THE LOSS OF THE ATALANTA, FROM THE ENGLISH PRIZE POEM FOR 1881. Calm, aye! calm as some fair water bosom'd in a mountain nest, Save where o'er the vast of waters, like some Alpine summit tall, Homeward bound!-Three hundred voices sped the word from mouth to mouth: Homeward bound!-Yet still the breezes linger'd in the sultry South. Slowly, sleepily and slowly, o'er the weary-stretching waste: Heaven and air and ocean mock'd them, creeping there in helpless haste. Why this heavy languor lying sullen o'er the silent main? Why, O why this ghostly glamour, threaten'd, fought, defied in vain ? Still the lifeless vast around them, still the heartless sky above! O for some kind breeze to waft them, lift them to the land they love! Onward, onward!-they are waiting, waiting on the distant shore: Onward! lest those sad hearts longing deem you lost for ever more. Thousand tearful eyes are gazing o'er the cold unpitying deep; Thousand minds are brooding nightly o'er a care that cannot sleep; Mothers' hearts are surely breaking 'neath a more than mortal pain; Many an age-worn sire is drooping, ne'er to see his boy again. Gone! gone for ever! sad the moan: Of life and fame and fortune shorn, To blazon forth the death they died; Though that young blood, with all its might, Think not 'twas vain, that life of theirs :- Is brighter than the tallest tree; The poorest gem the ocean bears EDWARD KIRBY. |