LINES WRITTEN AT SEA.

BY THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE.

How beautiful the many tints that dye
Old ocean's face, with sweet variety!
Sometimes the billows roll in brightest blue;
Sometimes they wear an amethystine hue,
That turns to indigo, and fades away,

By soft gradations, into leaden gray;

Now they are green, as meads refresh'd with showers, Now russet, as the lawn in summer's sultry hours.

Nor marvel that with curious eye we note
Whatever objects past our vessel float;
Though insignificant and common things,
They're food for fancy's fond imaginings.

Yonder an ample bough of sea-weed heaves,
Now seen, now hidden, with brown jagged leaves:
Perhaps it grew far far beneath the brine,
Where never reach'd the many-fathom'd line,
Where, all unconscious of the tempest's shock,
Stands, like an aged tree, its parent stock,

Beneath whose branches roseate shells are laid,
As flowerets blossom in the green-wood shade.

And pleasant 'tis to mark the joyous play
Of the white birds that haunt the billowy way:
Together clustering, see, they calmly sleep,
Like snowy waterlilies of the deep :

Their pinions flutter now,—a short shrill cry

Is heard, glad creatures !—and aloft they fly,

Like fragments of the foam the winds have caught on high.

"A sail, a sail!" and, scudding 'fore the blast, Behold, a giant ship approaches fast;

Majestic o'er the enridged wave she springs,
Eve's yellow light upon her canvass wings :
She is of Britain, and her course is bent
To Hindostan's odorous continent.

Well may you speed, fair vessel! for you hold
A cargo richer than all Asia's gold;

Your freight is youth, and hope, and courage high,
And feelings yet in their first purity:

But few perhaps of all your stripling train,
Whom fortune beckons to the eastern plain,
Except in dreams, shall see their homes again.

The sun is setting, while an host of clouds, In close-embattled ranks, his glory shrouds :

Yet, where he sinks into his western bed,
We may discern a gleam of dusky red
Shoot o'er the trembling wave, as if a flame
From some far-off volcanic island came :

Till by degrees the lingering radiance fails,

And night her banner spreads to the fresh-blowing gales.

What yonder shines, with orb too broad to be
A fellow of the starry company,

Just o'er the horizon? 'Tis the beacon light,
By science planted on its rocky height :

When wintry winds howl through the moonless skies,
In vain the waves, that mountain-like arise,
Smite the transparent casket, where that gem
Is shrin'd,—a still-revolving diadem

Of earthly fire, whose splendour streams afar,
While seamen bless their artificial star.

THE STUDENT OF PADUA.

"THE stars shine not on our love, Julian," said the maiden, gazing upward, as a light fleecy cloud sailed slowly along the sky. Oh that thy reluctance, Marcella, might pass like that mist," exclaimed the lover, pointing to the already fleeting shadow; "but, alas! you love me not!" "Because I counsel pru dence," returned the damsel pettishly. Oh, Marcella!" cried Julian with enthusiasm, "when did love ever counsel prudence? Were our hearts, our hopes the same!-it is not so that averted face, thy hand unmoved and passionless in mine, all, all forbid the thought!" "It grows late," said the maiden, evading other reply; "my father will observe my absence: good night, Julian!" The lover spoke not he did not even impress a silent kiss on her passive hand, but relinquished it with a sigh of despondence, almost of despair.

Yet seldom has lover like Julian Zuccaro wooed in vain. In the prime of youth and manly beauty, of ancient family and unblemished fame, what more

could maiden desire? The desires of maidens are, however, proverbially capricious. It was not that Marcella was unsusceptible of love: none that ever looked on her expressive and even impassioned countenance could believe that it was the index of a frigid heart nor was it that she was insensible to the merit of her lover; for his merits had been his first, his only recommendation to her favour. The praises of the learned and illustrious of Padua had penetrated even the halls of the Count Gerbini, closed as they were to all save to the rich and noble; exciting in his fair daughter a desire to know the young student who had won such golden opinions. By the venial indulgence of a mercenary and unprincipled gouvernante, to whose charge the Count had committed his only child, this wish was accomplished; and, however equivocal its effect on Marcella, the heart of Julian yielded at once to the power of her charms. It were vain to inquire into the motives that induced the maiden to grant stolen assignations in the palace gardens to the enamoured youth, which served only to rivet his chains, without advancing him one step in her affections. Certain it is that each succeeding interview seemed but to weaken the impression which a noble exterior and an eloquent address had originally created; and Julian could no longer conceal from himself that the love of Marcella was not to be won by a student. Disdaining, even in her own