Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,
Her planks are torn asunder,
And down comes her mast with reeling shock,
And a hideous crash, like thunder.
Her sails are draggled in the brine,
That gladdened late the skies,
And her pendant, 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 colours as bright as their own.
Oh! 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.
-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.
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 vapour dull
Bedims the waves so beautiful:
While a low and melancholy moan
Mourns for the glory that hath flown.
LATE Bishop of Calcutta, was born in Cheshire A.D. 1783. He was educated at Oxford, where he first became distinguished as a poet, by his beautiful prizepoem of Palestine. He obtained a fellowship at Oxford, which he resigned when presented to the family-living of Hodnet. Rarely was a pastor more beloved by his parishioners; never was there one who better merited their affections. His departure from Hodnet, when promoted to the bishopric of Calcutta, was marked by a sincerity of sorrow that reflects lustre both on Heber and his flock. The labours of his episcopal station proved too heavy for Heber's weak constitution: he died suddenly at Tritchinopoli, A.D. 1826.
Heber is truly a Christian poet. A pure spirit of affectionate piety pervades all his verses, and gives them a charm more delightful than any merely poetic powers could bestow.
REFT of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn,
Mourn, widowed queen! forgotten Sion, mourn!
Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne,
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone?
While suns unblessed their angry lustre fling,
And way-worn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy viewed?
Where now thy might, which all those kings subdued?
No martial myriads muster in thy gate;
No suppliant nations in thy temple wait;
No prophet-bards the glittering courts among,
Wake the full lyre, and swell the tide of song:
But lawless Force, and meagre Want are there,
And the quick-darting eye of restless Fear,
While cold Oblivion, 'mid thy ruins laid,
Folds his dark wing beneath thy ivy-shade.
FIERCE, hardy, proud, in conscious freedom bold,
Those stormy seats the warrior Druses hold;
1 The Druses. This extraordinary race, who boast themselves to be descended from the early Crusaders, inhabit the mountains of Palestine, and
are remarkable for their untameable spirit, feudal customs, and strong attachment to Europeans.
From Norman blood their lofty line they trace,
Their lion-courage proves their generous race.
They, only they, while all around them kneel
In sullen homage to the Thracian' steel,
Teach their pale despot's waning moon to fear
The patriot terrors of the mountain spear.
Yes, valorous chiefs, while yet your sabres shine,
The native guard of feeble Palestine,
Oh! ever thus, by no vain boast dismayed,
Defend the birth-right of the cedar-shade!
What though no more for you the obedient gale
Swells the white bosom of the Tyrian3 sail;
Though now no more your glittering marts unfold
Sidonian3 dyes and Lusitanian gold;
Though not for you the pale and sickly slave
Forgets the light in Ophir's wealthy cave;
Yet yours the lot, in proud contentment blest,
Where cheerful labour leads to tranquil rest.
No robber-rage the ripening harvest knows;
And unrestrained the generous vintage flows;
Nor less your sons to manliest deeds aspire,
And Asia's mountains glow with Spartan fire.
So when, deep sinking in the rosy main,
The western sun forsakes the Syrian plain,
His watery rays refracted lustre shed,
And pour their latest light on Carmel's head.
Yet shines your praise, amid surrounding gloom,
As the lone lamp that trembles in the tomb:
For few the souls that spurn a tyrant's chain,
And small the bounds of freedom's scanty reign.
WHEN Coward Asia shook in trembling woe,
And bent appalled before the Bactrian bow;
From the moist regions of the western star
The wandering Hermit waked the storm of war.
2 Thracian. Constantinople, the capital of the Turkish empire, is in ancient Thrace.
3 Tyrian-Sidonian. Tyre and Sidon were the great marts of the ancient commerce of Asia.
+ Lusitanian, belonging to Portugal and Western Spain. Gold was anciently found in Spain, and was brought from
thence to Asia by the Phoenician merchants.
5 Ophir, a part of south-western Africa, with which the Jewish king, Solomon, opened a commercial inter
6 Bactrian. The Seljukian Turks, who subdued Palestine, came from that. part of Asia anciently called Bactria.
Their limbs all iron, and their souls all flame,
A countless host, the red-cross warriors came:
E'en hoary priests the sacred combat wage,
And clothe in steel the palsied arm of age;
While beardless youths and tender maids assume
The weighty morion and the glancing plume.
In sportive pride the warrior-damsels wield
The pondrous falchion and the sunlike shield,
And start to see their armour's iron gleam
Dance with blue lustre in Tabaria's stream.
The blood-red banner floating o'er their van,
All wildly blithe the mingled myriads ran;
Impatient Death beheld his destined food,
And hovering vultures snuffed the scent of blood.
Not such the numbers, nor the host so dread,
By Northern Brenn? or Scythian Timour® led;
Nor such the heart-inspiring zeal that bore
United Greece to Phrygia's reedy shore!
There Gaul's proud knights with boastful mien advance,
From the long line, and shake the cornel lance;
Here, linked with Thrace, in close battalion stand
Ausonia's1o sons, a soft, inglorious band;
There the stern Norman joins the Austrian train,
And the dark tribes of late-reviving Spain;
Here in black files, advancing firm and slow,
Victorious Albion twangs the deadly bow,-
Albion, still prompt the captive's wrong to aid,
And wield in Freedom's cause the freeman's generous blade!
Say, with richer crimson glows
The kingly mantle than the rose?
Say, have kings more wholesome fare
Than we, poor citizens of air;
Barns nor hoarded grain have we,
Yet we carol merrily;
Mortal, fly from doubt and sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!
"One there lives, whose guardian eye
Guides our humble destiny;
One there lives, who, Lord of all,
Keeps our feathers lest they fall:
Pass we blithely then the time,
Fearless of the snare and lime,
Free from doubt and faithless sorrow:
God provideth for the morrow!"
THE poetess of the pure spirit of chivalry, mingled with all the delicate tenderness of a gentle and cultivated mind, and ennobled by the benevolent piety of sincere Christianity, too rarely concentrated her energies on a single topic, and consequently, produced no great poem worthy of her talents; but many of her scattered odes are among the noblest and most affecting lyrics of our language. They resemble in their effect some of those wondrous snatches of music that, when heard, imprint themselves on the memory at once and for ever. in Dublin A.D. 1835.
THE trumpet's voice hatlı roused the land,
Light up the beacon pyre!
A hundred hills have seen the brand,
And waved the sign of fire.
A hundred banners on the breeze
gorgeous folds have castAnd, hark! -was that the sound of seas?
-A king to war went past.
The chief is arming in the hall,
The peasant by his hearth;
The mourner hears the thrilling call,
And rises from the earth.
The mother on her first-born son
Looks with a boding eye
They come not back, though all be won,
Whose young hearts leap so high
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