I sang-"Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied-mightier far

Than tremblings, that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope,

In God's redeeming love;

"That love which changed-for wan disease,

For sorrow that had bent

O'er hopeless dust, for withered age

Their moral element,

And turned the thistles of a curse

To types beneficent.

"Sin-blighted though we are, we too, The reasoning Sons of Men,

From one oblivious winter called

Shall rise, and breathe again; And in eternal summer lose

Our threescore years and ten."

To humbleness of heart descends
This prescience from on high,-
The faith that elevates the just
Before and when they die,

And makes each soul a separate heaven,
A court for Deity.

1831.

WORDSWORTH.

SEA-SIDE MUSINGS.

The Sea Shell.

ISTEN, darling, and tell to me,

What the murmurer says to thee: Murmuring betwixt a song and a moan, Changing neither tune nor tone."

"Yes: I hear it,-far and faint

Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint; Like the falling asleep of a weary brain When the fevered heart is quiet again."

"By smiling lip and fixed eye,

You are hearing more than song or sigh: The wrinkled thing has curious ways; I want to know what words it says."

"I hear the wind o'er a boatless main,

Sigh like the last of a vanished pain: On the dreaming waters, dreams the moon, But I hear no words in the murmured tune."

"If it does not say, 'I love thee well,'

'Tis a senseless, ill-carved, worn-out shell; If 'tis not love, why sigh or sing?

'Tis a common, mechanical, useless thing."

"It whispers of love, 'tis a prophet shell,

Of a peace that comes, and all shall be well. It speaks not a word of your love to me, But it tells me to love you eternally."

G. MACDONALD.

Sea-side Musings.

HOU art sounding on, thou mighty Sea,

For ever and the same!

The ancient rocks yet ring to thee,
Whose thunders nought can tame.

Oh, many a glorious voice is gone
From the rich bowers of earth,
And hush'd is many a lovely one

Of mournfulness or mirth!

D

The Dorian flute, that sigh'd of yore

Along thy wave, is still;

The harp of Judah peals no more

On Zion's awful hill :

And Memnon's, too, hath lost the chord
That breathed the mystic tone;

And the songs at Rome's high triumph pour'd
Are with her eagles flown:

And mute the Moorish horn, that rang
O'er stream and mountain free;

And the hymn that learned Crusaders sang
Hath died in Galilee.

But thou art swelling on, thou Deep,
Through many an olden clime,
The billowy anthem, ne'er to sleep

Until the close of time.

MRS. HEMANS.

T

The Bay of Barcelona.

IS evening, and the thunder-cloud

Sinks spent behind the western hill,
The light has rent its lurid shroud,
And breezes waft it at their will;

The golden rays of sunset stream

On castled mount and turret grey, The clear air quivers in the gleam

That falls upon the glassy bay.

The scattered barks to land return,
Their toils forgot in sight of home,—
They bravely dared the lowering morn,

And clove their path through mist and foam.

At noon the cloudy north-wind blew,

The answering waves rose wild and high,
And drifting vapours swept from view
The landmarks sacred to the eye.

But now, like sea-birds, to the land
They gladly stretch a snowy wing,
And cloudless skies and breezes bland
Their homeward course are welcoming;
The sails reflect the brimming light,
And, as the shallops onward glide,

A softened shadow, dim and white,
Floats far beneath them in the tide.

How blest the life, which in its prime
Some testing-ill hath bravely borne,
To hail a tranquil evening-tide

And skies that wear the tints of morn.