Intervene, as a cloud between us and his glory,
And shield from His lightnings the shuddering soul.
As mild as the moonbeam in autumn descending
That lightning, extinguished by mercy, shall fall,
While he hears with the wail of a penitent blending
Thy prayer, Holy Daughter of Vincent de Paul.

HENRICH HUDSON.

BY T. D. M'GEE.

[The narrative of the following stanzas is contained more briefly in two pages of Bancroft's History of the " Colonization of America," vol. ii. The main facts-the open boat, the seven sick seamen, and the fidelity of one of the crew named Phillip Staaffe, are literally as stated in the Poem.]

THE slayer Death is everywhere and many a mask hath he,
Many and awful are the shapes in which he rules the sea;
Sometimes within a rocky aisle he lights his candle dim,
And sits half-sheeted in the foam, chaunting a funeral hymn;
Full often 'mid the roar of winds we hear his awful cry
Guiding the lightning to its prey through the beclouded sky;
Sometimes he hides 'neath tropic waves, and as the ship sails o'er
He holds her fast to the fiery sun, till the crew can breathe no

more.

There is no land so far away but he meeteth mankind there—
He liveth at the icy pole with the Berg and the shaggy Bear,
He smileth from the Southron capes like a May-Queen in her
flowers,

He falleth o'er the Indian seas, dissolved in summer showers;
But of all the sea-shapes he hath worn, may mariners never know
Such fate as Henrich Hudson found, in the labyrinths of snow-
The North Seas' great Columbus, whose bones lie far, interred
Under those frigid waters where no song was ever heard.

'Twas when he sail'd from Amsterdam, in the adventurous quest Of an ice-shored strait, thro' which to reach the far and fabled

West;

His dastard crew- their thin blood chilled beneath the arctic skyCombined against him in the night, his hands and feet they tie,

And bind him in a helmless boat on that dread sea to sail-
Ah, me! an oarless shadowy skiff, as a schoolboy's vessel frail.
Seven sick men and his only son, his comrades were to be,
But ere they left the Crescent's side, the chief spoke dauntlessly:-

'Ho, Mutineers! I ask no act of kindness at your hands—
My fate I feel must steer me now to Death's ever-silent lands;
But there is one man in my ship who sailed with me of yore
By many a bay and headland of the New-World's eastern shore:
From India's heats to Greenland's snows he dared to follow me,
And is HE turned the traitor too, is he in league with ye?'
Uprose a voice from the mutineers, Not I, my chief, not I-
I'll take my old place by your side tho' all be sure to die.'

Before his chief could bid him back, he is standing at his side :-
The cable's cut-away they drift, over the midnight tide.
No word from any lip came forth, their strain'd eyes steadily glare
At the vacant gloom, where late the ship had left them to despair.
On the dark waters long was seen a line of foamy light-

It passed, like the hem of an angel's robe, away from their eager sight.

Then each man grasped his fellow's hand, some sighed but nothing speak,

While on thro' pallid gloom their boat drifts moaningly and weak.

Seven sick men, dying, in a skiff five hundred leagues from shore! Oh! never was such a crew afloat on this world's waves before; Seven stricken forms, seven sinking hearts of seven short-breathing men,

Drifting over the Sharks' abodes, close to the fierce Bear's den. Oh! 'twas not there they could be nurs'd in homeliness and ease, One short day heard seven bodies sink, whose souls God rest in peace!

The one who first expir'd had most to note the foam he made, And no one prayed to be the last, tho' each the blow delay'd.

Three still remain. My son, my son, hold up your head, my son,
Alas! alas! my constant friend, I fear his life is gone.'

So spoke the trembling father-two cold hands in his breast
Breathing upon his dead boy's face, all too soft to break his rest.
The roar of battle could not wake that sleeper from his sleep:
The trusty sailor softly lets him down to the yawning deep;
The fated father hid his face whilst this was being done,
Still murmuring mournfully and low my son, my only son.'

Another night; uncheerily beneath that heartless sky,
The iceberg sheds its livid light upon them passing by,
And each beholds the other's face all spectre-like and wan,
And even in that dread solitude man feared the face of man!
Afar they hear the beating surge echo from the banks of frost,
Many a hoar cape round about looms like a giant ghost,
And fast or slow as they float on, they hear the Bears on shore,
Trooping down to the icy strand watching them evermore.

The morning dawns, unto their eyes the light hath lost its cheer, Nor distant sail, nor drifting spar, within their ken appear. Embayed in ice the coffin-like boat sleeps on the waveless tide, Where rays of deathly cold, cold light converge from every side. Slow crept the blood into their hearts, each manly pulse stood still,

Huge haggard Bears kept watch above on every dazzling hill. Anon the doomed men were entranced, by the potent frigid air, And they dream, as drowning men have dreamt, of fields far off and fair.

What phantoms filled each cheated brain, no mortal ever knew: What ancient storms they weather'd o'er, what worlds explor'd

anew:

What great designs for future days—what home-hope, or what

fear

There was no one 'mid the ice-lands to chronicle or hear.

So still they sat, the weird-faced Seals bethought them they were dead,

And each raised from the waters up his cautious wizard head, Then circled round th' arrested boat, like vampires round a grave, Till frighted—at their own resolve they plunged beneath the wave.

Evening closed round the moveless boat, still sat entranc'd the twain,

When lo! the ice unlocks its arms, the tide pours in amain!
Away upon the streaming brine the feeble skiff is borne,
The shaggy monsters howl behind their farewells all forlorn.
The crashing ice, the current's roar, broke Hudson's fairy spell,
But never more shall this world wake his comrade tried so well!
His brave heart's blood is chill'd for aye, yet shall its truth be told,
When the memories of kings are worn from marble and from gold.

Onward, onward, the helpless chief--the dead man for his mate!
The Shark far down in ocean's depth feels the passing of that freight

And bounding from his dread abyss, he snuffs the upper air,
Then follows on the path it took, like a lion from his lair.
Oh! God, it was a fearful voyage and fearful companie,
Nor wonder that the stout sea-chief quivered from brow to knee.
Oh! who would blame his manly heart, if e'en it quaked for fear,
While whirled along on such a sea, with such attendant near!

The Shark hath found a readier prey, and turn'd him from the chase;

The boat hath made another bay-a drearier pausing place,-
O'er arching piles of blue-veined ice admitted to its still,

White, fathomless waters, palsied like the doom'd man's fetter'd will.

Powerless he sat—that chief escaped so oft by sea and land—
Death breathing o'er him-all so weak he could not lift a hand.
Even his bloodless lips refused a last short prayer to speak,
But angels listened at the heart when the voice of man is weak.

His heart and eye were suppliant turned to the ocean's Lord on high,

The Borealis lustres were gathering in the sky;

From South and North, from East and West, they clustered o'er the spot

Where breathed his last gallant chief whose grave man seeth not; They marked him die with steadfast gaze, as tho' in heaven there

were

A passion to behold how he the fearful fate would bear;

They watched him through the livelong night-these couriers of the sky,

Then fled to tell the listening stars how 'twas they saw him die.

He sleepeth where old winter's realm no genial air invades,
His spirit burneth bright in heaven among the glorious shades
Whose God-like doom, on earth it was creation to unfold,
Spanning this mighty orb of ours as through the sphere it rolled.
His name is written on the deep*—the rivers † as they run
Will bear it timeward o'er the world, telling what he hath done;
The story of his voyage to Death, amid the arctic frosts,
Will be told by mourning Mariners on earth's most distant coasts.

* Hudson's Bay.

The River Hudson,

THE HUSBANDMAN.

BY JOHN STERLING.

EARTH, of man the bounteous mother, Feeds him still with corn and wine; He who best would aid a brother, Shares with him these gifts divine. Many a power within her bosom

Noiseless, hidden, works beneath; Hence are seed and leaf and blossom, Golden ear and clustered wreath.

These to swell with strength and beauty,
Is the royal task of man;
Man's a king, his throne is Duty,
Since his work on earth began.
Bud and harvest, bloom and vintage,
These like man, are fruits of earth;
Stamped in clay, a heavenly mintage,
All from dust receive their birth.

Barn and mill and wine-vat's treasures,
Earthly goods for earthly lives,
These are Nature's ancient pleasures,
These her child from her derives.
What the dream, but vain rebelling,
If from earth we sought to flee?
"Tis our stored and ample dwelling,
"Tis from it the skies we see.

Wind and frost, and hour and season,
Land and water, sun and shade,
Work with these as bids thy reason,
For they work thy toil to aid.
Sow thy seed and reap in gladness!
Man himself is all a seed;
Hope and hardship, joy and sadness
Slow the plant to ripeness lead.