Give back the lost and lovely!—Those for whom The place was kept at board and hearth so long; The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,

And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song! Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown,But all is not thine own!

To thee the love of woman hath gone down;

Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head, O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery

crown!

Yet must thou hear a voice-Restore the dead! Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee! Restore the dead, thou Sea!

HEMANS.

THE SECRETS OF THE DEEP.

HAPPY they whom the rose-hues of daylight rejoice, The air and the sky that to mortals are given! May the horror below never more find a voiceNor man stretch too far the wide mercy of heaven! Never more, never more, may he lift from the sight The veil which is woven with Terror and Night!

Quick-bright'ning like lightning-it tore me along, Down, down, till the gush of a torrent, at play

THE SECRETS OF THE DEEP.

81

In the rocks of its wilderness, caught me and

strong

As the wings of an eagle, it whirled me away. Vain, vain was my struggle the circle had won

In the strength of my need, in the gasp of my breath

And showed me a crag that rose up from the lair,

And I clung to it, nimbly-and baffled the death!

And, safe in the perils around me, behold
On the spikes of the coral the goblet of gold.

Below, at the foot of that precipice drear,

Spread the gloomy, and purple, and pathless Obscure!

A silence of Horror that slept on the ear,

That the eye more appalled might the Horror endure!

Salamander-snake-dragon-vast reptiles that

dwell

In the deep-coiled about the grim jaws of their

hell.

F

Dark-crawled-glided dark the unspeakable

swarms,

Clumped together in masses, misshapen and vast

Here clung and here bristled the fashionless forms Here the dark-moving bulk of the Hammer-fish passed

And, with teeth grinning white, and a menacing motion,

Went the terrible Shark-the Hyæna of Ocean.

There I hung, and the awe gathered icily o'er me, So far from the earth, where man's help there

was none!

The one Human Thing with the Goblins before me— Alone in a loneness so ghastly-ALONE! Fathom-deep from man's eye in the speechless profound,

With the death of the main and the monster around.

Methought, as I gazed through the darkness, that

now

It saw

-the dread hundred-limbed creature

its prey!

And darted agape !-from the far-flaming bough Of the coral, I swept on the horrible way;

And it seized me, the wave with its wrath and its

roar,

It seized me to save

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.

-King, the danger is o'er!
SCHILLER.

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAPE.

83

THE SPIRIT OF THE CAPE.

FIVE times the sun had run his daily course,
Since we our venturous voyage had resumed,
Ploughing unknown, unnavigated seas,
And favoured by the most propitious gales;
When from the poop, during the watch by night,
Surprised, we suddenly beheld a cloud,
Portentous darkness through the hemisphere
Over our heads extending, imminent.
Impregnated with horrors it appeared,
And its approach with apprehension filled
The bravest hearts. Aloud the blackened deep
Tremendous roared, as if against a rock
Projecting dashed its furious waves. "Oh God!
What wrath divine!" I cried; "what mystery
Is indicated by these raging seas,

For this tempestuous violence all storms
Exceeds?"

when we

Scarce uttered were these words,

A Phantom monstrous and terrific saw;

Frightful in form, and of gigantic height—
Scowling his front-squalid his grizzly beard-
Hollow his glaring eyes his attitude

Horror inspired dingy and pale his cast-
His clotted hair was intermixed with earth-
Black was his mouth, and armed with yellow teeth.
So preternaturally large were all

His sinewy limbs, that well he might be thought
A new Colossus of the Rhodian Isle

Once deemed the seventh wonder of the world,
Us he addressed with a tremendous voice,
That seemed to issue from the deep profound;
Only to see and hear him, made with dread
Our hair to stand erect, and e'en the flesh
Itself to creep. "Oh, bold, presumptuous race!
More daring far than all who e'er aspired
To great achievements who from labours vain,
And sanguinary wars, knowest no repose—
Darest thou all bounds legitimate transgress,
To navigate these vast and stormy seas,
Guarded by me from immemorial time,

And by no bark, not e'en my own, e'er ploughed ?
Comest thou to penetrate the mysteries

Of Nature, and this humid element,

Which to no mortal yet have been revealed,
Whate'er his merit or his deathless fame?
But listen! Thou shalt know what punishments
For thy bold daring are by me prepared,
Which on the spacious deep thou shalt endure,
And midst the regions thou shalt yet subdue
By force of arms. Thy rash adventurous barks—
With such presumptuous temerity

These seas invading-in these latitudes,
Shall hostile winds and raging storms assail;
And the first Fleet, that henceforth shall attempt
To cross these boisterous, tempestuous waves,