Sunshine and hope are comrades, and their weather
Calls into life the energies of earth;
But memory and moonlight go together,
Reflected in the light that either brings.
My friends, my absent friends!
Do you think of me then? I think of you.
The busy deck is hushed, no sounds are waking
But the watch pacing silently and slow;
The waves against the sides incessant breaking,
And rope and canvass swaying to and fro.
The topmast sail seems some dim pinacle
Cresting a shadowy tower amid the air;
While red and fitful gleams come from the binacle,
The only light on board to guide us—where?
My friends, my absent friends!
Far from my native land, and far from you.
On one side of the ship, the moonbeams shimmer
Inluminous vibrations sweeps the sea,
But where the shadow falls, a strange pale glimmer
Seems, glow-worm like, amid the waves to be.
All that the spirit keeps of thought and feeling,
Takes visionary hues from such an hour;
But while some fantasy is o'er me stealing,
I start, remembrance has a keener power.
My friends, my absent friends,
From the fair dream I start to think of you!
A dusk line in the moonlight I discover,
What all day long vainly I sought to catch;
Or is it but the varying clouds that hover
Thick in the air, to mock the eyes that watch?
No! well the sailor knows each speck appearing.
Upon the tossing waves, the far-off strand
To that dark line our eager ship is steering.
Her voyage done—to-morrow we shall land.
August 15.L. E. L.
