186 HOW THEY DIED. 



He pored upon our missives penned a-sea ? 

 Or in the sun-glare of the tropic isles, 

 And wondered at our freaks of vagrancy. 



He perished in the waters ! on an hour 

 Perchance enticed by hope of honest gains, 

 Or the sea lured him like a basilisk; 

 Beneath his own loved copses that o'erhung 

 And hid the craggy margin of the strand 

 The tide-race claimed its victim. 



For the youth 



His star was set already set when Trade 

 Year after year sends forth her delegates 

 With prostrate adoration ; made to gold 

 As to the statue seared in Babylon. 

 Then died the young and fearless : his bold spirit. 

 Early inured to danger's every shape 

 That prowls upon the waters, learned to beard 

 His evil-genius when at last he met him 

 Robed in the night-mist of thy stream, black river, 

 From pestilential Camaroon. There 'scaped 

 From perils of the Ocean, that had rocked 

 The wakeful sea-boy, on his nightly watch, 

 As strain 'd his weary gaze in search of mark 

 To helm the eager vessel by even then 

 He met the visitant as in his tent 

 The last and best of Romans. Shrive him, Heaven. 



Three weeping sisters mourned for that wild lad 



In forms too delicate for this world's coil ; 



Not for the softer passions : but a child, 



Who also called him brother, could not weep 



For very hope in death to follow him. 



His was a shape that nature sometimes gives 



In lesson to her minions : out on pride 



Humbled thus hardly, strengthen'd with her strength 



A keen sense of the stigma, and her soul 



Shrinking within itself not long bore up 



Against the oppressive weight : she fell asleep 



Outworn of her own spirit. 



