A noble ship her ponderous anchor weighs,
Glides from the harbor and is lost to sight;
A young wife waves farewell. As many days
In passing turn her golden tresses white,
She scans the horizon through a mist of tears,
Hopes for that vanished sail which ne'er appears.
A galley slave in age and clime remote,
Chained to his seat, unwilling plies the oar;
Before his eyes fond dreams of freedom float,
He hopes amid the battle's crash and roar;
And as the waves the imprisoned wretches drown,
Hopes, as his fetters draw him swiftly down.
A mighty host in force of arms we see,
With march invasive, cross a boundary line;
At its approach no freemen turn and flee,
Each with his life defends his family shrine;
As burning homes illuminate the sky
With ghastly light, they hope and fight and die.
Beside the bed where rests the pallid form,
Of loved one stricken with the fever's breath,
E'en when the loving hands, no longer warm,
Portend the sure and swift approach of Death,
Hope holds the spirit in its house of clay,
And with that spirit only, soars away.
The guilty wretch, for murder doomed to die,
Hoped, in his dungeon as the death watch paced,
Hoped, as the death cap veiled his evil eye,
Hoped, as the noose around his neck was placed,
Hoped, as the chaplain read his final prayer,
Hoped, as he struggled in the viewless air.
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