Yet was there light around her brow,
A holiness in those dark eyes,
Which showed,--tho' wandering earthward now,--
Her spirit's home was in the skies.
Yes--for a spirit pure as hers
Is always pure, even while it errs;
As sunshine broken in the rill
Tho' turned astray is sunshine still!
So wholly had her mind forgot
All thoughts but one she heeded not
The rising storm--the wave that cast
A moment's midnight as it past--
Nor heard the frequent shout, the tread
Of gathering tumult o'er her head--
Clasht swords and tongues that seemed to vie
With the rude riot of the sky.--
But, hark!--that war-whoop on the deck--
That crash as if each engine there,
Mast, sails and all, were gone to wreck,
Mid yells and stampings of despair!
Merciful Heaven! what _can_ it be?
'Tis not the storm, tho' fearfully
The ship has shuddered as she rode
O'er mountain-waves--"Forgive me, God!
"Forgive me"--shrieked the maid and knelt,
Trembling all over--for she felt
As if her judgment hour was near;
While crouching round half dead with fear,
Her handmaids clung, nor breathed nor stirred--
When, hark!--a second crash--a third--
And now as if a bolt of thunder
Had riven the laboring planks asunder,
The deck falls in--what horrors then!
Blood, waves and tackle, swords and men
Come mixt together thro' the chasm,--
Some wretches in their dying spasm
Still fighting on--and some that call
"For GOD and IRAN!" as they fall!
Whose was the hand that turned away
The perils of the infuriate fray,
And snatcht her breathless from beneath
This wilderment of wreck and death?
She knew not--for a faintness came
Chill o'er her and her sinking frame
Amid the ruins of that hour
Lay like a pale and scorched flower
Beneath the red volcano's shower.
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