""Tis he-'tis he!" down sank the sun,
And a white mist veiled the moon;
And a low rain-cloud rose up from the sea,
And blackened the blood-red dune:
And, big with swollen storm, the skies
Drooped in a slumbrous swoon!

Then down it flashed: with sleet and snow
The very dark grew pale:

And the plunging billows, bursting, seethed
In the wind and the whistling hail :
And the blown surge hissed in a rushing stream
Of foam, before the gale!

She stood so near-on his cheek, he felt
One touch of a stray-blown tress:
He heard her voice-when lo! O God,
From the wild wave-wilderness,

The boom of a distant minute-gun,
And the flash of a light of distress.

Down--down the bellying tempest swooped,
With death in its blackening womb:
Blinding the flash of the lights of distress,
The white sleet flared thro' the gloom:

And, deadening the sound of the gun, she heard
The thundering breakers boom!

And now, red lights, like beacon fires,
Blaze from the ship's black hull,
Flaring the dread rocks round. O God,
How many a ghastly skull

Of drowned men lies, where they lie now,
On the reef of Innishtrahull?

Anon, in a huge sea-swoop, the ship
Is gulphed in the blown sea-caves:
Anon, high heaved in air, the lamps
Glare on the hollow waves,

That open beneath the sinking ship,
Like yawning bloody graves.

The tumbling seas swoop: the plunging foam bursts,
And the drenched lamps glimmer between.
Father of Life, will they see on shore

The sinking ship's signal sheen?

O God of storm, Thou art God of love:
Ye are seen, pale lights, ye are seen!

"Out with the lifeboat!" rang the shout,
And the stormy winds did blow:
"Out with the lifeboat-steady, my lads:
Down with her: steady, boys--so :
Bend to it, all: together, lads--now :
Hurrah-away we go!"

Anon the boom of the minute-gun

Rang low through the breezes' roar:

And the lifeboat plunged thro' the plunging foam, And a lantern from the shore

Showed Jack at the stern--with his rough, brave hand,

Clutching the strong stroke-oar.

"Steady!" he cried; "head her, my lads,
Where the thundering billows break:
Out, where the red lamps blaze, my boys:
Let the brok'n sea boil in our wake:
And save him, save him, save him, lads,
For Gertrude Marmion's sake!"

And the maiden prayed-" O Father, Thou
Who stillest the raging sea,

Go with them through the deep: O Thou
Father, their pilot be:

And guide them home-and bring, oh, bring
My true love back to me!

"The lights on the ship-look, look!" she cried,

"They are dying, one by one;

No more across the wild storm comes

The boom of the signal-gun:

They have reached the ship-they have reached the ship

Thank God: brave souls, well done!"

Ho! how the foam flew--all around,
Like a dead man's winding sheet:
A cheer a crash--the lifeboat--swift
Thro' the whistling hail and the sleet,
Cleaving the rushing foam, it came,

And plunging, dashed at her feet.

In his arms she lay. "At last, true heart,
We have met for evermore :

"Saved--saved! " she cried; "thank God--ye

are saved:

All saved--all safe--on shore:"

"All saved," he said, "except the braveBrave lad that rowed stroke-oar!

"Brave soul! he saved us all-and when His work of life was done,

We saw him in the foam-light, stand

Beside the signal-gun,

Heaving the red lamps overboard,

Slowly, and one by one.

"We thought him mad: on the deck he stood
Like a giant, chained by a spell,
Heaving the red lamps overboard:
And when the last lamp fell,

'Heave-to,' he cried: thank God, 'tis done : And now she knows all's well!'

"Like a ghost, in the flashing foam, he stood Aloft on the hurricane deck:

But when for the leap of life he rushed,
And we neared the lifeboat back,

The struck ship plunged, and he, brave soul,
Sank with the sinking wreck!"

At daybreak, from the smiling sky,
The stormy clouds had cleared;
And round the dewy headland cliff
A slender shallop sheered:

And Lord Fitzharding rowed the oars,
And Gertrude Marmion steered.

"This is the place," he said--" just here,
Where poor Jack's body dwells: "
And overboard, with many a tear,
Among the weeds and shells,
She drop'd it down into his grave,
A wreath of immortelles.

So past the spring; and when the fields
Were green with summer corn,

She and the noble lord were wed:
And when the next May morn
Gleamed sweetly on the waveless sea,
Her first boy-babe was born.

And the husband stooped, and laid his arms
About his pale wife's neck:

"We'll call our son," he said, 66 to bring

My father's dead name back,

Eustace Fitzharding:" "Nay," she said,
"We'll call his name plain JACK!"

And night by night (the old folks say),
There comes a wild sea-gull,

And sitteth like a great white dove,
Moaning and beautiful,

Above the wreck, and the body of Jack,

On the reef of Innishtrahull.

SAMUEL K. COWAN.

[By kind permission of the author.]

THE RAVEN.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and

weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten loreWhile I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door; ""Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-

Only this, and nothing more."

Ah! distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the

floor.