Before her, nameless terror; Behind, the pirate foe; The clouds are black above her, The sea is white below.
The hope of all who suffer, The dread of all who wrong, She drifts in darkness and in storm, How long, O Lord! how long?
But courage, O my mariners! Ye shall not suffer wreck, While up to God the freedman's prayers Are rising from your deck.
Is not your sail the banner Which God hath blest anew, The mantle that de Matha wore, The red, the white, the blue?
Its hues are all of heaven-- The red of sunset's dye The whiteness of the moonlit cloud, The blue of morning's sky.
Wait cheerily, then, O mariners, For daylight and for land; The breath of God is on your sail, Your rudder in His hand.
Sail on, sail on, deep freighted With blessings and with hopes; The saints of old with shadowy hands Are pulling at your ropes.
Behind ye, holy martyrs Uplift the palm and crown; Before ye, unborn ages send Their benedictions down.
Take heart from John de Matha!-- God's errands never fail! Sweep on through storm and darkness, The thunder and the hail!
Sail on! The morning cometh, The port ye yet shall win; And all the bells of God shall ring The good ship bravely in!
Whence come those shrieks so wild and shrill, That cut, like blades of steel, the air, Causing the creeping blood to chill With the sharp cadence of despair?
Again they come, as if a heart Were cleft in twain by one quick blow, And every string had voice apart To utter its peculiar woe.
Whence came they? from yon temple where An altar, raised for private prayer, Now forms the warrior's marble bed Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.
The dim funereal tapers throw A holy lustre o'er his brow, And burnish with their rays of light The mass of curls that gather bright Above the haughty brow and eye Of a young boy that's kneeling by.
What hand is that, whose icy press Clings to the dead with death's own grasp, But meets no answering caress? No thrilling fingers seek its clasp? It is the hand of her whose cry Rang wildly, late, upon the air, When the dead warrior met her eye Outstretched upon the altar there.
With pallid lip and stony brow She murmurs forth her anguish now. But hark! the tramp of heavy feet Is heard along the bloody street; Nearer and nearer yet they come With clanking arms and noiseless drum. Now whispered curses, low and deep, Around the holy temple creep; The gate is burst; a ruffian band Rush in and savagely demand, With brutal voice and oath profane, The startled boy for exile's chain.