And darkness swept over the gorgeous glare--
They lighted the mariners down to their home,
And left them all sleeping in stillness there!


VI.

The storm is hushed, and my vision is o'er,
The Surf Sprite changed to a foamy wreath,
The night is deepened along the shore,
And I thread my way o'er the dusky heath.
But often again I shall go to that cliff,
And seek for her form on the flashing tide,
For I know she will come in her airy skiff,
And over the sea we shall swiftly ride!

[Footnote A: The Laplanders are said to entertain the idea that the
coruscations of the Aurora Borealis, are occasioned by the sports of the
fishes in the polar seas.]

[Footnote B: The loss of the United States Sloop-of-War Hornet, in the
Gulf of Mexico, 1829, suggested this passage. She was supposed to have
gone down in a hurricane, but as nothing is positively known on the
subject, it is not beyond lawful poetical license to imagine, at least in
a dream, that the powder magazine was set on fire by the lightning, and
the ship rent in pieces, by the explosion.]

[Illustration: Vignette]