| |
| IN fathoms five the anchor gone; | |
| While here we furl the sail, | |
| No longer vainly laboring on | |
| Against the western gale: | |
| While here thy bare and barren cliffs, | 5 |
| O Hatteras, I survey, | |
| And shallow grounds and broken reefs,— | |
| What shall console my stay! | |
| |
| The dangerous shoal, that breaks the wave | |
| In columns to the sky; | 10 |
| The tempests black, that hourly rave, | |
| Portend all danger nigh: | |
| Sad are my dreams on ocean’s verge! | |
| The Atlantic round me flows, | |
| Upon whose ancient angry surge | 15 |
| No traveller finds repose! | |
| |
| The pilot comes!—from yonder sands | |
| He shoves his bark, so frail, | |
| And hurrying on, with busy hands, | |
| Employs both oar and sail. | 20 |
| Beneath this rude unsettled sky | |
| Condemned to pass his years, | |
| No other shores delight his eye, | |
| No foe alarms his fears. | |
| |
| In depths of woods his hut he builds, | 25 |
| Devoted to repose, | |
| And, blooming, in the barren wilds | |
| His little garden grows: | |
| His wedded nymph, of sallow hue, | |
| No mingled colors grace,— | 30 |
| For her he toils, to her is true, | |
| The captive of her face. | |
| |
| Kind Nature here, to make him blest, | |
| No quiet harbor planned; | |
| And poverty—his constant guest— | 35 |
| Restrains the pirate band: | |
| His hopes are all in yonder flock, | |
| Or some few hives of bees, | |
| Except, when bound for Ocracock, | |
| Some gliding bark he sees. | 40 |
| |
| His Catharine then he quits with grief, | |
| And spreads his tottering sails, | |
| While, waving high her handkerchief, | |
| Her commodore she hails: | |
| She grieves, and fears to see no more | 45 |
| The sail that now forsakes, | |
| From Hatteras’ sands to banks of Core | |
| Such tedious journeys takes! | |
| |
| Fond nymph! your sighs are heaved in vain; | |
| Restrain those idle fears: | 50 |
| Can you, that should relieve his pain, | |
| Thus kill him with your tears! | |
| Can absence thus beget regard, | |
| Or does it only seem? | |
| He comes to meet a wandering bard | 55 |
| That steers for Ashley’s stream. | |
| |
| Though disappointed in his views, | |
| Not joyless will we part; | |
| Nor shall the God of mirth refuse | |
| The balsam of the heart: | 60 |
| No niggard key shall lock up joy,— | |
| I ’ll give him half my store, | |
| Will he but half his skill employ | |
| To guard us from your shore. | |
| |
| Should eastern gales once more awake, | 65 |
| No safety will be here: | |
| Alack! I see the billows break, | |
| Wild tempests hovering near: | |
| Before the bellowing seas begin | |
| Their conflict with the land, | 70 |
| Go, pilot, go,—your Catharine join, | |
| That waits on yonder sand. | |
| |
