FANCIES AT NAVESINK

[I] The Pilot in the Mist

Steaming the northern rapids--(an old St. Lawrence reminiscence, A sudden memory-flash comes back, I know not why, Here waiting for the sunrise, gazing from this hill;) Again ’tis just at morning--a heavy haze contends with daybreak, Again the trembling, laboring vessel veers me--I press through foam-dash’d rocks that almost touch me, Again I mark where aft the small thin Indian helmsman Looms in the mist, with brow elate and governing hand.