But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear Ah, love! let us be true To one another for the world, which seems So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy nor love nor light, Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, I Matthew Arnold. CHILD AND SHELL. HAVE seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of inland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell; To which, in silence hushed, his very soul Listened intensely, and his countenance soon Brightened with joy for from within were heard Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed Mysterious union with its native sea. : Even such a shell the universe itself Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times, Authentic tidings of invisible things, THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power, 115 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. HIS is the ship of pearl which, poets feign, TH Sails the unshadowed main,— The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl,— Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed. Year after year beheld the silent toil Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea! Cast from her lap forlorn, From thy dead lips a clearer note is born While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! O. W. Holmes. A SEA SHELL. A SEA SHELL. EE what a lovely shell, SEE Small and pure as a pearl, Lying close to my foot, Frail, but a work divine, Made so fairily well With delicate spire and whorl, How exquisitely minute, A miracle of design! What is it? a learned man Could give it a clumsy name. The tiny cell is forlorn, Void of the little living will The three decker's oaken spine 117 Tennyson. Q A FISHING-TOWN. UAINT clusters of gray houses crowding down Rings the hoarse fisher's shout. There nearing sails Anon. SUMMER-CHEMISTRY. WHAT does it take A day to make, A day at the Bear Camp Ossipee? White clouds a-sail in the shining blue, A mist to soften the shaggy side Of the great green hill, till it lies as dim As the hills in a childhood memory; |