Approaching to the land; straightway he sees
A towering whiteness; 'tis the heaven-filled sails
That waft the missioned men, who have renounced
Their homes, their country, nay, almost the world,
Bearing glad tidings to the farthest isles
Of ocean, that the dead shall rise again.
Forward the gleam-girt castle coastwise glides.
It seems as it would pass away. To cry
The wretched man in vain attempts, in vain,
Powerless his voice as in a fearful dream:
Not so his hand; he strikes the flint, a blaze
Mounts from the ready heap of withered leaves:
The music ceases; accents harsh succeed,
Harsh, but most grateful: downward drop the sails;
Ingulphed the anchor sinks; the boat is launched;
But cautious lies aloof till morning dawn:

O then the transport of the man, unused
To other human voice beside his own,-

His native tongue to hear! he breathes at home,
Though eartn's diameter is interposed.

Of perils of the sea he has no dread,

Full well assured the missioned bark is safe,

Whenever the sea is gently agitated, it seems converted into little stars; every drop as it breaks emits light, like bodies electrified in the dark."-DARWIN.

Held in the hollow of the Almighty's hand.
(And signal thy deliverances have been
Of these thy messengers of peace and joy.)

From storms that loudly threaten to unfix
Islands rock-rooted in the ocean's bed,
Thou dost deliver them,—and from the calm,
More dreadful than the storm, when motionless
Upon the purple deep the vessel lies

For days, for nights, illumed by phosphor lamps;
When sea-birds seem in nests of flame to float;
When backward starts the boldest mariner
To see, while o'er the side he leans, his face
As if deep-tinged with blood.-

Let worldly men
The cause and combatants contemptuous scorn,
And call fanatics them, who hazard health
And life, in testifying of the truth,

Who joy and glory in the cross of Christ!
What were the Galilean fishermen

But messengers, commissioned to announce
The resurrection, and the life to come!

They too, though clothed with power of mighty works Miraculous, were oft received with scorn;

Oft did their words fall powerless, though enforced By deeds that marked Omnipotence their friend: But, when their efforts failed, unweariedly

They onward went, rejoicing in their course.
Like helianthus, * borne on downy wings
To distant realms, they frequent fell on soils
Barren and thankless; yet oft-times they saw
Their labours crowned with fruit an hundred fold,
Saw the new converts testify their faith

By works of love, the slave set free, the sick
Attended, prisoners visited, the poor

Received as brothers at the rich man's board.

Alas! how different now the deeds of men

Nursed in the faith of Christ!--the free made slaves! Stolen from their country, borne across the deep, Enchained, endungeoned, forced by stripes to live, Doomed to behold their wives, their little ones, Tremble beneath the white man's fiend-like frown! Yet even to scenes like these, the SABBATH brings Alleviation of the enormous woe:

The oft-reiterated stroke is still;

The clotted scourge hangs hardening in the shrouds.
But see, the demon man, whose trade is blood,
With dauntless front, convene his ruffian crew,
To hear the sacred service read. Accursed,

*Sun flower.

"The seeds of many plants of this kind are furnished with a plume, by which admirable mechanism they are disseminated far from their parent stem."-DARWIN.

The wretch's bile-tinged lips profane the word
Of God: Accursed, he ventures to pronounce
The decalogue, nor faulters at that law,
Wherein 'tis written, Thou shalt do no murder;
Perhaps, while yet the words are on his lips,
He hears a dying mother's parting groan;
He hears her orphan'd child, with lisping plaint,
Attempt to rouse her from the sleep of death.

O England! England! wash thy purpled hands Of this foul sin, and never dip them more In guilt so damnable! then lift them up In supplication to that God, whose name Is Mercy; then thou may'st, without the risk Of drawing vengeance from the surcharged clouds, Implore protection to thy menaced shores; Then, God will blast the tyrant's arm that grasps The thunderbolt of ruin o'er thy head; Then, will he turn the wolvish race to prey Upon each other; then, will he arrest The lava torrent, causing it regorge

Back to its source with fiery desolation.

Of all the murderous trades by mortals plied, 'Tis War alone that never violates

The hallowed day by simulate respect,—
By hypocritic rest: No, no, the work proceeds.

C

From sacred pinnacles are hung the flags,*
That give the sign to slip the leash from slaughter.
The bells, whose knoll a holy calmness poured
Into the good man's breast,-whose sound solaced
The sick, the poor, the old-perversion dire
Pealing with sulphurous tongue, speak death-fraught
words:

From morn to eve Destruction revels frenzied,
Till at the hour when peaceful vesper-chimes
Were wont to sooth the ear, the trumpet sounds
Pursuit and flight altern; and for the song

Of larks, descending to their grass-bowered homes,
The croak of flesh-gorged ravens, as they slake
Their thirst in hoof-prints filled with gore, disturbs
The stupor of the dying man: while Death
Triumphantly sails down the ensanguined stream,
On corses throned, and crowned with shivered boughs,
That erst hung imaged in the crystal tide. †

And what the harvest of these bloody fields? A double weight of fetters to the slave,

And chains on arms that wielded Freedom's sword. Spirit of TELL! and art thou doomed to see

* Church steeples are frequently used as signal-posts.

After a heavy cannonade, the shivered branches of trees, and the corpses of the killed, are seen floating together down the rivers.