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The Wreck.

 

 

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BY MRS. FELICIA HEMANS.

 

Aut night the booming minute gun
Had peeled along the deep,

And mournfully the rising sun
Looked o’er the tide-worn steep.

A bark from India’s coral strand,
Before the raging blast,

Had veiled her topsails to the sand,
And bowed her noble mast.

The queenly ship! brave hearts had striven,
And true ones died with her ;

We saw her mighty cable riven,
Like floating gossamer. |

We saw her proud flag struck that morn,
A star once o’er the seas—

Her anchor gone, her deck uptorn,
And sadder things than these.

We saw her treasures cast away ;
The rocks with pearls were sown,

And, strangely sad, the ruby’s ray
Flashed out o’er fretted stone.

And gold was strewn the wet sands o'er
Like ashes by a breeze, uK
And gorgeous robes—but oh! that shore

Had sadder things than these!

We saw the strong man still and low,
A crushed reed thrown aside ;
Yet, by that rigid lip and brow,
Not without strife he died.