THE PIRATE.

———

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

———

Twelve hours along the glowing strand

The sunlight, like a flame, hath lain;

The surf is swelling on the sand,

And day is on the wane;

And, like a shadow on the shore,

The pallid plover winnows by,

And, like a ghost’s, the heron’s cry

Rises above the breakers’ roar.

And eddies down the sky.

Who saw her gliding from the stocks

Would know my gallant brigantine?

The granite teeth of rugged rocks

Have torn my ocean queen:

A royal ransom under deck,

The slave of every wave, she lies

Never, ah, nevermore to rise,

A helpless hulk—a crumbling wreck —

Before my dying eyes.

Alone! alone! alas! alone!

Not one of those who swayed the wave

Survives, to hear my dying moan,

Or give his chief a grave.

No, no, not one; alone I tread

These desolate, desert sands—alone,

Where, in the moon, as they were thrown,

My merry men lie, cold and dead

And motionless as stone.

Night after night, along the sea,

In maiden modesty of mien,

Glides, gazing mournfully on me,

My gentle Geraldine.

Her glances pierce my penitent heart,

As like a statued saint she stands —

A seraph from those unknown lands

To which my soul must soon depart,

Freed from its fleshy bands.

Sweet Geraldine! her beauty fell

On sense and soul, like light from heaven;

My heart looked up, like Dives from hell,

And prayed to be forgiven;

Love swam within her lustrous eyes,

Played in her shadowy hair.

Moved in her more than queenly air,

And floated on her silver sighs —

To drown me with despair.

O, woful day! O, woful hour!

That told me that my hopes were vain;

I felt, that second, centuries

Of agonizing pain!

Hope, tremulous with feverous fears,

Unclasped her wings, and fled;

I stood, like one whose dearest dead

Lies on the trestles—steeped in tears —

Heaven’s judgment on my head.

Why did she hate me! Wherefore blight

My penitent heart with piercing scorn?

My better angel took her flight

Despairing and forlorn:

The Fiend, who stood exulting by,

Reclaimed his trembling slave;

God saw, but would not stoop to save

The struggling wretch who dared defy

His laws, on land and wave.

O, Geraldine, I see thee fly,

Despairing, from my accursed hands:

“Better my bones should bleach,” thy cry,

“On savagest of strands

Than that my fatal charms should cause

My never—never-dying shame;

Better, O, villain, virtuous fame

With death, than life, when human laws,

And God’s, accuse my name!”

I see again thy mute, white face,

Thy pallid cheeks and bloodless lips,

Thine eyes, that shone like stars in space,

Rayless with shame’s eclipse —

As flying, ghost-like, through the night,

Fearing death less than me,

Thy heart went out beneath the sea:

An angel soul that night took flight,

A martyr ceased to be!

I walked in blood, I swam in wine,

Until my desperate, daring crew

Trembled at guilt so great as mine:

The unbelieving Jew

Who smote his God was white as snow

To that which I became;

So black was I, so steeped in shame,

The very fiends, who writhed below,

Howled when they heard my name.

Nature gave way: when I awoke

The sky was black, the sea was white;

Day, that long since had dimly broke,

Was little more than night;

And madly struggling with the waves

Careered my gallant craft;

My crew were pale, I only laughed,

And coarsely cursed the drunken knaves

Who, full of wine, still quaffed.

Night came; my men lay sunk in sleep;

I only trod the silent deck:

God’s anger walked the boisterous deep,

But little did I reck;

When in the storm, before my eyes,

My memory’s virgin queen,

The dead, the sainted Geraldine,

Stood calmly pointing to the skies,

Madonna-like in mien.

I waved her from me, and she waned;

I saw not, know not, how, or where;

A single pitying look she deigned,

Then, vanished into air.

Then came a sudden shock and crash:

In frantic haste I clasped

A fragment of a shattered mast;

I saw the boiling breakers flash,

And sense and memory passed.

When I revived, the noon-day sun

Lay swooning on the sultry sand:

I was the only human one

That ever touched the strand.

The very birds that sported round

Screamed when they neared the shore;

The trackless sands were gray and hoar;

Nor shrub, nor grass relieved the ground,

Which nothing living bore.

We were alone—I and my soul —

A timid, trembling, guilty pair,

Already near our earthly goal,

And livid with despair:

Six weary days, six sleepless nights,

We walked the painful Past:

Our crimes, like ghosts, arose and cast

Their glances on us: ah, what sights

And scenes were in that Past!

But when the moon lies on the sea,

The seraph soul of Geraldine

Night after night comes down to me,

Walking its waves of green.

Hunger and thirst like phantoms seem

Before her pitying eyes,

As pointing always to the skies,

She wanes and vanishes like a dream —

She and her pitying eyes.

I feel that I shall die to-night;

Death seems already at my heart;

My soul has plumed its wings for flight,

And struggles to depart.

I only wait for Geraldine

To take me by the hand

And lead me to that blesséd band,

Whose forms in visions I have seen,

Walking the Better Land.