But hear we not those sounds! Do lights appear? I see them not! the storm alone I hear: And lo! the sailors homeward take their way; Man must endure-let us submit and pray!
THE morn was beautiful, the storm gone by;
Three days had passed; I saw the peaceful main
One molten mirror, one illumined plain,
Clear as the blue, sublime o'er-arching sky:
On shore that lonely vessel caught mine eye,
Her bow was seaward, all equipt her train,
Yet to the sun she spread her wings in vain,
Like a chained eagle, impotent to fly;
There fixed as if for ever to abide;
Far down the beach had rolled the low neap-tide,
Whose mingling murmur faintly lulled the ear:
"Is this," methought, "is this the doom of pride,
Checked in the onset of thy brave career,
Ingloriously to rot by piecemeal here?"
ROUND Albyn's western shores a lonely skiff
Is coasting slow, the adverse winds detain;
And now she rounds secure the dreaded cliff,* Whose horrid ridge beats back the northern main; And now the whirling Pentland roars in vain Her stern beneath, for fav'ring breezes rise, The green isles fade, whitens the watery plain, O'er its vexed waves with meteor-speed she flies, Till Moray's distant hills o'er the blue waves arise.
Who guides that vessel's wanderings o'er the wave?
A patient, hardy man, of thoughtful brow,
Serene, and warm of heart, and wisely brave,
And sagely skilled whatever gale may blow,
To press through angry waves the adventurous
prow,
Age hath not quelled his strength, nor quenched desire
Of generous deed, nor chilled his bosom's glow, Yet to a better world his hopes aspire;
Ah! this must sure be thou; all hail my honoured sire!
Alas! thy latest voyage draws near a close,
For death broods voiceless in the darkening sky;
Subsides the breeze, the untroubled waves repose,
The scene is peaceful all; can death be nigh,
When thus unarmed and mute his vassals lie?
Mark ye that cloud? there toils the imprisoned
gale,
Even now it comes with voice uplifted high, Resound the shores, harsh screams the rending sail,
And roars the amazed wave, and bursts the thunder peal.
Three days the tempest raged; on Scotia's shore Wreck piled on wreck, and corse on corse was thrown;
Her rugged cliffs were red with clotted gore, Her dark waves echoed back the expiring moan, And luckless maidens mourned their lovers gone, And friendless orphans cried in vain for bread, And widowed mothers wandered forth alone,— Restore, O wave, they cried, restore our dead! And then the breast they bared, and beat the unsheltered head.
Of thee, my sire, no mortal tongue can tell,
No friendly bay thy shattered bark received;
Even when thy dust reposed in ocean cell,
Strange, baseless tales of hope our hearts deceived,
Which oft they doubted sad, or gay believed.
At length when deeper, darker waxed the gloom,
Hopeless they grieved, but 'twas in vain they
grieved,
If God is truth, 'tis sure no voice of doom
That bids the accepted soul its robes of joy assume.
HUGH MILLer.
THE SHIPWRECK OF ULYSSES.
THE SHIPWRECK OF ULYSSES.
WHEN we had left the isle, nor saw around
Or earth or heaven, but sea without a bound,
Then o'er the ship Jove fixed a gloomy cloud,
And veiled the ocean in night's starless shroud.
Not long the ship held on its steady course,
The west wind roaring with the whirlwind's force:
Ere long the fury of the unceasing blast
Broke the strong ropes that firmly bound the mast-
Back fell the mast, and, rattling as they rolled,
The cords and fractured cables filled the hold.
In its prone fall, the mast, with ponderous stroke,
The steersman's shattered skull and temples broke,
And like a diver, from the lofty deck
He headlong plunged, and lifeless left the wreck.
Jove, peal on peal, his bolts of thunder hurled,
And, when the lightning struck, the vessel whirled,
The fuming sea with flames sulphureous flashed,-
The crew, from off the vessel, downward dashed,
Like sea-mews, tossed on the tempestuous wave,
That deep beneath them oped their watery grave.
On lone I paced, till the resistless tides
Drove from the severed keel the parted sides:
There the mast broke in twain, but coiled around
The broken part a leathern brace was bound:
With that I closely joined the keel and mast,
And on them seated rode before the blast.
Then the fierce west wind fell, the southern rose,
And racked my bosom with unwonted woes,
Lest through the night, remeasuring my way,
I should Charybdis reach at dawn of day.
So wore the night, and, when the dawn appeared,
Charybdis here, her rock there Scylla reared.
Sotheby.
WITH spear reversed, he strikes the mountain's side,
Forth rush the winds to battle with the tide;
Sweeping o'er earth with many a furious whirl,
The mountain-waves from ocean's depths they cur!;
South, east, and stormy west together roar,
And roll vast billows on the groaning shore.
The seamen shout, the cracking ropes give way,
Night veils the deep as clouds obscure the day.
The lightning glares, while thunder shakes the
poles,
And instant death alarms their trembling souls.
Then chilling fears relax Æneas' bones,
And thus, with hands outspread, to heaven he groans:
"Happy-who died before their parent's face!
Tydides, bravest of the Grecian race,
Why did thy hand reserve me for these pains,
Nor rather stretch me on the Trojan plains,
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