WRITTEN

See you, beneath yon cloud so dark,

Fast gliding along a gloomy bark?

Her sails are full,— though the wind is still,

And there blows not a breath her sails to fill!

Say, what doth that vessel of darkness bear?

The silent calm of the grave is there,

Save now and again a death-knell rung,

And the flap of the sails with night-fog hung.

There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore

Of cold and pitiless Labrador;

Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost,

Full many a mariner's bones are tost.

Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck,

And the dim blue fire, that lights her deck,

Doth play on as pale and livid a crew,

As ever yet drank the churchyard dew.

To Deadman's Isle, in the eye of the blast,

To Deadman's Isle, she speeds her fast;

By skeleton shapes her sails are furled,

And the hand that steers is not of this world!

Oh! hurry thee on-oh! hurry thee on,

Thou terrible bark, ere the night be gone,

Nor let morning look on so foul a sight

As would blanch for ever her rosy light!