VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION 1 1862 "T IS midnight: through my troubled dream Loud wails the tempest's cry; Before the gale, with tattered sail, A ship goes plunging by. What name? Where bound? - The rocks around Repeat the loud halloo. -The good ship Union, Southward bound: God help her and her crew! And is the old flag flying still That o'er your fathers flew, - Ay ! look aloft ! its folds full oft Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark! - O landsman, there are fearful seas O landsman, art thou false or true? - The crimson stains from loyal veins That hold my heart-blood's flow! ΤΟ 20 Enough! what more shall honor claim? I know the sacred sign; Above thy head our flag shall spread, The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes No treason here! it cost too dear To win this barren realm! And true and free the hands must be Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay No rebel cruiser scars; 1 Written for a reunion of the class of '29. 30 40 Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled, Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed. Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this, Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss; The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will, Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still. The bird wanders careless while summer is green, The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen; 30 When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed, The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest. Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling Is the light of our year, is the gem of its ring, So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget The rays it has lost, and its border of jet. While round us the many-hued halo is shed, How dear are the living, how near are the dead! One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below, Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow! 40 |