A sea all haven, whereupon
No hapless bark to wreck hath gone.

The winds that o'er my ocean run
Reach through all heavens beyond the sun;
Through life and death, through fate, through time,
Grand breaths of God, they sweep sublime.

Eternal trades, they cannot veer,
And, blowing, teach us how to steer;
And well for him whose joy, whose care,
Is but to keep before them fair.

Oh, thou God's mariner, heart of mine,
Spread canvas to the airs divine!
Spread sail! and let thy Fortune be
Forgotten in thy Destiny!

For Destiny pursues us well,
By sea, by land, through heaven or hell;
It suffers Death alone to die,
Bids Life all change and chance defy.

Would earth's dark ocean suck thee down?
Earth's ocean thou, O Life, shalt drown,
Shalt flood it with thy finer wave,
And, sepulchred, entomb thy grave!

Life loveth life and good: then trust
What most the spirit would, it must;
Deep wishes, in the heart that be,
Are blossoms of Necessity.

A thread of Law runs through thy prayer,
Stronger than iron cables are;
And Love and Longing toward her goal
Are pilots sweet to guide the Soul.

So Life must live, and Soul must sail,
And Unseen over Seen prevail,
And all God's argosies come to shore,
Let ocean smile, or rage and roar.

And so, 'mid storm or calm, my bark
With snowy wake still nears her mark;
Cheerly the trades of being blow,
And sweeping down the wind I go.

PERCIVAL.

Among my letters is one from Dr. E.D. North, desiring me to furnish any
facts within my reach, relating to the scientific character and general
opinions of the late James G. Percival. This information Dr. North
proposed to incorporate into a memoir, to be prefixed to a new edition
of Percival's Poems. The biographer, with his task unfinished, has
followed the subject of his studies to the tomb.

Dr. North's request revived in me many recollections of Percival; and
finally led me to draw out the following sketch of him, as he appeared
to my eyes in those days when I saw him often, and sometimes shared his
pursuits. Vague and shadowy is the delineation, and to myself seems
little better than the reminiscence of a phantom or a dream. Percival's
life had few externalities,--he related himself to society by few points
of contact; and I have been compelled to paint him chiefly by glimpses
of his literary and interior existence.

My acquaintance with him g