\ rOICE of the western wind !
^ Thou singest from afar.
Rich with the music of a land

Where all my memories are ;
But in thy soqg I only hear

The echo of a tone
That fell divinely on my ear

In days forever flown.
Star of the western sky !

Thou beamest from afar,
With lustre caught from eyes I knew,

Whose orbs were each a star ;
But, oh, those orbs — too wildly bright —

No more eclipse thine own,
And never shall I find the light

Of days forever flown !



30



EARLY POEMS.
FLOOD-TIDE.
JUST at sunrise, when the land-breeze cooled the
fevered air once more,
From a restless couch I wandered to the sounding

ocean shore ;
Strolling down through furrowed sand-hills, while the

splendor of the day
Flashed across the trembling waters to the West and

far away.
There I saw, in distant moorings, many an anchored

vessel tall ;
Heard with cheery morning voices sailor unto sailor

call.
Crowned with trailing plumes of sable, right afront my

standing-place
Moved a swarthy ocean-steamer in her storm-resisting

grace.
Prophet-like, she clove the waters toward the ancient

mother-land,
And I heard her clamorous engine and the echo of

command.
While the long Atlantic billows to my feet came rolling

on,
With the multitudinous music of a thousand ages gone.
There I stood, with careless ankles half in sand and

half in spray.
Till the baleful mist of midnight from my being passed

away ;
Then, with eager inhalations opening all my mantle

wide,






FLOOD-TIDE.
31



Felt ray spirit rise exutlant with the rising of the tide ;
Felt the joyous morning breezes run afresh through

every vein,
Till the natural pulse of manhood beat the call-to-arms

again.
