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I never was on the dull tame shore,
But I lov'd the great Sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest ;
And a mother she was, and is to me;
For I was born on the open Sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the Ocean-child!

I've lived since then, in calm and strife,

Full fifty summers a sailor's life,

With wealth to spend and a power to range,

But never have sought, nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he come to me,

Shall come on the wide unbounded Sea!

A BACCHANALIAN SONG.

Sing! Who sings

To her who weareth a hundred rings?

Ah, who is this lady fine?

The VINE, boys, the VINE!

The mother of mighty Wine.
A roamer is she

O'er wall and tree,

And sometimes very good company.

Drink!-Who drinks

To her who blusheth and never thinks?

Ah! who is this maid of thine?

The GRAPE, boys, the GRAPE!

O, never let her escape

Until she be turned to Wine!

For better is she,

Than vine can be,

And very very good company!

Dream!-who dreams

Of the God that governs a thousand streams ?

Ah, who is this Spirit fine?

'Tis WINE, boys, 'tis WINE!

God Bacchus, a friend of mine.

O better is he

Than grape or tree,

And the best of all good company.

A REPOSE.

She sleeps amongst her pillows soft,
(A dove, now wearied with her flight),
And all around, and all aloft,

Hang flutes and folds of virgin white:
Her hair out-darkens the dark night,
Her glance out-shines the starry sky;
But now her locks are hidden quite,
And closed is her fringed eye!

She sleepeth: wherefore doth she start?
She sigheth; doth she feel no pain?
None, none! the Dream is near her heart;
The Spirit of sleep is in her brain.
He cometh down like golden rain,
Without a wish, without a sound;
He cheers the sleeper (ne'er in vain),
Like May, when earth is winter-bound.

All day within some cave he lies,

Dethroned from his nightly sway,

Far fading when the dawning skies

Our souls with wakening thoughts array.

Two Spirits of might doth man obey;

By each he's wrought, from each he learns:

The one is Lord of life by day;

The other when starry Night returns.

INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN.

Rest! This little Fountain runs
Thus for aye :-It never stays
For the look of summer suns,

Nor the cold of winter days.
Whosoe'er shall wander near,
When the Syrian heat is worst,
Let him hither come, nor fear

Lest he may not slake his thirst: He will find this little river Running still, as bright as ever. Let him drink, and onwards hie, Bearing but in thought, that I, EROTAS, bade the Naiad fall, And thank the great god Pan for all!

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Touch us gently, Time!

We've not proud nor soaring wings:

Our ambition, our content
Lies in simple things.
Humble voyagers are We,

O'er Life's dim unsounded sea,
Seeking only some calm clime :—
Touch us gently, gentle Time!

EBENEZER ELLIOTT.

[Born 17th of March, 1781, at the New Foundry, Masbro', near Rotherham, Yorkshire; wrote in his seventeenth year The Vernal Walk; worked in his father's foundry until 1804; made trials of business in Sheffield, of which the first failed; published his first volume of verse, 1823; Village Patriarch, 1829; Corn Law Rhymer, 1831; retired from business, 1841; died 1st of December, 1849.]

'My feelings have been hammered until they have become coldshort, and are apt to snap and fly off in sarcasms.' The betrayal of sensitiveness, the apology for anger in these words, might lead one to surmise that the writer, Ebenezer Elliott, steel-merchant and poet, was no broad-thewed forger of the weapons of revolution who took to his trade with a will. Had one met him, instead of the 'burly ironmonger' described by an American visitor, one would have seen a man slender and of middle stature, with narrow forehead, bushy eyebrows. under which gleamed the vivid fire of grey-blue eyes, sensitive nostrils, and a mouth apt to express love as much as scorn. It was not the bread-tax that first made him a poet, but the picture of a primrose in Sowerby's English Botany; this sent him to country lanes, the stream-side, and the moor, and he found his friends in the dragon-fly, the kingfisher, the green snake, and the nightingales of Basingthorpe Spring. Sensitiveness was more Elliott's characteristic than strength, and what strength he had was of an ardent, eager kind, less muscular than nervous.

Elliott's imagination was ambitious, and imperfectly trained: he accordingly dealt with large and passionate themes, entering into them with complete abandon; and he was hurried on to passages of genuine inspiration; real heights and depths were within his range; heavenly lights alternate with nether darkness. Few of his longer poems, however, possess imaginative ordonnance; from the sublime he could pass to the turgid; from the pathetic to

the pseudo-romantic; and therefore few of these longer poems can be read with satisfaction in each as a whole. Nothing of worth that Elliott wrote was caught out of the air; each poem had its roots in fact; but the colouring in his earlier pieces is sometimes extravagant: as he matured, his imagination gravitated from the romantic to the real. There are not many figures in English poetry drawn from real life worthier of regard than the Ranter, Elliott's pale preacher of reform on Shirecliffe height, and his Village Patriarch, the blind lone father, with wind-blown venerable hair, still unbowed after his hundred years; though seeming coeval with the cliffs around, still a living and heroic pattern of English manhood. The wild flowers and the free wild streams of Yorkshire never found a more eager and faithful lover than Ebenezer Elliott; but mere sunlight and pure air delight him. The silence or living sounds of the fields or the moor bring healing and refreshment to an ear harassed by the din of machinery; the wide peaceful brightness is a benediction to an eye smarting from blear haze of the myriad-chimneyed city. Animal refreshment rises, by degrees, to gratitude, exaltation, worship.

But from the wilderness his heart full of passionate tenderness drew him back to the troubled walks of men. not be like

His poetry could

'The child

That gathers daisies from the lap of May,

With prattle sweeter than the bloomy wild.'

The indignation of the workers of England against the injustice of their lot found a voice in the Corn Law Rhymer. His anger is that of a sweet nature perforce turned bitter; this strife, he feels, may for ever mar his better self, yet it cannot be abandoned :

'My heart, once soft as woman's tear, is gnarled
With gloating on the ills I cannot cure;'

and still he 'wooes Contention,' for in the end 'her dower is sure.' The sorrows of oppressed toil were sung by Elliott with a sincerity which makes amends for some imaginative crudeness. His pathos is not hard and dry like that of Crabbe; it is not that of a student of human misery, but that of a loving fellow-sufferer. And his ideal of happiness for the working man is simple and refined— some leisure, flowers, a good book, a neat home, a happy wife, and glad innocent children.

EDWARD DOWDEN.

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