University of Virginia Library

A DAUGHTER OF THE SEA-KINGS.

They were the pride and the darlings of Ocean,
Rocked on her breast by a hundred storms;
Tossed up with joyfullest Motherly motion;
Caught to her heart again—clasped in her arms.
No Slaves of the Earth but Sea-kings, the rough Rovers
Took wings of the wind and flew over the foam.
Yet, the old True-hearts, like faithfullest lovers,
Came back with the fruitfuller feeling of Home.
Kings were they of the royallest blood
That was blue with the hue of the salt Sea-flood.
Come! stir the Norse fire in us mightily!
Come, conquering hearts as they the heaving sea.
Come, wed the people with their Prince, and bless
Them from your neighbouring heaven of nobleness.
There's nothing like a Beauty of the Blood
To set the fashion of a loftier good!
There's nothing like a true and womanly Wife
To help a man, and make melodious life.
For, she can hold his heartstrings in her hand,
And play the tune her pleasure may command,
And cause his climbing soul to grow in stature,
Trying to reach the heights of her diviner nature.
Come in your beauty of promise;
Come in your Maiden glee;
Let your sunshine scatter from us
The shadow of Misery.
Hearts in the dark have been aching,
But now the clouds are breaking.
Come as come the swallows
Over the brightening sea,
And we know that Summer follows
With the sunny days to be.
Come and give us your glad good-morrow,
The Joy-bells shall ring,
And the merry birds sing;
Dumbly drooping, the Bird of Sorrow
Shall hide his old head under his wing.
This world is but a newer paradise,
To that glad spirit looking through the eyes
Of Love, that sees all bright things dancing toward
It, gaily coming of their own accord.
For 'tis as though the lightsome heart should climb
Up in the head, to look from heights sublime
And sing, and swing as it would never drop—
The merry reveller in the tall tree-top!
Where Life is with such lofty gladness crowned,
And all the Pleasures dance in starry circle round.
But may this love be true as Hers who sees
Ye, like a smiling future at her knees:
The Wife who held God's gifts the richest wealth;
Our Queen of Home who sweetened England's health;
The Widow in whose face we looked to see
That great black cloud of our calamity
On the side nearest heaven, and marked her rise
In stature, calm to meet her sacrifice:
As one with faith to feel Death's darkness brings
Almighty Love on overshadowing wings.
True love is no mere incense that will swim
Up from the heart a lover's eyes to dim,
But, such a light as gives the jewel-spark
To meanest things it looks on in their dark,—
A spring of heaven welling warm to bless
And sanctify each grain of earthiness.
True love will make true life, and glorify
Ye very proudly in the nation's eye.
Ah, Prince, a-many hopes up-fold the wing
Within the Marriage-nest to which ye bring
Your Bride, the life ye live there will be rolled
Through endless echoes, mirrored manifold.
We charge you, when you look on your young Wife,
And watch the ascending brightness of new life
In the sweet eyes that double the sweet soul,
That ye forget not others' dearth and dole.
Just now, the North wind wails
As though the Cold were crying
Over the hills and over the dales,
And sinking hearts know well what ails
The sound of the wintry sighing:
It bears the moan of the dying;
Dying down in the starving Shires,
Without food, and without fires.
The bitter nights are cruel cold,
One cannot help but wake, and think
Of the poor milch-lambs of the human fold
That have no milk to drink.
Like some proud River, stretching forth before ye
Through all the land, your widening way doth lie,
Brimming and blessing as it rolls in glory,
Broadening and brightening till it reach the sky.
A splendid Vision! the green corn looks gay;
The Bird of Happiness sings overhead:
And may the Autumn uplands far away
Rise with the Harvest ripe in Evening's red;
Your crescent Honey-Moon laugh out above
The gathered Sheaves it gilds, at full with love.