Bright morning star, our life and light!
Presaging day, restoring sight,
Dispel night's shades and gloomy train,
That we, across life's stormy main,
By faith may trace the narrow way
That leads to glory and to day—

That wondrous day without a close,

Where constant service is

repose;

Where beauty's glow and manhood's prime
Nor feel nor show the flight of time;
Where JESUS, once the morning star,
Pours sevenfold sunlight wide and far.

J LONGMUIR.

45

FROM "HYMN TO HESPERUS."

STAR of the Mariner! thy car,

O'er the blue waters twinkling clearly, Reminds him of his home afar,

And scenes he still loves, ah, so dearly! He sees his native fields, he sees

Grey twilight gathering o'er his mountains, And hears the rustle of green trees,

The bleat of flocks, and gush of fountains.

How beautiful when, through the shrouds,
The fierce, presaging storm-winds rattle,

Thou glitterest far above the clouds,

O'er waves that lash and gales that battle; And as, athwart the billows driven,

He turns to thee in fond devotion,

Star of the Sea! thou tell'st that heaven
O'erlooks alike both land and ocean.

(4) D. M. MOIR.

A STORM AT SEA.

Now bursts with sudden violence the gale;
Earth sudden rocks convulsively, and fast
Labours our ship, caught under press of sail,
And menaces to break her solid mast.
The pilot, when he sees the storm prevail,
Springs forward, shouting loud, with looks
aghast,

"Slacken the ropes there! slack away! Alack, The gale blows heavily! Slack quickly! slack!"

The roaring of the sea, the boisterous wind,

The clamour, uproar, vows confused and rash, Untimely night closing in darkness blind

Of black and sultry clouds, the lightning's flash, The thunder's awful rolling, all combined

With pilot's shouts and many a frightful crash, Produced a sound, a harmony so dire,

It seemed the world itself should now expire.

A STORM AT SEA.

Roars the tormented sea, open the skies,

47

The haughty wind groans whilst it fiercer

raves;

Sudden the waters in a mountain rise

Above the clouds, and on the ship that braves Their wrath pour thundering down. Submerged she lies,

A fearful moment's space, beneath the waves: The crew, amidst their fears, with gasping breath, Deemed in salt water's stead they swallowed death.

But, by the clemency of Providence,

As, rising through the sea, some mighty whale Masters the angry surges' violence,

Spouts them in showers against the vexing gale,

And lifts to sight his back's broad eminence,

Whilst in wide circles round the waters quail : So from beneath the ocean rose once more Our vessel, from whose sides two torrents pour.

Now Eolus by chance if it befell,

Or through compassion for Castilian woes-
Recalled fierce Boreas, and, lest he rebel,
Would safely in his prison cave inclose.
The door he opened in the self-same cell

Lay Zephyr unobserved, who instant rose,
Marked his advantage as the bolts withdrew,
And through the opening portal sudden flew.

Then with unlessening rapidity,

Seizing on lurid cloud and fleecy rack, He bursts on the already troubled sea,

Spreads o'er the midnight gloom a shade more black;

The billows from the northern blast that flee,

Assaults with irresistible attack,

Whirls them in boiling eddies from their course, And angry ocean stirs with doubled force.

The vessel, beaten by the sea and gale,
Now on a mountain-ridge of water rides,
With keel exposed; now her top-gallant sail
Dips in the threatening waves, against her sides,
Over her deck, that break. Of what avail,

The beating of such storm whilst she abides,
Is pilot's skill? Now a yet fiercer squall
Half opens to the sea her strongest wall.

The crew and passengers wild clamours raise,
Deeming inevitable ruin near;

Upon the pilot anxiously all gaze,

Who knows not what to order, stunned by fear. Then, 'midst the terrors that all bosoms craze, Sound opposite commands: "The ship to veer!" Some shout; some, "Make for land!" some, "Stand to sea!"

Some, "Starboard!" some, "Port the helm!" some, "Helm a-lee!"

WINTER-STORM AT SEA.

49

The danger grows; the terror, loud uproar,
And wild confusion, with the danger grow.
All rush in frenzy-these the sails to lower,
Those seek the boat; whilst overboard some
throw

Cask, plank, or spar, as other hope were o'er:

Here rings the hammer's, there the hatchet's blow; Whilst dash the surges 'gainst a neighbouring rock, Flinging white foam to heaven from every shock. Foreign Quarterly Review.

ERCILLA Y. ZUNIGA.

WINTER-STORM AT SEA.

VIEW now the Winter-storm! above, one cloud,
Black and unbroken, all the skies o'ershroud;
Th' unwieldy porpoise through the day before
Had rolled in view of boding men on shore;
And sometimes hid and sometimes showed his form,
Dark as the cloud, and furious as the storm.

All where the eye delights, yet dreads to roam,
The breaking billows cast the flying foam
Upon the billows rising all the deep

Is restless change; the waves so swelled and steep,
Breaking and sinking, and the sunken swells,
Nor one, one moment, in its station dwells:
But nearer land you may the billows trace,
As if contending in their watery chase;

D