And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save;
And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.

Through the night, through the night,

Where the sea lifts the wreck, Land in sight, close in sight,

On the surf-flooded deck Stands the father so brave, Driving on to his grave Through the night!

RICHARD HENRY STODDAED.

XIV.

It might be months, or years, or days—
I kept no count, I took no note—
I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote;
At last came men to set me free,

I asked not why, and recked not where; It was at length the same to me, Fettered or fetterless to be;

I learned to love despair.

And thus, when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a sacred home.
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watched them in their sullen trade;
Had seen the mice by moonlight play—
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill; yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learned to dwell.
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:-even I
Regained my freedom with a sigh.

THE SEA.

LORD BYRON.

THROUGH the night, through the night,
In the saddest unrest,
Wrapt in white, all in white,

With her babe on her breast,
Walks the mother so pale,
Staring out on the gale

Through the night!

THE KING OF DENMARK'S RIDE.

WORD was brought to the Danish king (Hurry!)

That the love of his heart lay suffering, And pined for the comfort his voice would bring;

(O! ride as though you were flying!) Better he loves each golden curl On the brow of that Scandinavian girl Than his rich crown jewels of ruby and pearl:

And his Rose of the Isles is dying!

Thirty nobles saddled with speed;

(Hurry!)

Each one mounting a gallant steed
Which he kept for battle and days of need;

(O! ride as though you were flying!) Spurs were struck in the foaming flank; Worn-out chargers staggered and sank; Bridles were slackened, and girths were bursts; But ride as they would, the king rode first, For his Rose of the Isles lay dying!

His nobles are beaten, one by one;

(Hurry!)

They have fainted, and faltered, and homeward gone;

His little fair page now follows alone,

For strength and for courage trying! The king looked back at that faithful child; Wan was the face that answering smiled; They passed the drawbridge with clattering din,

Then he dropped; and only the king rode in Where his Rose of the Isles lay dying!

The king blew a blast on his bugle horn;
(Silence!)

No answer came; but faint and forlorn
An echo returned on the cold grey morn,

481

She shuddered and paused like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,

And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring; O say, what may it be?"

"'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!" And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns; O say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light;

O say, what may it be?"

But the father answered never a word

A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,

With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming

snow

On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed

That saved she might be;

And she thought of Christ, who stilled the

wave

On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,

Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept

Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever, the fitful gusts between,

A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows;
She drifted a dreary wreck;

And a whooping billow swept the crew,
Like icicles, from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;

But the cruel rocks they gored her side

Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,

With the mast went by the board; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank— Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,

To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow;
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

THE MARINER'S DREAM.

IN slumbers of midnight the sailor boy lay; His hammock swung loose at the sport of the wind;

But watch-worn and weary, his cares flew away,

And visions of happiness danced o'er his mind.

He dreamt of his home, of his dear native bowers,

And pleasures that waited on life's merry

morn;

While memory stood sideways half covered with flowers,

And restored every rose, but secreted its thorn.

Then Fancy her magical pinions spread wide, And bade the young dreamer in ecstasy

rise;

Now far, far behind him the green waters glide,

And the cot of his forefathers blesses his eyes.

The jessamine clambers in flowers o'er the thatch,

And the swallow chirps sweet from her

nest in the wall;

All trembling with transport, he raises the latch,

And the voices of loved ones reply to his call.

A father bends o'er him with looks of delight;

His cheek is impearled with a mother's warm

tear;

And the lips of the boy in a love-kiss unite With the lips of the maid whom his bosom holds dear.

The heart of the sleeper beats high in his breast;

Joy quickens his pulses his hardships seem

o'er;