Sails of silk and ropes of sendal,
Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,

And the answer from the shore!
Most of all, the Spanish ballad

Haunts me oft, and tarries long,
Of the noble Count Arnaldos

And the sailor's mystic song.
Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
Where the sand as silver shines,
With a soft, monotonous cadence,

Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;-
Telling how the Count Arnaldos
With his hawk upon his hand,
Saw a fair and stately galley,

Steering onward to the land;-
How he heard the ancient helmsman
Chant a song so wild and clear,
That the sailing sea-bird slowly
Poised upon the mast to hear,
Till his soul was full of longing

And he cried, with impulse strong,"Helmsman! for the love of heaven, Teach me, too, that wondrous song "Wouldst thou,"-so the helmsman

answered,

"Learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery!"

In each sail that skims the horizon, In each landward-blowing breeze, Í behold that stately galley,

Hear those mournful melodies; Till my soul is full of longing,

For the secret of the sea, And the heart of the great ocean Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

TWILIGHT.
THE twilight is sad and cloudy,

The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds

Flash the white caps of the sea. But in the fisherman's cottage There shines a ruddier light, And a little face at the window Peers out into the night. Close, close it is pressed to the window, As if those childish eyes Were looking into the darkness, To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow Is passing to and fro,

Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low. What tale do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, bleak and wild, As they beat at the crazy casement, Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, wild and bleak, As they beat at the heart of the mother, Drive the colour from her cheek?

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT.*
SOUTHWARD with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and fast blew the blast,

And the east-wind was his breath.
His lordly ships of ice

Glistened in the sun;

On each side, like pennons wide
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea-mist

Dripped with silver rain;

But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello

Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;

Three days or more seaward he bore, Then, alas! the land-wind failed. Alas! the land-wind failed,

And ice-cold grew the night;

*"When the wind abated and the vessels were near enough, the Admiral was seen constantly sitting in the stern, with a book in his hand. On the 9th of September he was seen for the last time, and was heard by the people of the Hind to say, 'We are as near heaven by sea as by land.' In the following night, the lights of the ship suddenly disappeared. The people in the other vessel kept 'a good look-out for him during the remainder of the voyage. On the 22d of September they arrived, through much tempest and peril, at Falmouth. But nothing more was seen or heard of the Admiral.' -BELKNAP'S American Biography, i. 203.

And never more, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
He sat upon the deck,

The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,'
He said, "by water as by land!"
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,

The fleet of Death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star

Were hanging in the shrouds; Every mast, as it passed,

Seemed to rake the passing clouds. They grappled with their prize, At midnight black and cold! As of a rock was the shock;

Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward, through day and dark, They drift in close embrace, With mist and rain, to the Spanish Main;

Yet there seems no change of place. Southward, for ever southward,

They drift through dark and day; And like a dream, in the Gulf-stream Sinking, vanish all away.

Not one alone; from each projecting cape And perilous reef along the ocean's verge,

Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape, Holding its lantern o'er the restless

surge.

Like the great giant Christopher it stands

Upon the brink of the tempestuous

wave,

Wading far out among the rocks and sands,

The night-o'ertaken mariner to save. And the great ships sail outward and return,

Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells,

And ever joyful, as they see it burn, They wave their silent welcomes and farewells.

They come forth from the darkness, and their sails

Gleam for a moment only in the blaze, And eager faces, as the light unveils, Gaze at the tower, and vanish while

they gaze.

The mariner remembers when a child, On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink;

And when, returning from adventures wild,

He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink. Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same Year after year, through all the silent night

Burns on for evermore that quenchless flame,

Shines on that inextinguishable light! It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss

The lighthouse,-the dismantled fort,— The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,

Descending, filled the little room; Our faces faded from the sight,

Our voices only broke the gloom. We spake of many a vanished scene, Of what we once had thought and said,

Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel, with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,

And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part,

Or say it in too great excess.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but
mark;

The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
Oft died the words upon our lips,

As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then
expire.

And, as their splendour flashed and failed,

We thought of wrecks upon the main,

Of ships dismasted, that were hailed And sent no answer back again. The windows, rattling in their frames,The ocean, roaring up the beach,The gusty blast,-the bickering flames,

All mingled vaguely in our speech; Until they made themselves a part

Of fancies floating through the brain,

The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answer back again.
O flames that glowed! O hearts that
yearned!

They were indeed too much akin, The driftwood fire without that burned, The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

-0

BY THE FIRESIDE.

RESIGNATION.

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel, for her children
crying,

Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions

Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapours,

Amid these earthly damps; What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers,

May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call death.

She is not dead, -the child of our affection,

But gone unto that school Where she no longer needs our poor protection,

And Christ himself doth rule. In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,

By guardian angels led, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,

She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing

In those bright realms of air; Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,

Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken

The bond which nature gives, Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,

May reach her where she lives. Not as a child shall we again behold her;

For when with raptures wild In our embraces we again enfold her, She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,

Clothed with celestial grace; And beautiful with all the soul's expansion

Shall we behold her face.

THE BUILDERS.

ALL are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time:
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between; Think not, because no man sees, Such things will remain unseen. In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen; Make the house, where Gods may dwell, Beautiful, entire, and clean. Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet

Stumble as they seek to climb. :
Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.
Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky.

SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS.

A HANDFUL of red sand, from the hot clime

Of Arab deserts brought, Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,

The minister of Thought. How many weary centuries has it been About these deserts blown! How many strange vicissitudes has seen How many histories known! Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite Trampled and passed it o'er, When into Egypt from the patriarch's sight

His favourite son they bore. Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and

bare,

Crushed it beneath their tread; Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air

Scattered it as they sped;

Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth
Held close in her caress,
Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and
faith

Illumed the wilderness;

Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms
Pacing the Dead Sea beach,
And singing slow their old Armenian
psalms

In half-articulate speech;
Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate
With westward steps depart;

Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate, And resolute in heart;

These have passed over it, or may have passed!

Now in this crystal tower Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,

It counts the passing hour. And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand ;

Before my dreamy eye Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,

Its unimpeded sky.

And borne aloft by the sustaining blast,
This little golden thread
Dilates into a column high and vast,

A form of fear and dread.
And onward, and across the setting sun,
Across the boundless plain,

The column and its broader shadow run,
Till thought pursues in vain.
The vision vanishes! These walls again
Shut out the lurid sun,

Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain;
The half-hour's sand is run!

BIRDS OF PASSAGE.

BLACK shadows fall

From the lindens tall,

That lift aloft their massive wall
Against the southern sky;

And from the realms

Of the shadowy elms

A tide-like darkness overwhelms
The fields that round us lie.
But the night is fair,

And everywhere

A warm, soft vapour fills the air,
And distant sounds seem near;
And above, in the light

Of the star-lit night,

Swift birds of passage wing their flight Through the dewy atmosphere.