And when the hot, long day was o'er,
The young man at the Master's door
Sat with the maiden calm and still.
And within the porch, a little more
Removed beyond the evening chill,
The father sat, and told them tales
Of wrecks in the great September gales,
Of pirates upon the Spanish Main,
And ships that never came back again,
The chance and change of a sailor's life,
Want and plenty, rest and strife,

His roving fancy, like the wind,

That nothing can stay and nothing can bind,
And the magic charm of foreign lands,
With shadows of palms, and shining sands,
Where the tumbling surf,

O'er the coral reefs of Madagascar,
Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar,
As he lies alone and asleep on the turf.
And the trembling maiden held her breath
At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea,
With all its terror and mystery,

The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death,

That divides and yet unites mankind!
And whenever the old man paused, a gleam

From the bowl of his pipe would awhile illume
The silent group in the twilight gloom,
And thoughtful faces, as in a dream;
And for a moment one might mark
What had been hidden by the dark,
That the head of the maiden lay at rest,
Tenderly, on the young man's breast!

Day by day the vessel grew,

With timbers fashioned strong and true,
Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee,
Till, framed with perfect symmetry,
A skeleton ship rose up to view!
And around the bows and along the side

The heavy hammers and mallets plied,
Till, after many a week, at length,
Wonderful for form and strength,
Sublime in its enormous bulk,

Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk!

And around it columns of smoke, upwreathing,

Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething
Caldron, that glowed,

And overflowed

With the black tar, heated for the sheathing.
And amid the clamors

Of clattering hammers,

He who listened heard now and then
The song of the Master and his men:

"Build me straight, O worthy Master,
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel,
That shall laugh at all disaster,

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle!"

With oaken brace and copper band,
Lay the rudder on the sand,

That, like a thought, should have control
Over the movement of the whole;

And near it the anchor, whose giant hand

Would reach down and grapple with the land,
And immovable and fast

Hold the great ship against the bellowing blast!
And at the bows an image stood,

By a cunning artist carved in wood,
With robes of white, that far behind
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind.
It was not shaped in a classic mold,
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old,

Or Naiad rising from the water,

But modeled from the Master's daughter!

On many a dreary and misty night,

"Twill be seen by the rays of the signal light,
Speeding along through the rain and the dark,
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark,
The pilot of some phantom bark,
Guiding the vessel, in its flight,

By a path none other knows aright!

Behold, at last,

Each tall and tapering mast

Is swung into its place;

Shrouds and stays

Holding it firm and fast!

Long ago,

In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain

Lay the snow,

Would remind them forevermore

Of their native forests they should not see again.

And everywhere

The slender, graceful spars

Poise aloft in the air,

And at the mast head,

White, blue, and red,

A flag unrolls the stripes and stars.

Ah! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless,

In foreign harbors shall behold

That flag unrolled,

'Twill be as a friendly hand

Stretched out from his native land,

Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless!

All is finished! and at length

Has come the bridal day

Of beauty and of strength.

To-day the vessel shall be launched!

With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,
And o'er the bay,

Slowly, in all his splendors dight,

The great sun rises to behold the sight.

He waits impatient for his bride.
There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands,

Decked with flags and streamers gay,
In honor of her marriage day,

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,

The joyous bridegroom bows his head.
And in tears the good old Master
Shakes the brown hand of his son,
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek
In silence, for he cannot speak,
And ever faster

Down his own the tears begin to run.
The worthy pastor-

The shepherd of that wandering flock,
That has the ocean for its wold,
That has the vessel for its fold,
Leaping ever from rock to rock-
Spake, with accents mild and clear,
Words of warning, words of cheer,
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear.
He knew the chart

Of the sailor's heart,

All its pleasures and its griefs,

All its shallows and rocky reefs,

All those secret currents, that flow

With such resistless undertow,

And lift and drift, with terrible force,

The will from its moorings and its course. Therefore he spake, and thus said he :

"Like unto ships far off at sea, Outward or homeward bound, are we. Before, behind, and all around,

Floats and swings the horizon's bound,
Seems at its distant rim to rise

And climb the crystal wall of the skies,
And then again to turn and sink,

As if we could slide from its outer brink.
Ah! it is not the sea,

It is not the sea that sinks and shelves,
But ourselves

That rock and rise

With endless and uneasy motion,
Now touching the very skies,

Now sinking into the depths of ocean.
Ah! if our souls but poise and swing
Like the compass in its brazen ring,
Ever level and ever true

To the toil and the task we have to do,
We shall sail securely, and safely reach
The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining beach
The sights we see, and the sounds we hear,
Will be those of joy and not of fear!"

Then the Master,

With a gesture of command,

Waved his hand;

And at the word,

Loud and sudden there was heard,

All around them and below,

The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs !

She starts, she moves, · she seems to feel

The thrill of life along her keel,

And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,

She leaps into the ocean's arms!