It is time for us to close these volumes, to which we cannot even hope to have done justice, and leave them to those graver tribunals that will in due season award their well-weighed decisions. We have taken the Master's hand, and followed Nature through all her paths of life. We have trod with him the shores of old oceans that roll no more, and traced the Providence that orders the creation of to-day engraved in every stony feature of their obsolete organisms. We have broken into that mysterious chamber, the chosen studio of the Infinite Artist, where, beneath its marble or crystalline dome, he fashions the embryo from its formless fluids. And as we turn reluctantly away, the accents we have once already heard linger with us: "In one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love; and Natural History must, in good time, become the analysis of the thoughts of the Creator of the Universe, as manifested in the animal and vegetable kingdoms."
The weather leech of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.
Open one point on the weather bow Is the light-house tall on Fire Island head; There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow, And the pilot watches the heaving lead.
I stand at the wheel and with eager eye To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze, Till the muttered order of "FULL AND BY!" Is suddenly changed to "FULL FOR STAYS!"
The ship bends lower before the breeze, As her broadside fair to the blast she lays; And she swifter springs to the rising seas, As the pilot calls, "STAND BY FOR STAYS!"
It is silence all, as each in his place, With the gathered coils in his hardened hands, By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace, Waiting the watchword impatient stands.
And the light on Fire Island head draws near, As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear, With the welcome call of "READY! ABOUT!"
No time to spare! It is touch and go, And the captain growls, "DOWN HELM! HARD DOWN!" As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw, While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.