No More Learning

We sail and sail: we see no home.
Would that we into port were come!
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

At night, the same stars o'er the mast:
The mast sways round--however fast
We fly--still sways and swings around
One scanty circle's starry bound.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

Ah, many a month those stars have shone,
And many a golden morn has flown,
Since that so solemn, happy morn,
When, I away, my babe was born.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

And, though so near we're drawing, now,
'T is farther off--I know not how:--
I would not aught amiss had come
To babe or mother there, at home!
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

'T is but a seeming: swiftly rush
The seas, beneath. I hear the crush
Of foamy ridges 'gainst the prow.
Longing outspeeds the breeze, I know.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

Patience, my mates! Though not this eve
We cast our anchor, yet believe,
If but the wind holds, short the run:
We'll sail in with to-morrow's sun.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
Fair winds, boys: send her home!
O ye ho!






FIRST GLANCE


A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; and laughing hair,--
So ruddy was its rise
From off that forehead fair;

Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;
A bright, elastic tread;
Enthusiastic will;

These wrought the magic of a maid
As sweet and sad as the sun in spring;--
Joyous, yet half-afraid
Her joyousness to sing.






BRIDE BROOK


Wide as the sky Time spreads his hand,
And blindly over us there blows
A swarm of years that fill the land,
Then fade, and are as fallen snows.

Behold, the flakes rush thick and fast;
Or are they years, that come between,--
When, peering back into the past,
I search the legendary scene?

Nay. Marshaled down the open coast,
Fearless of that low rampart's frown,
The winter's white-winged, footless host
Beleaguers ancient Saybrook town.

And when the settlers wake they stare
On woods half-buried, white and green,
A smothered world, an empty air:
Never had such deep drifts been seen!

But "Snow lies light upon my heart!