ALFORD.

HYMN TO THE SEA.

WHO shall declare the secret of thy birth,
Thou old companion of the circling earth?
And having marked with keen poetic sight
Ere beast or happy bird

Through the vast silence stirred,

Roll back the folded darkness of the primal night?

Corruption-like, thou teemedst in the graves
Of mouldering systems, with dark weltering waves
Troubling the peace of the first mother's womb;
Whose ancient awful form,

With inly tossing storm,

Unquiet heavings kept-a birth-place and a tomb.

Till the life-giving Spirit moved above
The face of the waters, with creative love
Warming the hidden seeds of infant light:

What time the mighty Word

Through thine abyss was heard,

And swam from out thy deeps the young day heavenly bright.

Thou and the earth, twin-sisters, as they say,
In the old prime were fashioned in the day,
And therefore thou delightest evermore
With her to lie, and play

The summer hours away,

Curling thy loving ripples up her quiet shore.

She is married, a matron long ago,

With nations at her side; her milk doth flow

Each year; but thee no husband dares to tame; Thy wild will is thine own,

Thy sole and virgin throne

Thy mood is ever changing-thy resolve the same.

Sunlight and moonlight minister to thee;

O'er the broad circle of the shoreless sea

Heaven's two great lights for ever set and rise; While the round vault above,

Is gazing down upon thee with his hundred eyes.

All night thou utterest forth thy solemn moan,
Counting thy weary minutes all alone;
Then in the morning thou dost calmly lie,
Deep blue, ere yet the sun

His day-work hath begun,

Under the opening windows of the golden sky.

The spirit of the mountain looks on thee
Over an hundred hills; quaint shadows flee
Across thy marbled mirror; brooding lie
Storm-mists of infant cloud,

With a sight-baffling shroud

Mantling the grey-blue islands in the western sky.

Sometimes thou liftest up thine hands on high
Into the tempest-cloud that blurs the sky,
Holding rough dalliance with the fitful blast,
Whose stiff breath, whistling shrill,

Pierces with deadly chill

The wet crew feebly clinging to their shattered mast.

Foam-white along the border of the shore
Thine onward-leaping billows plunge and roar;
While o'er the pebbly ridges slowly glide

Cloaked figures, dim and grey,

Through the thick mist of spray,

Watching for some struck vessel in the boiling tide.

Daughter and darling of remotest eld

Time's childhood and Time's age thou hast beheld;

His arm is feeble and his eye is dim

He tells old tales again

He wearies of long pain;

Thou art as at the first: thou journeyedst not with him.

THACKERAY.

THE BALLAD OF BOUILLABAISSE.

A STREET there is in Paris famous,

For which no rhyme our language yields, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name isThe New Street of the Little Fields; And here's an inn, not rich and splendid, But still in comfortable case; The which in youth I oft attended, To cat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.

This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is-
A sort of soup, or broth, or brew,
Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes,

That Greenwich never could outdo;
Green herbs, red peppers, muscles, saffern,
Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace;
All these you eat at TERRÉ's tavern,
In that one dish of Bouillabaisse.

Indeed, a rich and savoury stew 'tis ;
And true philosophers, methinks,

Who love all sorts of natural beauties,

Should love good victuals and good drinks.

And Cordelier or Benedictine

Might gladly, sure, his lot embrace,

Nor find a fast-day too afflicting,

Which served him up a Bouillabaisse.

I wonder if the house still there is?
Yes, here the lamp is, as before;
The smiling, red-cheeked écaillère is
Still opening oysters at the door.
Is TERRE still alive and able?

I recollect his droll grimace;

He'd come and smile before your table, And hoped you liked your Bouillabaisse.

We enter; nothing's changed or older.

"How's Monsieur TERRÉ, waiter, pray?" The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder ;"Monsieur is dead this many a day."

"It is the lot of saint and sinner.

So honest TERRE'S run his race?" "What will Monsieur require for dinner?” "Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse ?"

"Oh, oui, Monsieur," 's the waiter's answer; "Quel vin Monsieur desire-t-il ?" "Tell me a good one." "That I can, sir; The Chambertin with yellow seal." "So TERRE'S gone," I say, and sink in My old accustomed corner-place; "He's done with feasting and with drinking, With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse."

My old accustomed corner here is,

The table still is in the nook;

Ah! vanished many a busy year is,
This well-known chair since last I took.

When first I saw ye, Cari luoghi,

I'd scarce a beard upon my face, And now a grizzled, grim old fogy, I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse.