Classic Poem

The wave is resting on the sea,
Or only ripples into smiles,
That curl and twinkle silently
Around the cocoa-tufted isles;
Beneath the Moro's frowning walls
The faintest chime of ocean falls,
As if the rolling tempest-swell,
Subdued by moonlight's magic spell,
Were murmuring its last farewell.
And now the distant breath of flutes,
Or tinkling of the light guitars,
The mellow sound of love, that suits
The silent winds and drowsy stars,
When each discordant note is still,
And all the hum of day at rest,
And tender tones more inly thrill
The yet unstained and virgin breast,—
These sounds, that tell the heart's devotion,
Come floating upward from the ocean,
As, skimming through the flaky foam,
The light canoes are calmly driven
By winds, that send them to their home,
So soft, they seem the gales of heaven.

But yet the reckless pirate keeps
His tiger watch, while nature sleeps,
And in his thirsting hope unsheathes
The sword that glares with sullen flame;
With firm-set teeth he sternly breathes
His curses on each better name;
Careless he stands, prepared to strike
Friend, stranger, foe, for gain, alike.
As wolves who gather in the wood,
And lurk till chance their prey has given,
Then, burning in their thirst for blood,
With fiendlike yells are madly driven:
So cowers the pirate in his cave,
Till far away the snowy sail
Moves calmly o'er the mirrored wave,
And flutters in the dying gale;
Then, with a demon swell of heart,
He hurries from the guilty shore,
And stealing on it, like a dart,
He dyes that snowy sail in gore.