My ships that sail into the East
Across that outlet blue,
3. Sometimes they seem like living shapes,-
The people of the sky-
Guests in white raiment coming down
From Heaven, which is close by:
I call them by familiar names,
As one by one draws nigh.
So white, so light, so spirit-like,
From violet mists they bloom!
The aching wastes of the unknown
Are half reclaimed from gloom,
Since on life's hospitable sea,
All souls find sailing-room.
4. The ocean grows a weariness
With nothing else in sight;
Its east and west, its north and south,
Spread out from morn to night:
We miss the warm, caressing shore,
Its brooding shade and light.
A part is greater than the whole;
By hints are mysteries told.
The fringes of eternity,—
God's sweeping garment-fold,
In that bright shred of glimmering sea,
I reach out for, and hold.
5. The sails, like flakes of roseate pearl,
Float in upon the mist;
The waves are broken precious stones,-
Sapphire and amethyst
Washed from celestial basement walls,
By suns unsetting kissed.
Out through the utmost gates of space,
Past where the gray stars drift,
To the widening Infinite, my soul
Glides on, a vessel swift;
Yet loses not her anchorage
In yonder azure rift.
6. Here sit I, as a little child :
The threshold of God's door
Is that clear band of chrysoprase;
Now the vast temple floor,
The binding glory of the dome
I bow my head before.
The universe, O God, is home,
In height or depth, to me;
Yet here upon thy footstool green
Content am I to be;
Glad when is opened to my need
Some sea-like glimpse of thee.
PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.
LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five: Hardly a man is now alive.
Who remembers that famous day and
2. He said to his friend,-"If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North-Church tower, as a signal-light,-
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."
3. Then he said Good-night, and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where, swinging wide at her moorings, lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison bar,
And a huge, black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
4. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till, in the silence around him, he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
5. Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,-
Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen, and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
6. Beneath, in the church-yard, lay the dead
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went,
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "all is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead,
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,-
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
7. Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
8. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam, of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.
9. A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the
light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
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