The startled waves leap over it; the storm Press the great shoulders of the hurricane. The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din Dashes himself against the glare, and dies. A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock, "Sail on!" it says, "sail on, ye stately ships! THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. WE sat within the farm-house old, Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold, An easy entrance, night and day. Not far away we saw the port, The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, The light-house, the dismantled fort, — The wooden houses, quaint and brown. We sat and talked until the night, Descending, filled the little room; We spake of many a vanished scene, And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again; The first slight swerving of the heart, And leave it still unsaid in part, Or say it in too great excess. The very tones in which we spake Had something strange, I could but mark ; The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark. Oft died the words upon our lips, Built of the wreck of stranded ships, The flames would leap and then expire. And, as their splendor flashed and failed, We thought of wrecks upon the main,Of ships dismasted, that were hailed And sent no answer back again. The windows, rattling in their frames, — The gusty blast, the bickering flames, — All mingled vaguely in our speech; Until they made themselves a part Of fancies floating through the brain, — The long-lost ventures of the heart, That send no answers back again. O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned! They were indeed too much akin, The drift-wood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within |