Oh! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death;

And sights of home, with sighs, disturbed
The sleeper's long-drawn breath.
Instead of the murmur of the sea,
The sailor heard the humming-tree,
Alive through all its leaves;-
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage door,
And the swallow's song in the eaves;-
His arms enclosed a blooming boy,
Who listened, with tears of sorrow and joy,
To the dangers his father had passed;
And his wife-by turns she wept and smiled
As she looked on the father of her child
Returned 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 is there!
Wailings around and overhead-
Brave spirits stupified or dead-
And madness and despair!

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 wave so beautiful;

While a low and melancholy moan,

Mourns for the glory, that hath flown!

XXXV.-GERTRUDE VON DER WART.-Mrs. Hemans.

HER hands were clasped, her dark eyes raised, the breeze threw back

her hair;

Up to the fearful wheel she gazed ;-all that she loved was there!
The night was round her clear and cold, the holy heaven above;
Its pale stars watching to behold the might of earthly love.

"And bid me not depart,” she cried, "my Rudolph, say not so
This is no time to quit thy side; peace-peace! I cannot go
Hath the world aught for me to fear, when death is on thy brow?
The world-what means it ?-mine is here; I will not leave thee now

"I have been with thee in thine hour of glory and of bliss;
Doubt not its memory's living power, to strengthen me
through this;
And thou, mine honoured lord and true, bear on, bear nobly on!
We have the blessed heaven in view whose rest shall soon be won."

And were not these high words to flow from woman's breaking heart?
Through all that night of bitterest woe, she bore her lofty part;
But oh! with such a glazing eye, with such a curdling cheek,
Love, love, of mortal agony, thou, only thou, shouldst speak!

The wind rose high, but with it rose her voice that he might hear:
Perchance that dark hour brought repose to happy bosoms near;
While she sat pining with despair, beside his tortured form,
And pouring her deep soul in prayer, forth on the rushing storm.

Oh! lovely are ye, Love and Faith, enduring to the last!
She had her meed! one smile in death-and his worn spirit passed!
While, even as o'er a martyr's grave, she knelt on that sad spot;
And, weeping, blessed the God who gave strength to forsake it not!

XXXVI.-WILLIAM AND MARGARET.-Mallet.

"TWAS at the silent solemn hour when night and morning meet,
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, and stood at William's feet.
Her face was like an April morn, clad in a wintry cloud;
And clay-cold was her lily hand, that held her sable shroud.
-So shall the fairest face appear, when youth and years are flown;
Such is the robe that kings must wear, when Death has reft their crown
-Her bloom was like the springing flower, that sips the silver dew;
The rose was budded in her cheek, just opening to the view.
But Love had, like the canker-worm, consumed her early prime:
The rose grew pale-then left her cheek-she died before her time!
"Awake!" she cried, "thy true love calls, come from her midnight
grave;

Now let thy pity hear the maid, thy love refused to save.

This is the dumb and dreary hour, when injured ghosts complain;
When yawning graves give up their dead, to haunt the faithless swain.
Bethink thee, William, of thy fault, thy pledge, and broken oath,
And give me back my maiden vow, and give me back my troth.
Why did you promise love to me, and not that promise keep?
Why did you swear my eyes were bright, yet leave those eyes to weep?
How could you say my face was fair, and yet that face forsake?
How could you win my virgin heart, yet leave that heart to break?
Why did you say my lip was sweet, and made the scarlet pale?
And why did I,-young, witless maid, believe the flattering tale?
That face, alas! no more is fair, those lips no longer red;
Dark are my eyes, now closed in death, and every charm is fled.
The hungry worm my sister is; the winding-sheet I wear :
And cold and weary lasts our night, till that last morn appear
-But hark! the dawn has warned me hence; a long and late adieu !
Come, see, false man! how low she lies, who died for love of you!"
The lark sang loud; the morning smiled with beams of rosy red:
Pale William quaked in every limb, and raving left his bed.
He hied him to the fatal place, where Margaret's body lay,

And stretched him on the grass-green turf, that wrapped her breathless clay;

And thrice he called on Margaret's name, and thrice he wept full sore, Then laid his cheek on her cold grave, and word spoke never more!

XXXVII.—THE IDIOT BOY.-Southey.

Ir had pleased Heaven to form poor Ned a thing of idiot-mind;
Yet to the poor unreasoning man, Heaven had not been unkind.
Old Sarah loved her helpless child, whom helplessness made dear;
And life was happiness to him, who had no hope or fear.
She knew his wants, she understood each half-articulate call;
And he was everything to her, and she to him was all.
And so for many a year they dwelt, nor knew a wish beside;
But age at length on Sarah came, and she fell sick and died.
He tried, in vain, to 'waken her; he called her o'er and o'er;
They told him, she was dead;-the sound to him no import bore.
They closed her eyes and shrouded her, and he stood wondering by
And when they bore her to the grave, he followed silently.
They laid her in the narrow house, they sang the funeral stave;
But, when the funeral train dispersed, he loitered by the grave.
The rabble boys, who used to jeer whene'er they saw poor Ned,
Now stood and watched him at the grave, and not a word they said.
They came and went, and came again, till night at last drew on
And still he loitered by the grave, till all the rest were gone.
And when he found himself alone, he swift removed the clay;
And raised the coffin up in haste, and bore it swift away.
And when he reached his hut, he laid the coffin on the floor;
And with the eagerness of joy, he barred the cottage door.
And out he took his mother's corpse, and placed it in a chair;
And then he heaped the hearth, and blew the kindling fire with care;
He placed his mother in her chair, and in her wonted place;
And blew the kindling fire, that shone reflected on her face.
And pausing, now her hand would feel, and now her face behold;
"Why, mother, do you look so pale? and why are you so cold?"
-It had pleased Heaven, from the poor wretch his only friend to call;
But Heaven was kind to him, and soon in death restored him all.

XXXVIII.- CHRISTIAN WARFARE.-Charlotte Elizabeth
SOLDIER, go-but not to claim

Mouldering spoils of earth-born treasure,

Not to build a vaunting name,

Not to dwell in tents of pleasure.

Dream not that the way is smooth,

Hope not that the thorns are roses;

Turn no wishful eye of youth
Where the sunny beam reposes;-
Thou hast sterner work to do,
Hosts to cut thy passage through:
Close behind thee gulfs are burning-
Forward! there is no returning.

Soldier, rest-but not for thee

Spreads the world her downy pillow;
On the rock thy couch must be,

While around thee chafes the billow:

Thine must be a watchful sleep,

Wearier than another's waking;
Such a charge as thou dost keep,
Brooks no moment of forsaking.
Sleep, as on the battle-field,
Girded-grasping sword and shield:
Those thou canst not name nor number,
Steal upon thy broken slumber.
Soldier, rise- the war is done;
Lo! the hosts of hell are flying;
'Twas thy Lord the battle won;

Jesus vanquished them by dying.
Pass the stream-before thee lies
All the conquered land of glory;
Hark, what songs of rapture rise!
These proclaim the victor's story.

Soldier, lay thy weapons down,

Quit the sword, and take the crown;
Triumph all thy foes are banished-
Death is slain-and earth has vanished!

XXXIX.-AN EPICEDIUM.-A. A. Watts.
He left his home with a bounding heart,
For the world was all before him;
And felt it scarce a pain to part-

Such sun-bright beams came o'er him!
He turned him to visions of future years,
The rainbow's hues were round them;
And a father's bodings-a mother's tears-

Might not weigh with the hopes that crowned them. That mother's cheek is far paler now,

Than when she last caressed him;

There's an added gloom on that father's brow,
Since the hour when last he blessed him.
Oh! that all human hopes should prove
Like the flowers that will fade to-morrow;
And the cankering fears of anxious love
Ever end in truth and sorrow!

He left his home with a swelling sail,
Of fame and fortune dreaming,-
With a spirit as free as the vernal gale,
Or the pennon above him streaming.
He hath reached his goal;-by a distant wave,
'Neath a sultry sun, they've laid him ;
And stranger-forms bent o'er his grave,
When the last sad rites were paid him.
He should have died in his own loved land,
With friends and kinsmen near him:
Not have withered thus on a foreign strand,
With no thought, save heaven, to cheer him.

But what recks it now? Is his sleep less sound
In the port where the wild winds swept him,
Than if home's green turf his grave had bound,
Or the hearts he loved had wept him?
Then why repine? Can he feel the rays
That the pestilent sun sheds o'er him?
Or share the grief that may cloud the days
Of the friends who now deplore him?
No:-his bark's at anchor-its sails are furled-
It hath 'scaped the storm's deep chiding;
And safe from the buffeting waves of the world,
In a haven of peace is riding.

XL. THE DYING GLADIATOR.-Byron.

AY! here the buzz of eager nations ran,
In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause,
As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man-
And wherefore slaughtered? Wherefore? but because
Such were the bloody circus' genial laws,
And the imperial pleasure:—wherefore not?—
What matters where we fall, to fill the maws
Of worms, on battle-plain, or listed spot?
Both are but theatres, where the chief actors rot.
I see before me the Gladiator lie;

He leans upon his hand; his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony !-
And his drooped head sinks gradually low;
And, from his side, the last drops, ebbing slow
Through the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower: and now
The arena swims around him-he is gone!-
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost or prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay;
There, were his young barbarians all at play-
There, was their Dacian mother!-he, their sire,
Butchered, to make a Roman holiday!—
All this rushed with his blood! Shall he expire,
And unavenged?-Arise, ye Goths, and glut your

MORN on the waters !-and purple and bright
Burst on the billows the flashing of light;
O'er thy glad waves, like a child of the sun,
See the tall vessel goes gallantly on;
Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail,

ire!

And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the gale.
The winds come around her, and murmur, and song,

And the surges rejoice as they bear her along.