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,
With bands of white and rosy light,
And field of starry blue?

- Ay ! look aloft ! its folds full oft
Have braved the roaring blast,
And still shall fly when from the sky
This black typhoon has past!

Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark!
May I thy peril share ?

- O landsman, there are fearful seas
The brave alone may dare!
-Nay, ruler of the rebel deep,
What matters wind or wave?
The rocks that wreck your reeling deck
Will leave me naught to save!

O landsman, art thou false or true?
What sign hast thou to show?

- The crimson stains from loyal veins That hold my heart-blood's flow!

ΤΟ

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Enough! what more shall honor claim? I know the sacred sign;

Above thy head our flag shall spread,
Our ocean path be thine!

The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape
Lies low along her lee,

Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes
To lock the shore and sea.

No treason here! it cost too dear

To win this barren realm!

And true and free the hands must be
That hold the whaler's helm !

Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay No rebel cruiser scars;

1 Written for a reunion of the class of '29.

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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!

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