The Stranded Ship

My spirit dreams of a peaceful bay
Where once a ship in beauty lay ;
Floating between the waves and air,
Each glad to claim a thing so fair.
Her white wings to the sunshine gleaming
In anchored rest — bright ensigns streaming,
As if they wished away to fly
From the proud ship which they glorify.
— Alas ! her wings no more expanded,
High on the beach the ship is stranded,
And, reft of motion, never more
Must walk above the ocean-roar \
Yet the creatures of the deep, too blest
Within their sunless caves to rest,
In the genial warmth of upper day
Are rolling in unwieldy play,
Or shooting upwards through the light
With arrowy motion silvery bright,
The silent summer air employ
For their region of capricious joy !

While fairy shells in myriads lying,
The smooth hard sand in lustre dyeing,
Encircle with a far-seen chain
Of glory, the most glorious main !

Glad shines the sun upon the wreck,
Warming her cold and lifeless deck ;
While through her shrouds with songs of love
Birds glance like harmless lightning,
And majestic hangs the palm-tree grove
Her short and shattered mast above,
Whose ensigns, meteor-like, did move,
The dark green forest brightening.

Who thinks upon her gallant crew ?

Oh ! far, far down in the coral caves
O'er a hundred heads the sea-flower waves !

Her captain's heart hath long been cold
In the silent night of her watery hold !

And a ghastly troop o'er the dim mainland ,
Where Hope ne'er waved her golden wand,
To certain death have gone !

They died ! — but when, or how, or where,
Save that in famine and despair,
By man shall ne'er be known !