A book of English poetry; ed. by T. Shorter

The human soul is like a barge

Afloat on Slumber's mystic ocean,
That drifts into the heavenly marge,
And sways to Life's enchanted motion.

The human soul is like the tongue
That tells in sleep Life's hidden story,
But wakes to hear its music sung
By listening seraphs in their glory.

HARRIS.

The Phantom Ship.

THE breeze had sunk to rest, the noonday-sun was high,
And Ocean's breath lay motionless beneath a cloudless sky.
There was silence in the air, there was silence in the deep;
And it seem'd as though the burning calm were Nature's final
sleep.

The mid-day watch was set, beneath the blaze of light, When there came a cry from the tall mast-head, “A sail! a sail, in sight!

And o'er the fair horizon, a snowy speck appear'd,

And every eye was strain'd to watch the vessel as she near'd.

There was no breath of air, yet she bounded on her way, And the dancing waves around her prow were flashing into spray.

She answer'd not their hail, alongside as she pass'd:

There were none who trod her spacious deck; not a seaman on the mast;

No hand to guide her helm; yet on she held her course,
She swept along that waveless sea, as with a tempest's force :
A silence as of death was o'er that vessel spread:

She seem'd a thing of another world, the world where dwell the dead.

She pass'd away from sight, the deadly calm was o'er,

And the spell-bound ship pursued her course before the breeze

once more;

And clouds across the sky obscured the noonday sun,

And the winds arose at the tempest's call before the day was done.

Midnight-and still the storm raged wrathfully and loud, And deep in the trough of the heaving sea, labour'd that vessel proud;

There was darkness all around, save where lightning flashes keen Play'd on the crests of the broken waves, and lit the depths between.

Around her and below, the waste of waters roar'd,

And answer'd the crash of the falling masts as they cast them overboard,

At every billow's shock, her quivering timbers strain;

And as she rose on a crested wave, that strange ship pass'd again.

And o'er that stormy sea she flew before the gale,

Yet she had not struck her lightest spar, nor furl'd her loftiest sail.

Another blinding flash, and nearer yet she seem'd,

And a pale blue light along her sails and o'er her rigging gleam'd.

But it show'd no seaman's form, no hand her course to guide;
And to their signals of distress, the waves alone replied.
The Phantom Ship pass'd on, driven o'er her pathless way,
But helplessly the sinking wreck amid the breakers lay.

The angry tempest ceased, the winds were hush'd to sleep,
And calm and bright the sun again shone out upon the deep.
But that gallant ship no more shall roam the ocean free;
She has reach'd her final haven, beneath the dark blue sea.

And many a hardy seaman, who fears nor storm nor fight,
Yet trembles when the Phantom Ship drives past his watch at

night;

For it augurs death and danger: it bodes a watery grave,
With sea-weeds for his pillow-for his shroud, the wandering

wave.

A. G. GREENE.

Song of a Persian Maid.

THERE's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream,
And the nightingale sings round it all the day long,
In the time of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream,
To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song.

That bower and its music, I never forget,
But oft when alone in the bloom of the year,
I think is the nightingale singing there yet?
Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer.
No, the roses soon wither'd that hung o'er the wave,
But some blossoms were gather'd, while freshly they
shone,

And a dew was distill'd from their flowers, that gave
All the fragrance of summer, when summer was gone.
Thus Memory draws from delight, ere it dies,

An essence that breathes of it many a year;

Thus bright to my soul as 'twas then to my eyes,

Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer!

MOORE.

The Cottage.-An Admonition.

YES, there is holy pleasure in thine eye!
-The lovely cottage in the guardian nook

Hath stirr'd thee deeply; with its own dear brook,
Its own small pasture, almost its own sky!

But covet not the abode-O do not sigh

As many do, repining while they look ;

Intruders who would tear from Nature's book

This precious leaf with harsh impiety:

-Think what the home would be if it were thine,

Even thine, though few thy wants !-Roof, window, door, The very flowers are sacred to the Poor,

The roses to the porch which they entwine:

Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day
On which it should be touch'd would melt away!

WORDSWORTH.

Ariel's Song.-A Sex Dirge.

FULL fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Hark! now I hear them-ding-dong bell.

SHAKESPEARE.

Thought.

THOUGHT shines from God as shines the morn;
Language from kindling thought is born;
The radiant zones of space and time
Unroll from out that speech sublime ;
Creation is the picture word,

The hieroglyph of Wisdom's Lord;
Edens on blissful Edens rise

To shape the Epic of the skies;

Heaven is the grand full-spoken thought
Of Him by whom the worlds were wrought;
He, throned within the world above,

Inspires that heaven, that thought, with love.

Finis.

THE book is completed,

And closed like the day;

And the hand that has written it

Lays it away.

Dim grow its fancies;

Forgotten they lie;
Like coals in the ashes,
They darken and die.

Song sinks into silence,
The story is told;