No echo in a maiden's quiet soul, But her pure bosom heaves, her eyes fill fast With tears, her sweet lips tremble all the while! Ha, ha! _Fest._ It seems, then, you expect to reap No unreal joy from this your present course, But rather . . . _Par._ Death! To die! I owe that much To what, at least, I was. I should be sad To live contented after such a fall, To thrive and fatten after such reverse! The whole plan is a makeshift, but will last My time. _Fest._ And you have never mused and said, "I had a noble purpose, and the strength To compass it; but I have stopped half-way, And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil To objects little worthy of the gift. Why linger round them still? why clench my fault? Why seek for consolation in defeat, In vain endeavors to derive a beauty From ugliness? why seek to make the most Of what no power can change, nor strive instead With mighty effort to redeem the past And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down, To hold a steadfast course till I arrive At their fit destination and my own?" You have never pondered thus? _Par._ Have I, you ask? Often at midnight, when most fancies come, Would some such airy project visit me: But ever at the end ... or will you hear The same thing in a tale, a parable? You and I, wandering over the world wide, Chance to set foot upon a desert coast. Just as we cry, "No human voice before Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks!" --Their querulous echo startles us; we turn: What ravaged structure still looks o'er the sea? Some characters remain, too! While we read, The sharp salt wind, impatient for the last Of even this record, wistfully comes and goes, Or sings what we recover, mocking it. This is the record; and my voice, the wind's. [_He sings._ Over the sea our galleys went, With cleaving prows in order brave To a speeding wind and a bounding wave A gallant armament: Each bark built out of a forest-tree Left leafy and rough as first it grew, And nailed all over the gaping sides, Within and without, with black bull-hides, Seethed in fat and suppled in flame, To bear the playful billows' game: So, each good ship was rude to see, Rude and bare to the outward view, But each upbore a stately tent Where cedar pales in scented row Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine, And an awning drooped the mast below, In fold on fold of the purple fine, That neither noontide nor starshine Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, Might pierce the regal tenement. When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad We set the sail and plied the oar; But when the night-wind blew like breath,