow of the fearful King
    Hung deep and darkening o’er the fated bark;
  Suffering and death and anguish reigned, ere came
    Hope’s weary dove back to the longing ark.

  This was the morning to the night of woe;
    When the grim Ocean, in his fiercest wrath,
  Held fearful contest with the god of storms,
    Who lashed the waves with death upon his path. 
  O night of agony!  O awful morn,
    That oped on such a scene thy sullen eyes! 
  The shattered ship,—­those wrecked and broken hearts,
    Who only prayed, “Together let us die.”

  Was this thy greeting longed for, Margaret,
    In the high, noontide of thy lofty pride? 
  The welcome sighed for, in thine hours of grief,
    When pride had fled and hope in thee had died? 
  Twelve hours’ communion with the Terror-King! 
    No wandering hope to give the heart relief! 
  And yet thy prayer was heard,—­the cold waves wrapt
    Those forms “together,” and the woe was “brief.”

  Thus closed thy day in darkness and in tears;
    Thus waned a life, alas! too full of pain;
  But O thou noble woman! thy brief life,
    Though full of sorrows, was not lived in vain. 
  No more a pilgrim o’er a weary waste,
    With light ineffable thy mind is crowned;
  Heaven’s richest lore is thine own heritage;
    All height is gained, thy “kingdom” now is found.

* * * * *

TO THE MEMORY OF MARGARET FULLER.

BY E. OAKES SMITH.

  We hailed thee, Margaret, from the sea,
    We hailed thee o’er the wave,
  And little thought, in greeting thee,
    Thy home would be a grave.

  We blest thee in thy laurel crown,
    And in the myrtle’s sheen,—­
  Rejoiced thy noble worth to own,
    Still joy, our tears between.

  We hoped that many a happy year
    Would bless thy coming feet;
  And thy bright fame grow brighter here,
    By Fatherland made sweet.

  Gone, gone! with all thy glorious thought,—­
    Gone with thy waking life,—­
  With the green chaplet Fame had wrought,—­
    The joy of Mother, Wife.

  Oh! who shall dare thy harp to take,
    And pour upon the air
  The clear, calm music, that should wake
    The heart to love and prayer!

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At Home And Abroad from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.