"Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain And Asian mountains borne, The vigor of the Northern brain Shall nerve the world outworn. "From clime to clime, from shore to shore, Shall thrill the magic thread; The new Prometheus steals once more The fire that wakes the dead." Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat From answering beach to beach; Fuse nations in thy kindly heat, And melt the chains of each! Wild terror of the sky above, Glide tamed and dumb below! Bear gently, Ocean's carrier-dove, Thy errands to and fro. Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, Beneath the deep so far, The bridal robe of earth's accord, The funeral shroud of war! For lo! the fall of Ocean's wall Space mocked and time outrun; And round the world the thought of all Is as the thought of one! The poles unite, the zones agree, The tongues of striving cease; As on the Sea of Galilee The Christ is whispering, Peace! 1858. . . . . . "Glad prophecy! to this at last," The Reader said, "shall all things come. Forgotten be the bugle's blast, And battle-music of the drum. "A little while the world may run Its old mad way, with needle-gun And iron-clad, but truth, at last, shall reign The cradle-song of Christ was never sung in vain!" Shifting his scattered papers, "Here," He said, as died the faint applause, "Is something that I found last year Down on the island known as Orr's. I had it from a fair-haired girl Who, oddly, bore the name of Pearl, (As if by some droll freak of circumstance,) Classic, or wellnigh so, in Harriet Stowe's romance." THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL. What flecks the outer gray beyond The sundown's golden trail? The white flash of a sea-bird's wing, Or gleam of slanting sail? Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point, And sea-worn elders pray,-- The ghost of what was once a ship Is sailing up the bay. From gray sea-fog, from icy drift, From peril and from pain, The home-bound fisher greets thy lights, O hundred-harbored Maine! But many a keel shall seaward turn, And many a sail outstand, When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms Against the dusk of land. She rounds the headland's bristling pines; She threads the isle-set bay; No spur of breeze can speed her on, Nor ebb of tide delay. Old men still walk the Isle of Orr Who tell her date and name, Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards Who hewed her oaken frame. What weary doom of baffled quest, Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine? What makes thee in the haunts of home A wonder and a sign? No foot is on thy silent deck, Upon thy helm no hand; No ripple hath the soundless wind That smites thee from the land! For never comes the ship to port, Howe'er the breeze may be; Just when she nears the waiting shore She drifts again to sea. No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, Nor sheer of veering side; Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, Against the wind and tide.