'But the God I had cried to answered me
When my destiny darkliest frowned,
And he showed me a reef of rocks in the sea,
Whereunto I clung, and there I found
On a coral jag the goblet of gold,

Which else to the lowermost crypt had rolled.

"And the gloom through measureless toises under Was all as a purple haze;

And though sound was none in these realms of wonder,
I shuddered when under my shrinking gaze
That wilderness lay developed where wander
The dragon and dog-fish and sea-salamander.

"And I saw the huge kraken and magnified snake
And the thornback and ravening shark
Their way through the dismal waters take,

While the hammer-fish wallowed below in the dark,
And the river-horse rose from his lair beneath,
And grinned through the grate of his spiky teeth.

"And there I hung, aghast and dismayed,
Among skeleton larvæ, the only
Soul conscious of life despairing of aid
In that vastness untrodden and lonely.
Not a human voice,

- not an earthly sound, But silence, and water, and monsters around.

"Soon one of these monsters approached me, and plied His hundred feelers to drag

Me down through the darkness; when, springing aside, I abandoned my hold of the coral crag,

And the maelstrom grasped me with arms of strength, And upwhirled and upbore me to daylight at length."

Then spake to the Page the marvelling King, "The golden cup is thine own,

But I promise thee further this jewelled ring That beams with a priceless hyacinth-stone, Shouldst thou dive once more and discover for me The mysteries shrined in the cells of the sea."

Now the King's fair daughter was touched and grieved, And she fell at her father's feet,

"O father, enough what the youth has achieved! Expose not his life anew, I entreat!

If this your heart's longing you cannot well tame,
There are surely knights here who will rival his fame."

But the King hurled downwards the golden cup,
And he spake, as it sank in the wave,
"Now, shouldst thou a second time bring it me up,
As my knight, and the bravest of all my brave,
Thou shalt sit at my nuptial banquet, and she
Who pleads for thee thus thy wedded shall be!"

Then the blood to the youth's hot temples rushes,
And his eyes on the maiden are cast,
And he sees her at first overspread with blushes,
And then growing pale and sinking aghast.
So, vowing to win so glorious a crown,
For Life or for Death he again plunges down.

The far-sounding din returns amain,

And the foam is alive as before,

And all eyes are bent downward. In vain, in vain, -
The billows indeed re-dash and re-roar.

But while ages shall roll and those billows shall thunder,
That youth shall sleep under!

Friedrich Schiller. Tr. J. C. Mangan.

Scylla, the Town.

DESTRUCTION OF SCYLLA IN 1783.

YALMLY the night came down

CALMLY

O'er Scylla's shattered walls;

How desolate that silent town!
How tenantless the halls

Where yesterday her thousands trode,
And princes graced their proud abode !

Low, on the wet sea-sand,
Humbled in anguish now,

The despot, midst his menial band,
Bent down his kingly brow,

Ay, prince and peasant knelt in prayer,
For grief had made them equal there.

Again! as at the morn,

The earthquake rolled its car;
Lowly the castle-towers were borne,
That mocked the storms of war.

The mountain reeled, its shivered brow

Went down among the waves below.

Up rose the kneelers then,

As the wave's rush was heard ;
The silence of those fated men
Was broken by no word.
But closer still the mother pressed
The infant to her faithful breast.

One long wild shriek went up,
Full mighty in despair,

As bowed to drink death's bitter cup
The thousands gathered there;
And man's strong wail and woman's cry
Blent as the waters hurried by.

On swept the whelming sea;

The mountains felt its shock, As the long cry of agony

Thrilled through their towers of rock;

And echo round that fatal shore

The death-wail of the sufferers bore.

The morning sun shed forth

Its light upon the scene,

Where tower and palace strewed the earth
With wrecks of what had been;
But of the thousands who were gone,
No trace was left, no vestige shown.

Anonymous.

Serchio, the River.

THE BOAT.

UR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream,

OUR

Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The helm sways idly hither and thither.

Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast
And the oars and the sails; but 't is sleeping fast,
Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,
And the thin white moon lay withering there;
To tower and cavern and rift and tree
The owl and the bat fled drowsily.
Day had kindled the dewy woods,

And the rocks above and the stream below,
And the vapors in their multitudes,
And the Apennines' shroud of summer snow,
And clothed with light of airy gold
The mists in their castern caves uprolled.

Day had awakened all things that be,
The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,
And the milkmaid's song and mower's scythe,
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee.
Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn;
Glow-worms went out on the river's brim,
Like lamps which a student forgets to trim;