And his wife, by turns she wept and smiled,
As she look'd on the father of her child
Return'd to her heart at last.

-He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.
Astounded the reeling deck he paces,
Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces;
The whole Ship's crew are there.
Wailings around and overhead,
Brave spirits stupefied or dead,
And madness and despair.

Leave not the wreck, thou cruel Boat,
While yet 'tis thine to save,

And angel-bands will bid thee float
Uninjured o'er the wave,

Though whirlpools yawn across thy way,
And storms, impatient for their prey,
Around thee fiercely rave!

Vain all the prayers of pleading eyes,
Of outcry loud, and humble sighs,
Hands clasp'd, or wildly toss'd on high
To bless or curse in agony !
Despair and resignation vain!

Away like a strong-wing'd bird she flies,
That heeds not human miseries,

And far off in the sunshine dies

Like a wave of the restless main.

Hush! hush! Ye wretches left behind!

Silence becomes the brave, resign'd

To unexpected doom,

How quiet the once noisy crowd!

The sails now serve them for a shroud,

And the sea-cave is their tomb.

And where is that loveliest Being gone?

Hope not that she is saved alone,

Immortal though such beauty seem'd to be.

She, and the Youth that loved her too,

Went down with the ship and her gallant crew-
No favourites hath the sea.

Now is the Ocean's bosom bare,

Unbroken as the floating air;

The Ship hath melted quite away,

Like a struggling dream at break of day.

No image meets my wandering eye

But the new-risen sun, and the sunny sky.

Though the night-shades are gone, yet a vapour dull Bedims the waves so beautiful ;

While a low and melancholy moan
Mourns for the glory that hath flown.'
Oh! that the wild and wailing strain
Were a dream that murmurs in my brain!
What happiness would then be mine,
When my eyes, as they felt the morning shine,
Instead of the unfathom'd Ocean-grave
Should behold Winander's peaceful wave,
And the Isles that love her loving breast,
Each brooding like a Halcyon's nest.
It may not be too well I know
The real doom from fancied woe,
The black and dismal hue.

Yea, many a visage wan and pale
Will hang at midnight o'er my tale,
And weep that it is true.

LIS

SONNET.

THE VOICE OF THE MOUNTAINS.

[From the same.]

IST! while I tell what forms the mountain's voice!
-The storms are up; and from yon sable cloud
Down rush the rains; while 'mid the thunder loud
The viewless eagles in wild screams rejoice.
The echoes answer to the unearthly noise

Of hurling rocks, that, plunged into the Lake,
Send up a sullen groan from clefts and caves,
As of half-murdered wretch, hark! yells awake,
Or red-eyed phrensy as in chains be raves.

These form the mountain's voice; these, heard at night,
Distant from human being's known abode,
To earth some spirits bow in cold affright,
But some they lift to glory and to God.

SONNET.

THE EVENING CLOUD,

[From the same.]

A CLOUD lay cradled need its braided sno

A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow;

Long had I watched the glory moving on
O'er the still radiance of the Lake below,

Tranqil

Tranquil its spirit seem'd, and floated slow!,
Even in its very motion, there was rest:
While every breath of eve that chanced to blow,
Wafted the traveller to the beauteous West.
Emblem, methought, of the departed soul !
To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given;
And by the breath of mercy made to roll
Right onwards to the golden gates of Heaven,
Where, to the eye of Faith, it peaceful lies,
And tells to man his glorious destinies.

NATIONAL VICISSITUDES.

[FROM MRS. BARBAULD'S EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND ELEVEN.]

TH

HERE walks a Spirit o'er the people'd earth,
Secret his progress is, unknown his birth;
Moody and viewless as the changing wind,
No force arrests his foot, no chains can bind;
Where'er he turns, the human, brute awakes,
And, rous'd to better life, his sordid hut forsakes:
He thinks, be reasons, glows with purer fires,
Feels finer wants, and burns with new desires:
Obedient Nature follows where he leads;
The steaming marsh is changed to fruitful meads
The beasts retire from man's asserted reign,
And prove his kingdom was not given in vain.
Then from its bed is drawn the ponderous ore,
Then Commerce pours her gifts on every shore,
Then Babel's towers and terrassed gardens rise,
And pointed obelisks invade the skies;

The prince commands, in Tyrian purple drest,
And Ægypt's virgins weave the linen vest,,
Then spans the graceful arch the roaring tide,
And stricter bounds the cultured fields divide.
Then kindles Fancy, then expands the heart,
Then blow the flowers of Genius and of Art;
Saints, Heroes, Sages, who the land adorn,
Seem rather to descend than to be born;

Whilst History, midst the rolls consigned to fame,
With pen of adamant inscribes their name.

The Genius now forsakes the favoured shore,.
And hates, capricious, what he loved before;
Then empires fall to dust, then arts decay,
And wasted realms enfeebled despots sway;

Even Nature's changed; without his fostering smile
Ophir no gold, no plenty yields the Nile;
The thirsty sand absorbs the useless rill,
And spotted plagues from putrid fens distill.
In desert solitudes then Tadmor sleeps,
Stern Marius then o'er falien Carthage weeps;
Then with enthusiast love the pilgrim roves
To seek bis footsteps in forsaken groves,
Explores the fractured arch, the ruined tower,
Those limbs disjointed of gigantic power;
Still at each step he dreads the adder's sting,
The Arab's javelin, or the tiger's spring;
With doubtful caution treads the echoing ground,
And asks where Troy or Babylon is found.

And now the vagrant Power no more detains
The vale of Tempe, or Ausonian plains;
Northward he throws the animating ray,
O'er Celtic nations bursts the mental day :
And, as some playful child the mirror turns,
Now here now there the moving lustre burns ;
Now o'er his changeful fancy more prevail
Batavia's dykes than Arno's purple vale,
And stinted suns, and rivers bound with frost,
Than Enna's plains or Baia's viny coast;
Venice the Adria ic weds in vain,

And Death sits brooding o'er Campania's plain;
O'er Baltic shores and through Hercynian groves,
Stirring the soul, the mighty impulse moves;
Art plies his tools, and Commerce spreads her sail,
And wealth is wafted in each shifting gale,
The sons of Odin tread on Persian looms,
And Odin's daughters breathe distilled perfumes;
Loud minstrel Bards, in Gothic halls, rehearse
The Runic rhyme, and "build the lofty verse:"
The Muse, whose liquid notes were wont to swell
To the soft breathings of the' Æolian shell,
Submits, reluctant, to the harsher tone,
And scarce believes the altered voice her own.
And now, where Cæsar saw with proud disdain
The wattled hut and skin of azure stain,
Corinthian columns rear their graceful forms,
And light varandas brave the wintry storms,
While British tongues the fading fame prolong
Of Tully's eloquence and Maro's song.
Where once Bonduca whirled the scythed car,
And the fierce matrons raised the shriek of war,
Light forms beneath transparent muslins float,
And tutored voices swell the artful note.

Light-leaved acacias and the shady plane
And spreading cedar grace the woodland reign;
While crystal walls the tenderer plants confine,
The fragrant orange and the nectared pipe;
The Syrian grape there hangs her rich festoons,
Nor asks for purer air, or brighter noons:
Science and Art urge on the useful toil,
New mould a climate and create the soil,
Subdue the rigour of the northern Bear,
O'er polar climes shed aromatic air,
On yielding Nature urge their new demands,
And ask not gifts but tribute at her bands.

London exults :-on London Art bestows
Her summer ices and her winter rose ;
Gems of the East her mural crown adorn,
And Plenty at her feet pours forth her horn;
While even the exiles her just laws disclaim,
People a continent, and build a name :
August she sits, and with extended hands
Holds forth the book of life to distant lands.

ADDRESS TO PARNASSUS.

[FROM LORD BYRON'S CHILDE HAROLD.}

H, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,
Not in the phrenzy of a dreamer's eye,

Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,

But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky

In the wild pomp of mountain majesty !

What marvel if I thus essay to sing?

The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by

Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string,

Though from thy heights no more ene Muse will wave her wing.

Oft have I dream'd of Thee! whose glorious name
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest løre :
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame.
That I in feeblest accents must adore.
When I recount thy worshippers of yore
I tremble, and can only bend the knee;
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy

In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee!

Happier