by Anna Savage.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.11 #4 (1847).
[As soon as the Atlantic struck, the great bell began to toll from the action of the wind, and thus rang the knell of the ill-fated vessel, and the unfortunate victims of the catastrophe]
Hearken! The breezes bear
The sound of a clear-toned bell,
Swift fall the feet on the crowded strand,
Heart yearns to heart, while hand in hand,
Friends with a smile, and a parting prayer,
Breathe the whisper'd word Farewell.
Listen! Of hope it speaks,
As the echo peals around,
To some it will tell of a distant home,
Where loved ones gaze on the track they come,—
And pray as each crested wavelet breaks,
For the wanderers homeward bound.
The Atlantic ploughs her way,
With her freight of life and love,
The white foam curls round her dainty prow,
The sun beams bright on the waves below,
Blue lie the depths 'neath the silv'ry spray,
And cloudless skies above.
Hearken! the breezes bear
The sound of a clear-toned bell,
At midnight it comes through the gath'ring gloom,
The living it tolls to an Ocean tomb,
And through the wild tempest voices there,
The doom'd ones hear their knell.
Listen! The tongue that spoke,
Of hope on that sunny morn,
Still sounds through the surge of the battling waves,
And a death-knell tolls o'er the yawning graves,
As if its last song in mock'ry woke
O'er the hearts in death forlorn.
Oh! thus on life's smiling tide,
We trust our cherish'd store,
The voice that at morn but of gladness sung
E'er the night comes on has our death-knell rung,
And hopeless we gaze on the waters wide,
For the bark that returns no more.