Moral Pieces, in Prose and Verse/Lines 1
LINES,
On the death of the Rev. Mr. Washburn, of Farmington, Connecticut, during a storm at midnight, while on his passage to South-Carolina, for the benefit of his health, accompanied by his wife.
THE southern gale awoke, its breath was mild,
The hoary face of mighty ocean smil'd;
Silent he lay, and o'er his breast did move
A little bark that much he seem'd to love;
He lent it favouring winds of steady force,
And bade the zephyrs waft it on its course;
So on its trackless[1] way, it mov'd sublime,
To bear the sick man to a softer clime.
Then night came on; the humid vapours rose,
And scarce a gale would fan the dead repose;
It seem'd as if the cradled storms did rest,
As infants dream upon the mothers breast.
But when deep midnight claim'd his drear domain,
And darkly prest the sick man's couch of pain,
The prison'd winds to fearful combat leap,
And rouse the wrathful spirit of the deep,
The impatient storms arose—their sleep was past,
The thunder roar'd a hoarse and dreadful blast,
The troubled bark was tost upon the wave,
The cleaving billows shew'd a ready grave,
The lightnings blaz'd insufferably bright,
Forth rode a spirit on the wing of night;
An unseen hand was there, whose strong control,
Requir'd in that dread hour the sick man's soul,
It struggled and was gone! to hear no more
The whirlwinds sweeping, and the torrents roar,
The rending skies, the loud and troubled deep,
The agonizing friend, that wak'd to weep;
No more to shrink before the tempest's breath,
No more to linger in the pangs of death;
No more! no more! it saw a purer sphere,
Nor surging sea—nor vexing storms were there;
Before his eye a spotless region spread,
Where darkness rested not—or doubt or dread,
And sickness sigh'd not there, and mortal ills were fled.