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TWILIGHT.

THE twilight is sad and cloudy, The wind blows wild and free, And like the wings of sea-birds Flash the white caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage
There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,
As if those childish eyes

Were looking into the darkness,
To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,

Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, bleak and wild, As they beat at the crazy casement, Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, wild and bleak,

As they beat at the heart of the mother, Drive the color from her cheek?

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.

SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice

Sailed the corsair Death;

Wild and fast blew the blast,

And the east-wind was his breath.

His lordly ships of ice

Glistened in the sun;

On each side, like pennons wide,

Flashing crystal streamlets run.

His sails of white sea-mist

Dripped with silver rain ;

But where he passed there were cast Leaden shadows o'er the main.

Eastward from Campobello

Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed; Three days or more seaward he bore, Then, alas! the land-wind failed.

Alas! the land-wind failed,

And ice-cold grew the night;

And never more, on sea or shore,

Should Sir Humphrey see the light.

He sat upon the deck,

The Book was in his hand;

"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,'

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He said, "by water as by land! "

In the first watch of the night,

Without a signal's sound, Out of the sea, mysteriously,

The fleet of Death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star

Were hanging in the shrouds ;

Every mast, as it passed,

Seemed to rake the passing clouds.

They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!

As of a rock was the shock;

Heavily the ground-swell rolled.

Southward through day and dark,

They drift in close embrace,

With mist and rain, to the Spanish Main; Yet there seems no change of place.

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