University of Virginia Library

SHELLS AND SEAWEEDS.

RECORDS OF A SUMMER VOYAGE TO CUBA.

I.
THE DEPARTURE.

Again thy winds are pealing in mine ear;
Again thy waves are flashing in my sight;
Thy memory-haunting tones again I hear,
As through the spray our vessel wings her flight.
On thy cerulean breast, now swelling high,
Again, thou broad Atlantic, am I cast.
Six years, with gathering speed, have glided by,
Since, an adventurous boy, I hailed thee last.
The sea-birds o'er me wheel, as if to greet
An old companion; on my naked brow
The sparkling foam-drops not unkindly beat;
Flows thro' my hair the freshening breeze: and now
The horizon's ring enclasps me; and I stand
Gazing where fades from view, cloud-like, my fatherland.

II.
THE AWAKENING.

How changed the scene! Our parting gaze, last night,
Was on the three-hilled city's swelling dome,—
The dome o'erlooking from its stately height
Full many a sacred spire and happy home.
Rose over all, clouding the azure air,
A canopy of smoke, swart Labor's sign;
While like a forest Winter has stripped bare,
Bristled the masts along the water's line.
But now the unbroken ocean and the sky
Seem to enclose us in a crystal sphere;
A new creation fills the straining eye;
No bark save ours—no human trace is here!
But, in the brightening east, a crimson haze
Floats up before the sun, his incense fresh of praise.

III.
THE GALE.

The night came robed in terror. Through the air
Mountains of clouds, with lurid summits, rolled,—
The lightning kindling with its vivid glare
Their outlines, as they rose heaped fold on fold.
The wind, in fitful soughs, swept o'er the sea;
And then a sudden lull, serene as sleep,
Soft as an infant's breathing, seemed to be
Cast, like enchantment, on the throbbing deep.
But false the calm! for soon the strengthened gale
Burst in one loud explosion, far and wide,
Drowning the thunder's voice! With every sail
Close-reefed, our groaning ship heeled on her side;
The torn waves combed the deck; while, o'er the mast,
The meteors of the storm a ghastly radiance cast.

IV.
MORNING AFTER THE GALE.

Bravely our trim ship rode the tempest through;
And when the exhausted gale had ceased to rave,
How broke the day-star on the gazer's view!
How flushed the orient every crested wave!
The sun threw down his shield of golden light
In proud defiance on the ocean's bed;
Whereat the clouds betook themselves to flight,
Like routed hosts, with banners soiled and red.
The sky was soon all brilliance, east and west;
All traces of the gale had passed away;
The chiming billows, by the breeze caressed,
Shook lightly from their heads the feathery spray.
Ah! thus may Hope's auspicious star relume
The sorrow-clouded soul, and end its hour of gloom!

V.
TO A LAND BIRD.

Thou wanderer from green fields and leafy nooks!
Where blooms the flower and toils the honey-bee,—
Where odorous blossoms drift along the brooks,
And woods and hills are very fair to see,—
Why hast thou left thy native bough to roam,
With drooping wing, far o'er the briny billow?
Thou canst not, like the ospray, cleave the foam,
Nor like the petrel make the wave thy pillow.
Thou'rt like those fine-toned spirits, gentle bird,
Which from some better land to this rude life
Seem borne. They struggle, 'mid the common herd,
With powers unfitted for the selfish strife:
Haply, at length, some zephyr wafts them back
To their own home of peace, across the world's dull track.

VI.
A THOUGHT OF THE PAST.

I waked from slumber at the dead of night,
Moved by a dream too heavenly fair to last—
A dream of boyhood's season of delight;
It flashed along the dim shapes of the past;
And, as I mused upon its strange appeal,
Thrilling me with emotions undefined,
Old memories, bursting from Time's icy seal,
Rushed, like sun-stricken fountains, on my mind.
Scenes where my lot was cast in life's young day;
My favorite haunts, the shores, the ancient woods,
Where, with my schoolmates, I was wont to stray;
Green, sloping lawns, majestic solitudes—
All rose to view, more beautiful than then;—
They faded, and I wept—a child indeed again!

VII.
TROPICAL WEATHER.

Now we're afloat upon the tropic sea:
Here Summer holdeth a perpetual reign.
How flash the waters in their bounding glee!
The sky's soft purple is without a stain.
Full in our wake the smooth, warm trade-winds, blowing,
To their unvarying goal still faithful run;
And, as we steer, with sails before them flowing,
Nearer the zenith daily climbs the sun.
The startled flying-fish around us skim,
Glossed like the humming-bird, with rainbow dyes;
And, as they dip into the water's brim,
Swift in pursuit the preying dolphin hies.
All, all is fair; and gazing round, we feel
Over the yielding sense the torrid languor steal.

VIII.
A CALM.

O for one draught of cooling northern air!
That it might pour its freshness on me now;
That it might kiss my cheek and cleave my hair,
And part its currents round my fevered brow!
Ocean, and sky, and earth—a blistering calm
Spread over all! How weary wears the day!
O, lift the wave, and bend the distant palm,
Breeze! wheresoe'er thy lagging pinions stay!
Triumphant burst upon the level deep,
Rock the fixed hull and stretch the clinging sail!
Arouse the opal clouds that o'er us sleep!
Sound thy shrill whistle! we will bid thee hail!
Though wrapped in all the storm-clouds of the North,
Yet, from thy home of ice, come forth, O breeze, come forth!

IX.
A WISH.

That I were in some forest's green retreat!
Beneath a towering arch of proud old elms;
Where a clear streamlet gurgled at my feet—
Its wavelets glittering in their tiny helms!
Thick clustering vines in many a rich festoon
From the high, rustling branches should depend;
Weaving a net, through which the sultry Noon
Might stoop in vain its fiery beams to send.
There, prostrate on some rock's gray sloping side,
Upon whose tinted moss the dew yet lay,
Would I catch glimpses of the clouds that ride,
Athwart the sky—and dream the hours away;
While through the alleys of the sunless wood
The fanning breeze might steal, with wild-flowers' breath imbued.

X.
TROPICAL NIGHT.

But O! the night—the cool, luxurious night,
Which closes round us when the day grows dim,
And the sun sinks from his meridian height
Behind the ocean's occidental rim!
Clouds in thin streaks of purple, green and red,
Lattice his dying glory, and absorb—
Hung o'er his couch—the rallying lustre shed,
Like love's last tender glances, from his orb.
And now the moon, her lids unclosing, deigns
To smile serenely on the charméd sea,
That shines as if inlaid with lightning-chains,
From which it faintly struggled to be free.
Swan-like, with motion unperceived, we glide,
Touched by the downy breeze, and favored by the tide.

XI.
THE PLANET JUPITER.

Ever at night have I looked up for thee,
O'er thy sidereal sisterhood supreme!
Ever at night have scanned the purple sea
For the reflection of thy quivering beam!
When the white cloud thy diamond radiance screened,
And the Bahama breeze began to wail,
How on the plunging bows for hours I've leaned,
And watched the gradual lifting of thy veil!
Bright planet! lustrous effluence! thou ray
From the Eternal Source of life and light!
Gleam on the track where Truth shall lead the way,
And gild the inward as the outward night!
Shine but as now upon my dying eyes,
And Hope, from earth to thee, from thee to Heaven, shall rise!

XII.
TO EGERIA.

The flying wave reflects thy angel face,
But soon the liquid mirror breaks in foam;
The severing cloud reveals thy form of grace,
And then thou'rt standing in thy fittest home;
A drifted vapor hides thy maiden shape—
Ocean and sky are all the gazer sees;
But, while he murmurs at thy swift escape,
He starts to hear thy whisper in the breeze.
Capricious phantom! why within my heart
Create the void of beauty and of love?
A spirit tells me, coy one, who thou art,—
Heard in the gale, or shadowed forth above—
The bright prefigurement of her who waits,
With snow-white veil and wreath, beside the Future's gates!

XIII.
CUBA.

What sounds arouse me from my slumbers light?
“Land ho! all hands, ahoy!”—I'm on the deck:
'Tis early dawn: the day-star yet is bright;
A few white vapory bars the zenith fleck;
And lo! along the horizon, bold and high,
The purple hills of Cuba! Hail, all hail!
Isle of undying verdure, with thy sky
Of purest azure! Welcome, odorous gale!
O, scene of life and joy! thou art arrayed
In hues of unimagined loveliness.
Sing louder, brave old mariner! and aid
My swelling heart its rapture to express;
For, from enchanted memory, never more
Shall fade this dawn sublime, this fair, resplendent shore.

XIV.
THE SEA-BREEZE AT MATANZAS.

After a night of languor without rest,—
Striving to sleep, yet wishing morn might come,
By the pent, scorching atmosphere oppressed,
Impatient of the vile mosquito's hum,—
With what reviving freshness from the sea,
Its airy plumage glittering with the spray,
Comes the strong day-breeze, rushing joyously
Into the bright arms of the encircling bay!
It tempers the keen ardor of the sun;
The drooping frame with life renewed it fills;
It lashes the green waters as they run;
It sways the graceful palm-tree on the hills;
It breathes of ocean solitudes, and caves,
Luminous, vast, and cool, far down beneath the waves.

XV.
MIDSUMMER RAINS.

The morning here, how beautiful and bright!
Look forth, and not a cloud-flake may be seen;
But, ere the sun has reached his noonday height,
Up from the horizon slides a vapory screen;
And now the firmament is all o'ercast:
Peals the hoarse thunder with stupendous roar;
The rain, a crushing torrent, lays the blast,
Foams on the wave, and hides the adjoining shore.
But, with a breath, it pauses; and a ray
Cleaves the huge keystone of the arch of gloom;
The shower attenuates to a filmy spray,
Bright rolls the sea again—the earth is bloom;
And, while the sun pours down a fiercer blaze,
The moisture reascends fast on his flaming rays.

XVI.
WEIGHING ANCHOR.

Like sweetest music are those cries that tell
Of weighing anchor;—ay, we're homeward bound!
Ye orange groves and coffee walks, farewell!
Farewell, thou fire-scooped summit, forest-crowned!
Ah, bright thy shores and bountiful thy fruits,
Cuba! and heaped with green thy river-banks;
But here the noontide Pestilence recruits
(Stern minister!) Death's ever-gathering ranks.
And so, e'en while thy gales are breathing balm,
And thy rich growth our soil reluctant mocks,
O, give me back the cedar for the palm!
The cedar on its brown hills, ribbed with rocks!
'Tis Freedom's emblem; and on Freedom's shore
It stands—though rough without, all fragrance at the core!