LESSON 142. THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. OME, see the “Dolphin's" anchor forged; 't is at a white COME, heat now; The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound; And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round, All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare; Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there. 2. The windlass strains the tackle-chains, the black mound heaves below, And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe; It rises, roars, rends all outright -O Vulcan, what a glow! 'Tis blinding white, 't is blasting bright; the high sun shines not so; The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery, fearful show; The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy, lurid row Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe, As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow Sinks on the anvil-all about the faces fiery grow "Hurrah!" they shout; "leap out!-leap out!" bang, bang, the sledges go. 3. Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load! Let's forge a goodly anchor, a bower, thick and broad; board; The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains; But courage still, brave mariners, the bower yet remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high, Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing here am I!" 4. Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time; Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime; But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be, The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we. Strike in, strike in; the sparks begin to dull their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped; Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array, For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen. here For the yeo-heave-o, and the heave away, and the sighing seaman's cheer. 5. In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last, cast. A trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deepgreen sea! 6. O deep-sea diver, who might then behold such sights as thou? The hoary monster's palaces! methinks what joy 't were now To go plump, plunging down amid the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails! Then deep in tangle woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; To leave the subtle sworder-fish, of bony blade forlorn, And for the ghastly grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn. 7. O broad-armed fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine? The "Dolphin" weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable line; And night by night 't is thy delight, thy glory day by day, Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play; But, shamer of our little sports, forgive the name I gave; A fisher's joy is to destroy-thine office is to save. 8. O lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst thou but under stand Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that drip ping band, Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend, With sounds like breakers in a dream, blessing their ancient friend; O, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee, Thine iron side would swell with pride, thou'dst leap within the sea! 9. Give honor to their memories, who left the pleasant strand To shed their blood so freely for the love of Father land Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy church yard grave So freely for a restless bed amid the tossing wave: O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, LESSON 143. THE CLOUDS. T is a strange thing how little, in general, people know IT about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. 2. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered if, once in three days or thereabouts, a great, ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with, perhaps, a film of morning and evening mist for dew. 3. And, instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives when nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain that it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. 4. The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them; he injures them by his presence; he ceases to feel them if he be always with them. But the sky is for all; bright as it is, it is not too bright nor good for human nature's daily food; ' it is fitted, in all its functions, for the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart; for soothing it, and purifying it from its dross and dust. 5. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful; never the same for two moments together; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us is as distinct as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential. 6. And yet we never attend to it; we never make it a subject of thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations; we look upon all by which it speaks to us |