Part 2 — THE UNSEPULCHRED RELICS.
Reading edition
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BY MRS. L. S. GOODWIN.
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“Far out of the usual course of vessels crossing that ocean, they discovered an unknown island, covered with majestic trees. The captain, with a portion of the crew, went on shore, and after traversing its entire circumference without seeing a solitary representative of the animal kingdom, were about to return to their ship, when the skeleton of a man was found upon the beach, and beside it lay a partially constructed boat.”
Bleaching upon the sands that pave
An unknown islet strand,
Where surges bear from mermaid cave
The music of her band,
A clayey temple’s ruin lies—
Of that grand pile a part
Whereon the Architect Divine
Displayed His wondrous art;
Its tenant long since hath obeyed
The summons to depart.
Mysterious, as dire, the doom
That cast a death-scene where
Deep solitude converts to gloom
What else were brightly fair:
Perchance wild waves that made a wreck
Of some ill-fated bark,
Giving his valiant comrades all
To feast the rav’nous shark,
Swept hither this lone mariner,
For misery a mark.
Yon half-completed boat his lot
In mournful tones doth tell;
With what assiduous zeal he wrought
Upon that tiny cell,
Which promised o’er the billows broad
The worn one to convey
Within compassion’s genial realm,
Where woes find sweet allay;
’Twere better e’en the sea should whelm
Than thus with want hold fray.
Believe you not that in his pain,
His agony of soul,
Flew o’er the dark engirding main
The thoughts which spurn control?
Abiding with the cherished ones
Who blest a far-off home;
O how his sinking spirit yearned
To view once more that dome;
To hear young voices gayly shout
For joy that he had come.
He mused how love with pining frame
Her grief-fount would exhaust,
As on time’s laggard wing there came
No tidings of the lost.
Ah! who may speak the bitter pangs
That exile’s bosom knew.
As, day by day, and hour by hour,
Faint, and yet fainter, grew
The hope that erst had nerved him on
His labor to pursue.
To ply their wonted task, at length,
Refused his weary hands;
His form was stretched, bereft of strength.
Upon the burning sands.
Haply his latest wish besought
’Mong kindred dead to lie;
But fate denied the boon, and death
Seized him ’neath stranger sky;
While mercy drew a mystic veil
’Twixt him and friendship’s eye.