Thou hid'st the scenes that lie the grave beyond-- Thou hast the secrets of the world unseen; Where the loved ones, the beautiful, the fond, And all who tossed on life's wild sea have been, Have gone in silence at thy dreadful call, Great conqueror of all!
Empires are crumbled at thy dread command, And nations rise and nourish but to fall; Even earth is thine; and thou e'er long shalt stand, And mark its wealth, and power, and beauty, all Fade and depart as sunbeams in the heaven Vanish and die at even!
The midnight storm, the tempest raging high, The sweeping pestilence, and fell disease, Rude winter's blast, and balmy summer's sigh, Earth, and the sea whose murmurs never cease, All are but agents of thy sovereign will, Thy bidding to fulfil.
Couldst thou to man's earth-fettered soul reveal The bliss thou bringest to the pure in heart, Would sudden horror o'er his spirit steal, When called at last with low-born joys to part? Would he not rather sigh for that bless'd shore, Where death is known no more?
Stern Power! though others shudder at thy tread, And vainly seek thy arrow to evade, Before thy stroke I fain would bow my head, Nor grieve to see my transient pleasures fade: In thy embrace my sorrows all shall cease, For in the grave is peace!
Our schooner was 'up' for Charleston by the first fair wind; but the captain was fastidious, and the only fair wind was directly aft. A point or two off would not do, unless it had been blowing for a day or two and was likely to continue till the captain could land his passengers in Charleston. Running in on the Georgia coast was always very delightful to the passengers, but not at all so to Captain S----. We had taken berths in the schooner about the middle of April, and when the first week in May had passed by, we began to think it would be difficult to find the precise article of air which the captain desired. During this time it seemed to have become coquettish, giving us all kinds of northerly, all varieties of east, and a preponderance of westerly wind, finishing off with a sirocco from the south-west, ('a Boston east wind boiled,' and the only unpleasant summer wind on the coast,) after which it stopped short; the sand and the orange blossoms settled again, and every thing hung perpendicular. The next morning a puff came up from the south in a very blustering manner, as though it had an immense capital to back it, but proved very short-winded. Our little craft thinking to beat us, shook its sails out right and left, and dashed out of the harbor, rounding the point in a handsome manner; but before reaching the bar it slacked away, till 'small by degrees and beautifully less,' it came to a dead stand; and the same evening we dashed back again with a no'th-east-by-east behind us, to the great delight of promenaders on the sea-wall and the public in general. Ladies rode through the streets at a hard-gallop; little niggers crept under balconies; and an individual who shall be nameless performed a feat with a certain Di. Vernon of that ilk, which resulted in a bill the next morning of some odd dollars for extra motion, and a severe lesson upon the moralities of fast-riding. The mid-day weather at this time was decidedly summerish, the temperature having the _feel_ of about seventy in our latitude, but ranging there from eighty to ninety degrees.