"
Sail on, sail on,--thro' endless space--
Thro' calm--thro' tempest--stop no more:
The stormiest sea's a resting place
To him who leaves such hearts on shore.
Or--if some desert land we meet,
Where never yet false-hearted men
Profaned a world, that else were sweet,--
Then rest thee, bark, but not till then.
THE PARALLEL.
Yes, sad one of Sion,[1] if closely resembling,
In shame and in sorrow, thy withered-up heart--
If drinking deep, deep, of the same "cup of trembling"
Could make us thy children, our parent thou art,
Like thee doth our nation lie conquered and broken,
And fallen from her head is the once royal crown;
In her streets, in her halls, Desolation hath spoken,
And "while it is day yet, her sun hath gone down."[2]
Like thine doth her exile, mid dreams of returning,
Die far from the home it were life to behold;
Like thine do her sons, in the day of their mourning,
Remember the bright things that blest them of old.
Ah, well may we call her, like thee "the Forsaken,"[3]
Her boldest are vanquished, her proudest are slaves;
And the harps of her minstrels, when gayest they waken,
Have tones mid their mirth like the wind over graves!
Yet hadst thou thy vengeance--yet came there the morrow,
That shines out, at last, on the longest dark night,
When the sceptre, that smote thee with slavery and sorrow,
Was shivered at once, like a reed, in thy sight.
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