THE SPECTRE SHIP OF SALEM.

But the vast crowd lingered still behind,
With an over-powering dread ;
They feared that stranger and his bride,
So pale, and like the dead.

And many said that an evil pair

Among their friends had gone,-
A demon with his human prey,

From the quiet grave-yard drawn;
And a prayer was heard that the innocent
Might escape the Evil One.

Away-the good ship sped away,
Out on the broad high seas-
The sun upon her path before-
Behind, the steady breeze-
And there was nought in sea or sky
Of fearful auguries.

The day passed on-the sunlight fell
All slantwise from the west,

And then the heavy clouds of storm
Sat on the ocean's breast;

And every swelling billow mourned,
Like a living thing distressed.

The sun went down among the clouds,
Tinging with sudden gold,

The pall-like shadow of the storın,

On every mighty fold ;—

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60

THE SPECTRE SHIP OF SALEM.

And then the lightning's eye looked forth, And the red thunder rolled.

The storm came down upon the sea,
In its surpassing dread,

Rousing the white and broken surge

Above its rocky bed;

As if the deep was stired beneath
A giant's viewless tread.

All night the hurricane went on,
And all along the shore

The smothered cry of shipwrecked men
Blent with the ocean's roar ;—

The gray-haired man had scarcely known So wild a night before.

Morn rose upon a tossing sea,
The tempest's work was done;
And freely over land and wave
Shone out the blessed sun-

But where was she-that merchant-bark
Where had the good ship gone?

Men gathered on the shore to watch
The billow's heavy swell,

Hoping, yet fearing much, some frail
Memorial might tell

The fate of that disastrous ship,

Of friends they loved so well.

THE SPECTRE SHIP OF SALEM.

None came-the billows smoothed away--
And all was strangely calm,

As if the very sea had felt

A necromancer's charm,

And not a trace was left behind,

Of violence and harm,

The twilight came with sky of gold

And curtaining of night

And then a sudden cry rang out,

'A ship-the ship in sight!

And lo!-tall masts grew visible
Within the fading light.

Near and more near the ship came on,
With all her broad sails spread-

The night grew thick, but a phantom light
Around her path was shed;

And the gazers shuddered as on she came,
For against the wind she sped.

They saw by the dim and baleful glare

Around that voyager thrown,

The upright forms of the well known crew,

As pale and fixed as stone

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And they called to them, but no sound came back,

Save the echoed cry alone.

The fearful stranger youth was there,

And clasped in his embrace,

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THE SPECTRE SHIP OF SALEM.

The pale and passing sorrowful

Gazed wildly in his face ;

Like one who had been wakened from The silent burial-place.

A shudder ran along the crowd-
And a holy man knelt there,
On the wet sea-sand, and offered up
A faint and trembling prayer,
That God would shield his people from
The Spirits of the air!

And lo!—the vision passed away-
The Spectre Ship-the crew—
The stranger and his pallid bride
Departed from their view;

And nought was left upon the waves,
Beneath the arching blue.

It passed away-that vision strangeForever from their sight;

Yet, long shall Naumkeag's annals tell The story of that night

The phantom-bark-the ghostly crew, The pale, encircling light.

NAPOLEON.

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NAPOLEON.

BY GRENVILLE MELLEN.

Napoleon, when in St Helena, beheld a bust of his son, and wept

LONG on the Parian bust he gazed,

And his pallid lips moved not;

But when his deep cold eye he raised,
His glory was forgot;

And the heated tears came down like rain,
As the buried years swept back again—
He wept aloud!

He who had tearless rode the storm

Of human agony,

And with ambition wild and warm,

Sailed on a bloody sea,

He bent before the infant head,

And wept as a mother weeps her dead '-
The pale and proud!

The roar of all the world had passed

On a sounding rock alone,

An exile, to the earth he cast

His gathered glories down!
Yet dreamt he of his victor race,
Till, turning to that marble face,
His heart gave way;