The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1890-01-30
BURNING DRIFTWOOD.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.
Before my driftwood fire sit.
And see. with every waif burn,
Old dreams and tancies colOring it,
And folly's unlaid ghosts return.
o ships of mine whose swift keels cleft
The enchanted sea on which they sailed,
Are these poor fragments only left
Of vain desires and hopes that failed?
Did not watch from them the light
of sunset on my towers in Spain,
And see. far Off uploom in sight
The Happy Isles might not gain?
Did sudden lift of fog reveal
Arcadia's wales of song and spring.
And did pass. with grazing keel.
The rocks whereon the sirens sing?
Have not drifted hard upon
The unmapped regions lost to man,
The cloud pitched tents of Prester John,
The palace domes of Kubla Khan?
Did land wind blow from jasmin flowers.
Where Youth the ageless Fountain fills?
Did love make sign from rose-blown bowers,
And gold from Eldorado's hills?
Alas! the gallant ships that sailed
On blind Adventures s errand sent,
Howe'er they laid their courses. failed
To reach the haven of Content.
And of my ventures, those alone
Which Love had freighted, safely sped,
Seeking good beyond my own,
BY clear-eyed Duty piloted.
o Mariners hoping still to meet
The luck Arabian voyagers met
And find in Bagdad's moonllt street
Haroun al Raschid walking yet.
Take with you. your Sea of Dreams,
The fair, fond fancies dear to youth,
turn from all that only seems
And seek the sober grounds of truth.
What matter that it is not May,
That birds have flown and trees are bare,
That darker grows the shortening day,
And colder blows the wintry air!
The wrecks of passion and desire,
The castles l no more rebuild.
May fifty feed my DRIFT wood fire,
And warm the hands that age has chilled.
Whatever perished with my ships,
only know the best remains;
A song of praise is my lips
For losses which are now my gains.
Heap high my hearth No worth is lost
No wisdom with the folly dies.
Burn on. poor shreds, your holocaust
Shall be my evening sacrificed
Far more than all dared to dream,
UnsOught before my door see;
On wings of fire and steeds of steam
The worlds great wonders come to me.
And hOler signs, unmarked before,
OF Love to seek and PowA to save,-
The rghting of the wronged and poor,
The man evolving from the slave.
And life, no longer chance or fate,
Safe in the gracious Fatherhood,
fold oer-weared hands and wait,
In calm assurance of the good.
And we'll the waiting time must be,
Tho brief or long its granted days,
If Faith and Hope and Charity
Sit by my evening hearth-f fires blaze.
And with them, friends whom Heaven has spare
Whose love my heart has comforted,
And, sharing all my joys. has shared
My tender memories of the dead
Dear souls who left us lonely here.
Bound on their last. long voyage, to whom
We. day by day, drawing near,
Where every bark has sailing room.
know the solemn monotone
OF waters calling unto me;
know from whence the airs have blown
That whisper Of the Eternal Sea-
As low my fires of driftwood burn,
hear that seas deep sounds increase,
And fair in sunset light. discern
Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace
IN. Y. Independent
The proper plunder Of mankind is ma
Texas Siftings.