“Lives there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said-- This is my own, my native land; Whose heart has ne’er within him burn’d, As home his footsteps he has turn’d From wandering on a foreign strand. If such there be, go mark him well, For him no minstrels’ raptures swell; Proud though his title, high his name, Boundless his wealth as wish could claim, Despite his power and his pelf, This wretch, concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And doubly dying shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung-- Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.” Reader, have you ever read these lines before? Of course you have; so had I before I went to sea; and then with me, as it must have been with you, they had made my heart beat quicker, and my eye flash with indignation at the recreant who could unmoved return to his native shore. But it is impossible to describe our appreciation of the beautiful text at such a moment as it was now presented to us; and in the exuberance of our spirits we could have hugged the author to our breasts and pronounced him sailor in feeling if not in practice. A change, however, soon came over the spirit of our dreams; the yards were squared, and, consequently, as we brought the wind aft, we were enabled to show more canvas to the favoring gale, and in this outlet we found a vent for our highly wrought feelings: reefs were shaken out, gaskets cast off in a twinkling, and the yards and sails were mastheaded, as if by magic, to the music of the merriest homeward bound song in our category, although our fingers and other extremities were benumbed with the cold. We were in hopes of getting in this night, but still we had our misgivings; as, even should we come into close proximity with Montauk Point, the weather was so boisterous that we had little hopes a pilot would venture out upon such a night. So, feeling that should we be necessitated to remain out another night, we would need rest, our watch went below to seek consolation in Nature’s great restorer--sleep; but in vain, slumber came not to our anxious eyes, although wooed by every means in our power. We rolled our eyes, we counted indefinite units, but all to no purpose; the one idea preoccupied all our thoughts and forbade the intrusion of Morpheus on its domain. At 2 o’clock a light-house was seen, which, at first, was called Montauk light, but the land around it not agreeing with that in the vicinity of Montauk, after some deliberation, it was pronounced Fire Island light. This was a damper on all our spirits and dissipated our air castles, which had been built with the provision of going ashore within twenty-four hours; and long faces and dolorous sighs were the attendants upon this decision. After a few minutes of painful uncertainty, some one, whose memory was more retentive, called to mind the fact of having seen in a newspaper a notice of the erection of a new light between Fire Island and Montauk light.