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Excerpt from The Rubi: A Tale of the Sea The Rubi, a Tale of the Sea. The frigate had heedlessly past her by: Her arrowy masts in the evening sky, Where the light of the day was well-nigh gone, Were no marks for the eye to rest upon. A night and a day Have glided away; Helmless and motionless there she lay, Tossed by the surges and dash'd by the spray, A shapeless speck amidst the foam - But that shapeless speck is the Rover's home. III. It is evening and the sun is set, But the track of his glory is beaming yet. Spreading along the horizon's line With a mellow'd radiance of light divine, As the echo of song at the music's close, Or the lingering scent of the wither'd rose. IV. There came a moaning on the water, But it was not a woman's cry. As of a mother or a daughter In the first wild agony Of death's bereavement; nor the broken tone Of childhood wailing for some early grief. The first, perchance, its little heart has known, Falling like eastern showers, as full and brief; Where the next smile, that sparkles in the eye, Bathe's in the tear-drop, ere it passes by. This was no infant's grief, no woman's mourning: But one long murmur, deepening as it rose Above the waters, as the hollow warning Of distant surges ere the tempest blows; The voice of manhood's misery, in his pride Scorning the weakness that he seeks to hide. As if that gentlest passion were his worst; Till, growing by concealment, it has burst Forth from his bosom, and obtained relief In accents more of auger than of grief. V. A dark and melancholy band, Upon their deck the Pirates stand, Gazing with stern revengeful eye Upon the banner'd pall, where lie, Wreathed lightly with its folds of red, The cold limbs of their leader dead. The first, the only, victim he Of that dread frigate's battery, Ere the thick storm-cloud lent i