How waxen-like his hands,

Which nevermore may turn the glass
That on his bosom stands,

The glass whose solemn sands
Were won from Stygian strands!
For his weary work is done,

And he has reaped his latest
field,

And none that scythe of his can wield

'Neath the dim, descending sun.

At last they reach the Shadow-Land,
And with an eldritch cry

The guardian ghost sweeps wailingly
Athwart the troubled sky,
Like meteors flashing by,
As asunder crashing fly,

With a wild and clangorous din,

The gates before the funeral train,
Filing along the dreary plain
And marching slowly in.

Lo! 't is a temple! and around

Tall ebony columns rise

Up from the withering earth, and bear
Aloft the shrivelling skies,

Where the tempest trembling sighs,
And the ghostly moonlight dies

'Neath a lurid comet's glare,

That over the mourners' plumed heads

And on the Dead a lustre sheds From its crimson floating hair!

The steadying sun heaved up as day drew

on,

And there grew a long swell of the sea. And, first in upper air, then under, everywhere,

From the topmost towering sail
Down, down to quarter-rail,

The wind began to breathe more free.
It was soon to breathe its last,

For a wild and bitter blast

Was the master of that stormy day to be.

"Ho! Hilloa! A sail!" was the top

man's hail:

"A sail, hull-down upon our lee!"
Then with sea-glass to his eye,
And his gray locks blowing by,

The Admiral sought what she might be.
And from top, and from deck,

Was it ship? Was it wreck? A far-off, far-off speck,

Of a sudden we found upon our lee.

On the round waters wide, floated no thing beside,

But we and the stranger sail;

And a hazy sky, that threatened storm,
Came coating the heaven so blue and warm,
And ahead hung the portent of a gale:
A black bank hanging there

When the order came, to wear,

Was remembered, ever after, in the tale.

Across the long, slow swell That scarcely rose and fell,

The wind began to blow out of the cloud; And scarce an hour was gone ere the gale was fairly on,

And through our strained rigging howled aloud.

Before the stormy wind, that was maddening behind,

We gathered in our canvas farthest spread.
Black clouds had started out
From the heavens all about,

And the welkin grew all black overhead.
But though stronger and more strong
The fierce gale rushed along,

The stranger brought her old wind in her breast.

Up came the ship from the far-off sea
And on with the strong wind's breath rushed

we.

She grew to the eye, against the clouded sky,

And eagerly her points and gear we guessed. As we made her out, at last,

She was maimed in spar and mast

And she hugged the easy breeze for rest.

We could see the old wind fail
At the nearing of our gale;

We could see them lay their course with the wind:

Still we neared and neared her fast,
Hurled on by our fierce blast,

With the seas tumbling headlong behind. She had come out of some storm, and, in many a busy swarm,

Her crew were refitting, as they might,
The wreck of upper spars

That had left their ugly scars,

As if the ship had come out of a fight.
We scanned her well, as we drifted by,

A strange old ship, with her poop built

out.

We saw no signal fly, and her men scarce lifted eye,

But toiled at the work that was to do:
It warmed our English blood
When across the stormy flood

We saw the old ship and her crew.

The glories and the memories of other days agone

Seemed clinging to the old ship, as in
storm she labored on.
The old ship Orient!
The brave, imperial Orient!

All that stormy night through, our ship was lying-to

Whenever we could keep her to the wind; But late in the next day we gained a quiet

bay,

For the tempest had left us far behind.
So before the sunny town

Went our anchors splashing down;
Our sails we hung all out to the sun;
While airs from off the steep

Came playing at bo-peep

With our canvas, hour by hour, in their fun. We leaned on boom or rail with many a lazy tale

Of the work of the storm that had died;
And watched, with idle eyes,
Our floats, like summer flies,
Riding lazily about the ship's side.
Suddenly they cried, from the other deck,
That the Orient was gone to wreck !
That her hull lay high on a broken shore,
And the brave old ship would float no more.