But the wild ocean rolled before her home;
And, listening long unto its
fearful moan,
She thought of myriads who had found their
rest
Down in its caverns, silent,
deep, and lone.
Then rose the prayer within her heart
of hearts,
With the dark phantoms of
a coming grief,
That “Nino, Ossoli, and I
may go
Together;—that
the anguish may be brief.”
The bark spread out her pennons proud
and free,
The sunbeams frolicked with
the wanton waves;
Smiled through the long, long days the
summer sea,
And sung sweet requiems o’er
her sunken graves.
E’en then the shadow of the fearful
King
Hung deep and darkening o’er
the fated bark;
Suffering and death and anguish reigned,
ere came
Hope’s weary dove back
to the longing ark.
This was the morning to the night of woe;
When the grim Ocean, in his
fiercest wrath,
Held fearful contest with the god of storms,
Who lashed the waves with
death upon his path.
O night of agony! O awful morn,
That oped on such a scene
thy sullen eyes!
The shattered ship,—those wrecked
and broken hearts,
Who only prayed, “Together
let us die.”
Was this thy greeting longed for, Margaret,
In the high, noontide of thy
lofty pride?
The welcome sighed for, in thine hours
of grief,
When pride had fled and hope
in thee had died?
Twelve hours’ communion with the
Terror-King!
No wandering hope to give
the heart relief!
And yet thy prayer was heard,—the
cold waves wrapt
Those forms “together,”
and the woe was “brief.”
Thus closed thy day in darkness and in
tears;
Thus waned a life, alas! too
full of pain;
But O thou noble woman! thy brief life,
Though full of sorrows, was
not lived in vain.
No more a pilgrim o’er a weary waste,
With light ineffable thy mind
is crowned;
Heaven’s richest lore is thine own
heritage;
All height is gained, thy
“kingdom” now is found.
* * * * *
TO THE MEMORY OF MARGARET FULLER.
BY E. OAKES SMITH.
We hailed thee, Margaret, from the sea,
We hailed thee o’er
the wave,
And little thought, in greeting thee,
Thy home would be a grave.
We blest thee in thy laurel crown,
And in the myrtle’s
sheen,—
Rejoiced thy noble worth to own,
Still joy, our tears between.
We hoped that many a happy year
Would bless thy coming feet;
And thy bright fame grow brighter here,
By Fatherland made sweet.
Gone, gone! with all thy glorious thought,—
Gone with thy waking life,—
With the green chaplet Fame had wrought,—
The joy of Mother, Wife.
Oh! who shall dare thy harp to take,
And pour upon the air
The clear, calm music, that should wake
The heart to love and prayer!