Ah! what is that sound which now bursts on his ear?

'Tis the lightning's red gleam, painting hell on the sky!

'Tis the crashing of thunders, the groan of the sphere!

He springs from his hammock,-he flies to the deck;
Amazement confronts him with images dire;
Wild winds and mad waves drive the vessel a wreck ;
The masts fly in splinters; the shrouds are on fire.

Like mountains the billows tremendously swell;
In vain the lost wretch calls on Mercy to save;
Unseen hands of spirits are ringing his knell;
And the death-angel flaps his broad wing o'er the
wave!

O sailor boy, woe to thy dream of delight!

In darkness dissolves the gay frost-work of bliss; Where now is the picture that Fancy touched bright,— Thy parents' fond pressure, and love's honeyed kiss?

told,

Far down, and shining through their stillness, lies! Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,

Won from ten thousand royal aigosies. Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main ! Earth claims not these again!

Yet more, the depths have more! Thy waves have rolled

Above the cities of a world gone by! Sand hath filled up the palaces of old,

Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry! Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play, Man yields them to decay

Yet more! the billows and the depths have more!
High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast ›
They hear not now the booming waters roar-
The battle thunders will not break their rest.
Keep thy red gold and gems thou stormy grave!

Give back the true and brave !

Give back the lost and lovely! Those for whom The place was kept at board and hearth so long

The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,
And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song!
Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown—
But all is not thine own!

To thee the love of woman hath gone down;

Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head, O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery crown ! Yet must thou hear a voice-" Restore the dead! Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee!— Restore the dead, thou Sea!"

R

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS.

TO CERTAIN GOLDEN FISHES.

ESTLESS forms of living light,

Quivering on your lucid wings,
Cheating still the curious sight

With a thousand shadowings;
Various as the tints of even,
Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,
Reflected on your native streams
In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams.
Harmless warriors clad in mail
Of silver breastplate, golden scale;
Mail of nature's own bestowing,
With peaceful radiance mildly glowing
Keener than the Tartar's arrow,
Sport ye in your sea so narrow.
Was the sun himself your sire?
Were ye born of vital fire?

Or of the shade of golden flowers,
Such as we fetch from eastern bowers
To mock this murky clime of ours?
Upwards, downwards, now ye glance,
Weaving many a mazy dance;
Seeming still to grow in size,
When ye would elude our eyes.
Pretty creatures! we might deem
Ye were happy as ye seem,

As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe,
As light, as loving, and as lithe,
As gladly earnest in your play,
As when ye gleamed in fair Cathay;
And yet, since on this hapless earth
There's small sincerity in mirth,
And laughter oft is but an art
To drown the outcry of the heart,
It may be, that your ceaseless gambols,
Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles,
Your restless roving round and round
The circuit of your crystal bound,

Is but the task of weary pain,
An endless labor, dull and vain;
And while your forms are gaily shining,
Your little lives are inly pining!
Nay-but still I fain would dream
That ye are happy as ye seem.

HARTLEY Coleridge.

OUR BOAT TO THE WAVES.

UR boat to the waves go free,

By the bending tide, where the curled wave breaks,

Like the track of the wind on the white snow-flakes:

Away, away! 'Tis a path o'er the sea.

Blasts may rave,-spread the sail,

For our spirits can wrest the power from the wind, And the gray clouds yield to the sunny mind, Fear not we the whirl of the gale.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

THE SEA.

'HE sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round; It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be ;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence whereso'er I go ;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh how I love to ride

On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest ;
And a mother she was, and is, to me ;
For I was born on the open sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean child;

I've lived since then, in calm and strife,

Full fifty summers, a sailor's life,
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
And Death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!

BRYAN W. PROCTER. (Barry Cornwall.)

THE LIGHT-HOUSE.

'HE scene was more beautiful far to the eye,
Than if day in its pride had arrayed it :

The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure-
arched sky

Looked pure as the spirit that made it :
The murmur rose soft, as I silently gazed

On the shadowy waves' playful motion,
From the dim distant hill, 'till the light-house blazed
Like a star in the midst of the ocean.

No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast
Was heard in his wildly-breathed numbers;
The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest,
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers:

One moment I looked from the hill's gentle slope,
All hushed was the billows' commotion,

And o'er them the light-house looked lovely as hope—
That star of life's tremulous ocean.

The time is long past, and the scene is afar,
Yet when my head rests on its pillow,
Will memory sometimes rekindle the star,
That blazed on the breast of the billow:

In life's closing hour, when the trembling soul fies,
And death stills the heart's last emotion;
Oh, then may the seraph of mercy arise,
Like a star on eternity's ocean!

THOMAS MOORE.

A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA.

a

WET sheet and a flowing sea,

A wind that follows fast,

And fills the white and rustling sail,

And bends the gallant mast;

And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,

Away the good ship flies, and leaves

Old England on the lee.

Oh, for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze,

And white waves heaving high;

And white waves heaving high, my boys,
The good ship tight and free-
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon hornèd moon,
And lightning in yon cloud :
And hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud:
The wind is piping loud, my boys,

The lightning flashing free-
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

REAT Ocean! strongest of creation's sons,
Unconquerable, unreposed, untired,
That rolled the wild, profound, eternal bass
In nature's anthem, and made music such.
As pleased the ear of God! original,
Unmarred, unfaded work of Deity!
And unburlesqued by mortal's puny skill;
From age to age enduring, and unchanged,
Majestical, inimitable, vast,

Loud uttering satire, day and night, on each
Succeeding race, and little pompous work
Of man; unfallen, religious, holy sea!

Thou bowedst thy glorious head to none, fearedst

none,

Heardst none, to none didst honor, but to God

Thy Maker, only worthy to receive

Thy great obeisance.

ROBERT POLLOK.