A lovely path before her lies,
A lovely path behind;

She sails amid the loveliness

Like a thing with heart and mind.

3. Fit pilgrim through a scene so fair,
Slowly she beareth on;

A glorious phantom of the deep,
Risen up to meet the moon.

The moon bids her tenderest radiance fall

On her wavy streamer and snow-white wings,
And the quiet voice of the rocking sea

To cheer the gliding vision sings.

O! ne'er did sky and water blend
In such a holy sleep,

Or bathe in brighter quietude

A roamer of the deep.

HER APPEARANCE AT SUNRISE.

4. But, list! a low and moaning sound
At distance heard, like a spirit's song!
And now it reigns above, around,
As if it called the ship along.

The moon is sunk, and a clouded gray
Declares that her course is run,
And, like a god who brings the day,
Up mounts the glorious sun.

Soon as his light has warmed the seas,

From the parting cloud fresh blows the breeze!
And that is the spirit whose well-known song
Makes the vessel to sail in joy along.

5. No fears hath she! her giant form

O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm,
Majestically calm would go

'Mid the deep darkness white as snow!
But gently now the small waves glide
Like playful lambs o'er a mountain side.
So stately her bearing, so proud her array,

The main she will traverse for ever and aye.

Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast!
Hush, hush, thou vain dreamer! this hour is her last.

SHE STRIKES UPON A ROCK.

6. Five hundred souls in one instant of dread

Are hurried o'er the deck;

And fast the miserable ship
Becomes a lifeless wreck.

Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,
Her planks are torn asunder,

And down come her masts with a reeling shock,
And a hideous crash like thunder.

Her sails are draggled in the brine,
That gladdened late the skies,

And her pennant that kissed the fair moonshine
Down many a fathom lies.

Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow-hues
Gleamed softly from below,

And flung a warm and sunny flush

O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow.
To the coral rocks are hurrying down,
To sleep amid colors as bright as their own.

7. O! many a dream was in the ship
An hour before her death;

And sights of home with sighs disturbed
The sleeper's long-drawn breath.
Instead of the murmur of the sea,
The sailor heard the humming tree,
Alive through all its leaves,

The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage door,

And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arms enclosed a blooming boy,
Who listened with tears of sorrow and joy
To the dangers his father had passed;
And his wife by turns she wept and smiled
As she looked on the father of her child
Returned to her heart at last.

8. He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.
Astounded the reeling deck he paces,
'Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces;
The whole ship's crew are there.
Wailings around and overhead,
Brave spirits stupefied or dead,
And madness and despair.

9. Now is the ocean's bosom bare,
Unbroken as the floating air;
The ship hath melted quite away,
Like a struggling dream at break of day.

No image meets my wandering eye,

But the new-risen sun and the sunny sky.

Though the night-shades are gone, yet a varor dull

Bedims the waves so beautiful;

While a low and melancholy moan

Mourns for the glory that lath flown.

WILSON

Scene

CVII.

Satur

A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP.

- The corner of two principal Streets. The Town Pump talk ing through its nose.]

PART FIRST

1. Noon, by the north clock! Noon, by the east! High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams, which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly we public characters have a tough time of it! And among all the town officers, chosen at March meeting where is he that sustains, for a single year the burden of such man duties as are imposed, in perpetuity, upon the Town Pump? The title of "town treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the to him that pauper, without expense pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of the physicians to the board of health.

2. As a keeper of the peace, all water-drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices, when they are pasted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for, all day long, I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at night I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am and keep people out of the gutters.

3. At this sultry noontide I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dram-seller on the mall, at muster-day, I cry aloud to all and sundry in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice, "Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good liquor! Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of father Adam, better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price; here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves."

ΕΙ

4. It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they come. A hot day, gentlemen! Quaff, and away

again, sc as to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat. You, my friend, will need another cupful, to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cow-hide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day; and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink, and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of mine.

5. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers hitherto; nor, to express the truth, will my nose be be a

anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of you

ittle less potent. Mercy on you, man! the water hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-by; and, whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply at the old stand.

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6. Who next? O, my little friend, you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the fer'ule, and other school-boy troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the stones that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them.

7. What! he limps by without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir! no harm done, I hope! Go draw the cork, tip the decanter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout?

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8. Are you all satisfied? Then wipe your mouths, my good friends; and, while my spout has a moment's, leisure, I will delight the town with a few historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring

bubbled out of the leaf-strewn earth, in the very spot where you now behold me on the sunny pavement. The water was as bright and clear, and deemed as precious, as liquid diamonds, The Indian sag'amore drank of it from time immemorial, till the fearful deluge of fire-water burst upon the red men, and swept their whole race away from the cold fountains. Endicott and his followers came next, and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. The richest goblet then was of birch bark.

9. Governor Winthrop drank here out of the hollow of his hand. The elder Higginson here wet his palm, and laid it on the brow of the first town-born child. For many years it was the watering-place, and, as it were, the wash-bowl of the vicinity, whither all decent folks resorted, to purify their visages and gaze at them afterwards—at least, the pretty maidens did in the mirror which it made. On Sabbath days, whenever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here, and placed it on the communion-table of the humble meeting-house which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus one generation after another was consecrated to heaven by its waters, and cast its waxing and waning shadows into its glassy bosom, and from the earth as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. Finally the fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all sides, and cart-loads of gravel flung upon its source, whence bozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle at the corner of two streets.

10. In the hot months, when its refreshment was most needed, ne dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now their grave. But, in the course of time, a Town Pump was sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place, and then another, and still another, till here stand I, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet. Drink, and be refreshed! The water is pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red sagamore beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls but from the brick buildings. And be it the moral of my story, that, as the wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water, too little valued since your fathers' days, be recognized by all.

11. Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my stream of eloquence, and spout forth a stream of water, to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle! Look! how