He led me up to a painting,--a sea-piece:--A schooner, riding at her anchor, at sunset, far out at sea, no land in sight, sails down, all but a little patch of storm-sail fluttering wildly in the gale, and heavily pitching in a great, grand, rolling sea; around, but not closely enveloping her, a driving fog-bank, lurid in the yellow sheen of the setting sun; above her, a few stars dimly twinkling through a clear blue sky; on the quarter-deck, men sitting, wrapped in all the paraphernalia of storm-clothing, smoking and watching the roll of the sea. "What do you think?" asked Captain Eastwick, interrupting my rapt contemplation. "I never in my life saw so fine a seaview. Whose can it be?" "A Cape-Cod fisherman's." "But he is a genius!" cried I, enthusiastically. "A great, a splendid genius!" said my friend, quietly. "And a fisherman?" "Yes, and shoemaker." "What a magnificent career he might make! Why don't you help him? What a pity to bury such a man in fish-boots and cod-livers!" "My dear----," said Captain Eastwick, "you are a goose. The highest genius lives above the littleness of making a career. This man needs no Academy prizes or praises. To my mind, his is the noblest, happiest life of all." Whereupon he told me the story which I have endeavored to relate. * * * * * MAGDALENA. I would have killed you, if a breath Freighted with some insensate death, Magdalena, Had power to breathe your life away, To so exhale that rose-hued clay, Magdalena, That it had faded from my sight, Like roses in a single night, Magdalena! I could have killed you thus, and felt My will a blessed doom had dealt, Magdalena! Ah, would to God! then I had been Unconscious of your scarlet sin, Magdalena! Ah, when I thought your soul as white As the white rose you wore that night, Magdalena, I wondered how your mother came To give you that sin-sullied name, Magdalena! Did some remorseless, vengeful Fate, In mockery of your lofty state, Magdalena, Because you wore the branded name, Fling over you its scarlet shame, Magdalena? There is no peace for you below That horrid heritage of woe, Magdalena! There is no room for you on earth, Accursed from your very birth, Magdalena! But where the angels chant and sing, And where the amaranth-blossoms spring, Magdalena, There's room for you, who have no room Where lower angels chant your doom, Magdalena! There's room for you! The gate's ajar! The white hands beckon from afar, Magdalena! And nearer yet! they stoop! they wait! They open wide the jasper gate, Magdalena! And nearer yet! the hands stretch out! A thousand silver trumpets shout, Magdalena! They lift you up through floods of light! I see your garments growing white, Magdalena! And whiter still, too white to touch The robes of us, who blamed you much, Magdalena! They lift you up through floods of light! The streaming splendor blinds my sight, Magdalena!