THE PILGRIM FATHERS. BY JOHN PIERPOINT. THE pilgrim fathers-where are they? Still roll in the bay, as they rolled that day, When the sea around was black with storms, The mists that wrapped the pilgrim's sleep, And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep, But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the gale, The pilgrim exile-sainted name!— Rejoiced, when he came, in the morning's flame, And the moon's cold light, as it lay that night On the hill-side and the sea, Still lies where he laid his houseless head ;- The pilgrim fathers are at rest: When Summer's throned on high, And the world's warm breast is in verdure dressed, Go stand on the hill where they lie. THE PILGRIM FATHERS. The earliest ray of the golden day And the evening sun, as he leaves the world, The pilgrim spirit has not fled : It walks in noon's broad light; And it watches the bed of the glorious dead, It watches the bed of the brave who have bled, And shall guard this ice-bound shore, 205 Till the waves of the bay, where the May-flower lay, Shall foam and freeze no more. STANZAS ON THE LOSS OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP SALDANAH. LYRE. BY THOMAS SHERIDAN. "BRITANNIA rules the waves !" No voice of life was there! T 206 ON THE LOSS OF THE SALDANAH. "Rule, Britannia," sung the crew, Ne'er had failed. Bright rose the laughing morn, 'Mid the gloom. From the lonely beacon's height, But no mortal power shall now And the track beneath her prow There are spirits of the deep, ON THE LOSS OF THE SALDANAH. High the eddying mists are whirled, O'er Swilly's rocks they soar, The Saldanah floats no more O'er the deep! The dread behest is past !-- As sank her towering mast Beneath the wave. "Britannia rules the waves"- Scars the sands with countless graves 207 A SKETCH FROM REAL LIFE. BY ALARIC A. WATTS. I SAW her in her morn of hope, in life's delicious spring, A radiant creature of the earth, just bursting on the wing; Elate and joyous as the lark, when first it soars on high, Without a shadow in its path,-a cloud upon its sky. I see her yet so fancy deems-her soft, unbraided hair, Gleaming, like sunlight upon snow, above her forehead fair; Her large dark eyes, of changing light, the willing smile that played, In dimpling sweetness, round a mouth Expression's self had made! And light alike of heart and step, she bounded on her way, Nor dreamed the flowers that round her bloomed would ever know decay ; She had no winter in her note, but evermore would sing (What darker season had she proved?) of spring-of only spring! Alas, alas! that hopes like hers, so gentle and so bright, The growth of many a happy year, one wayward hour should blight ; |