A Simile

His frail bark on a stormy ocean tost,
     Amid the wilderness of waves benighted,
     And with the howl of the mad surge affrighted,
His rudder broken and his compass lost,
     While hard at hand the perilous coast uplifts
Its frowning front, how turns the sailor’s eye,
     Star of the North! to thee—as through the rifts
Of the torn clouds thou tremblest in the sky—
A hope, a promise, of deliverance nigh!
     So torn by fears and tossed on Doubt’s dark sea,
Perplexed, distressed, despairing, doomed to die,
     Dawned on my aching vision, radiantly,
The star of Bethlehem!—and fear, doubt, despair,
Fled from my soul as beamed that brightness there!