And e'en the form we loved to see,
We canna lang, dear though it be,
Preserve it as a token.

But Mary had a gentle heart,
Heaven did as gently free her;
Yet lang afore she reached that part,
Dear sir, it wad ha'e made ye start
Had ye been there to see her.

Sae changed, and yet sae sweet and fair,
And growing meek and meeker,
Wi' her lang locks o' yellow hair,
She wore a little angel's air,
Ere angels cam' to seek her.

And when she couldna stray out by,
The wee wild flowers to gather,
She oft her household plays wad try,
To hide her illness frae our eye,
Lest she should grieve us farther.

But ilka thing we said or did
Aye pleased the sweet wee creature;
Indeed, ye wad ha'e thought she had
A something in her made her glad
Ayont the course o' nature.

But death's cauld hour cam' on at last,
As it to a' is comin';

And may it be, whene'er it fa's,
Nae waur to others than it was
To Mary, sweet wee woman!

SAMUEL FERGUSON.

THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 't is at a white heat now: The bellows ceased, the flames decreased, though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound;

And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round, All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare; Some rest upon their sledges here, some

work the windlass there.

The windlass strains the tackle-chains,

the black mound heaves below; And, red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at every throe:

It rises, roars, rends all outright, Vulcan, what a glow!

-0

"T is blinding white, 't is blasting bright; the high sun shines not so!

The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery, fearful show,

The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy, lurid row

Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe;

As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow Sinks on the anvil, all about the faces fiery grow,

"Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out, leap out"; bang, bang, the sledges go: Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low;

A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow;

The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders strew

The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant "Ho!"

Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load!

Let's forge a goodly anchor; a bower, thick and broad:

For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,

And I see the good ship riding all in a perilous road;

The low reef roaring on her lea; the roll of ocean poured

From stem, to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board;

The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains; courage still, brave mariners, the bower yet remains,

But And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high, Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing, - here am I!"

Swing in your strokes in order; let foot and hand keep time,

Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime: But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be, The Anchor is the Anvil King, and royal craftsmen we!

171

Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array

For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here, For the yeo-heave-ho, and the heave-away, and the sighing seamen's cheer, When, weighing slow, at eve they go far, far from love and home, And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.

In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last;

A shapely one he is, and strong as e'er from cat was cast.

O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me,

What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea!

O deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?

The hoary monsters' palaces! methinks what joy 't were now To go plumb plunging down amid the

assembly of the whales,

And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails!

1 Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea unicorn,

And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn;

To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn ;

And for the ghastly-grinning

shark to

laugh his jaws to scorn; To leap down on the kraken's back, where

mid Norwegian isles

He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles,

Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls;

Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far

astonished shoals

Of his back-browsing ocean calves; or, haply in a cove,

Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love,

To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands,

To wrestle with the sea-serpent upon cerulean sands.

The

sports can equal thine? Dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable line;

And night by night 't is thy delight, thy glory day by day,

Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play;

But,

A

shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave,

fisher's joy is to destroy, thine office is

to save.

O lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst thou but understand

Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping band, Slow swaying in the heaving waves that round about thee bend,

With sounds like breakers in a dream blessing their ancient friend : O, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee, Thine iron side would swell with pride; thou 'dst leap within the sea! Give honor to their memories who left the pleasant strand

To shed their blood so freely for the love of fatherland,

Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave So freely for a restless bed amid the tossing wave;

O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung,

Honor him for their memory, whose bones he goes among!

FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER PROUT).

[1805-1865.]

THE BELLS OF SHANDON.

WITH deep affection
And recollection,

I often think of

The Shandon bells,

Whose sounds so wild would
In days of childhood
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder,
Where'er I wander,

As if, whate'er the spirit's key,
It strengthened in that solemn air.

The heart soon grows to mournful things;
And Italy has not a breeze
But comes on melancholy wings;
And even her majestic trees
Stand ghostlike in the Cæsars' home,
As if their conscious roots were set
In the old graves of giant Rome,

And drew their sap all kingly yet!
And every stone your feet beneath

Is broken from some mighty thought; And sculptures in the dust still breathe The fire with which their lines were wrought;

And sundered arch, and plundered tomb, Still thunder back the echo, "Rome."

Yet gayly o'er Egeria's fount

The ivy flings its emerald veil, And flowers grow fair on Numa's mount, And light-sprung arches span the dale; And soft, from Caracalla's baths,

The herdsman's song comes down the breeze,

While climb his goats the giddy paths To grass-grown architraves and frieze; And gracefully Albano's hill

Curves into the horizon's line, And sweetly sings that classic rill,

And fairly stands that nameless shrine; And here, O, many a sultry noon

And starry eve, that happy June,
Came Angelo and Melanie!
And earth for us was all in tune,-
For while Love talked with them,
Hope walked apart with me.

173

"Tell my mother that her other son shall comfort her old age;

For I was still a truant bird, that thought his home a cage.

For my father was a soldier, and even as a child

My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild;

And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard,

I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's sword;

And with boyish love I hung it where the
bright light used to shine,
On the cottage wall at Bingen,
Bingen on the Rhine.

- calm

"Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping head,

When troops come marching home again with glad and gallant tread, But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast eye,

For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die;

And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my name

To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame,