THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP

ALL is finished! and at length

Has come the bridal day

Of beauty and of strength.

Today the vessel shall be launched!

With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,
And o'er the bay,

Slowly, in all its splendor dight,

The great sun rises to behold the sight.

On the deck another bride

Is standing by her lover's side.
Shadows from the flags and shrouds,
Like the shadows cast by clouds,
Broken by many a sunny fleck,

Fall around them on the deck.

Then the Master,

With a gesture of command,

Waved his hand;

And at the word,

Loud and sudden there was heard,

All around them and below,

The sound of hammers, blow on blow,

Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs!

THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP 201

She starts, she moves, she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,

And spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!

Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave, and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!

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THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP

In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,

Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee, are all with thee!

LONGFELLOW.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,—

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread its lustrous coil;

Still as the spiral grew,

l'e left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step his shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last found home, and knew the old no

more.

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THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreath'd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.