Oft had her oaks their tribute brought, To rib its flanks with thunder fraught; But late her evil star

Had cursed it on its homeward way,
"The spoiler shall become the prey."

Thus warned, Britannia's anxious heart
Throbbed with prophetic woe,
When she beheld that ship depart
A fair ill-omened show!

So views the mother through her tears,
The daughter of her hope and fears,
When hectic beauties glow

On the frail cheek, where sweetly bloom
The roses of an early tomb.

No fears the brave adventurers knew,
Peril and death they spurned;
Like full fledged eagles forth they flew ;
Jove's birds that proudly burned
In battle hurricanes to yield
His lightning on the billowy field,
And many a look they turn'd
O'er the blue waste of waves to spy
A Gallic ensign in the sky.

But not to crush the vaunting foe
In combat on the main,
Nor perish by a glorious blow
In mortal triumph slain
Was their unutterable fate;
That story would the nurse relate,
The song may rise in vain,
In ocean's deepest, darkest bed,
The secret slumbers of the dead.

On India's long expecting strand
Their sails were never furled,
Never on known or friendly land

By storms their keel was hurled ;
Their native soil no more they trod,
They rest beneath no hallowed sod
Throughout the living world,
This sole memorial of their lot
Remains they were and they are not.

THE CAST-AWAY SHIP.

The spirit of their Cape pursued
Their long and toilsome way,
At length in ocean solitude
He sprang upon his prey;

"Havoc!" the shipwreck demon cried,
Loosed all his tempest on the tide,
Gave all his light'nings play,
The abyss recoiled before the blast,
Firm stood the seaman till the last.

Like shooting stars athwart the gloom
The merchants' sails were sped,
Yet oft before its midnight doom
They marked the high mast-head
Of that devoted vessel, tost

By winds and floods now seen, now lost;
While every gun-fire spread

A dimmer flash, a fainter roar,

At length they saw, they heard no more.
There are to whom that ship was dear,
For love and kindred's sake;

When these the voice of Rumour hear,
Their inmost heart shall quake,
Shall doubt and fear and wish and grieve,
Believe and long to unbelieve,

But never cease to ache;

Still doomed in sad suspense to bear
The Hope that keeps alive Despair.

THE SEQUEL.

He sought his sire from shore to shore,
He sought him day by day,
The prow he track'd was seen no more
Breasting the ocean's spray;
Yet as the winds his voyage sped,
He sailed above his father's head,
Unconscious where it lay,

Deep, deep beneath the rolling main
He sought his sire; he sought in vain.

Son of the brave! no longer weep,
Still with affection true,
Along the wild disastrous deep

Thy father's course pursue;

155

Full in his wake of glory steer,
His spirit prompts thy bold career,

His compass guides thee through;
So while thy thunders awe the sea,
Britain shall find thy sire in thee.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

VIII. THE SAILOR RETURNING TO HIS FAMILY.

"As every way of life, from the highest to the humblest, has its besetting sins, so, let it be remembered, each may and ought to have its appropriate virtues; and those which the seaman is called upon to practise are of a high order. He lives in a course of privations, selfdenial, and strict obedience, always in insecurity, often in danger, not seldom in the face of death. Through such discipline no man can pass unchanged; he must be brutalized by it, or exalted; it will either call forth the noble qualities of his nature, or worsen a bad disposition, and harden an evil heart. The more necessary is it, therefore, that he should be taught where to look for examples, and where for assistance and support: the former are afforded him by history, which is always most useful when it is related with most fidelity; for the latter he must look to that Heavenly Father who has created and preserved him, and in His infinite mercy has given him the means of grace."-Southey's British Admirals.

MUCH would it please you sometimes to explore
The peaceful dwellings of our borough poor;
To view a sailor just returned from sea,

His wife beside; a child on either knee,
And others crowding near, that none may lose
The smallest portion of the welcome news;

What dangers passed, "when seas ran mountains high,
When tempests raged and horrors veil'd the sky;
When prudence fail'd, when courage grew dismay'd,
When the strong fainted, and the wicked pray'd,-
Then in the yawning gulf far down we drove,
And gazed upon the billowy mount above;
Till up that mountain, swinging with the gale,
We view'd the horrors of the watery vale."

The trembling children look with steadfast eyes,
And panting, sob involuntary sighs;
Soft sleep awhile his torpid touch delays,
And all is joy, and piety and praise.

CRABBE.

THE MIGHTY SEA.

IX. THE MIGHTY SEA.

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"Now for the services of the sea, they are innumerable: it is the great purveyor of the world's commodities to our use; conveyor of the excess of rivers; uniter, by traffic, of all nations; it presents the eye with diversified colours and motions, and is, as it were with rich brooches, adorned with various islands. It is an open field for merchandize in peace; a pitched field for the most dreadful fights of war; yields diversity of fish and fowl for diet; materials for wealth, medicine for health, simples for medicines, pearls, and other jewels for ornament; amber and ambergrise for delight; the wonders of the Lord in the deep' for instruction, variety of creatures for use, multiplicity of natures for contemplation, diversity of accidents for admiration, compendiousness to the way, to full bodies healthful evacuation, to the thirsty earth fertile moisture, to distant friends pleasant meeting, to weary persons delightful refreshing, to studious and religious minds a map of knowledge, mystery of temperance, exercise of continence; school of prayer, meditation, devotion, and sobriety; refuge to the distressed, portage to the merchant, passage to the traveller, customs to the prince, springs, lakes, rivers, to the earth; it hath on its tempests and calms to chastise the sins, to exercise the faith, of seamen; manifold affections in itself, to affect and stupify the subtlest philosopher; sustaineth moveable fortresses for the soldier; maintaineth (as in our island) a wall of defence and watery garrison to guard the state; entertains the sun with vapours, the moon with obsequiousness, the stars also with a natural looking-glass, the sky with clouds, the air with temperateness, the soil with suppleness, the rivers with tides, the hills with moisture, the valleys with fertility; containeth most diversified matter for meteors, most multiform shapes, most various, numerous kinds, most immense, difformed, deformed, unformed monsters; once (for why should I longer detain you?)—the sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts, navigation."-Samuel Purchas.

THOU art sounding on, thou mighty sea, for ever and the same! The ancient rocks yet ring to thee, whose thunders nought can

tame.

The Dorian flute, that sighed of yore along thy wave, is still; The harp of Judah peals no more on Zion's awful hill.

And Memnon's, too, hath lost the chord that breathed the mystic

tone;

And the songs at Rome's high triumphs poured are with her eagles flown;

And mute the Moorish horn, that rang o'er stream and mountain

free,

And the hymn the learned Crusaders sang hath died in Galilee. But thou art swelling on, thou deep, through many an olden

clime,

Thy billowy anthem ne'er to sleep until the close of Time!

MRS. HEMANS.

X. YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.

"THE sea deserved to be hated by the old aristocracies, inasmuch as it has been the mightiest instrument in the civilization of mankind. In the depth of winter, when the sky is covered with clouds, and the iand presents one cold blank and lifeless surface of snow, how refreshing is it to the spirits to walk upon the shore, and to enjoy the eternal freshness and liveliness of ocean. Even so in the deepest winter of the human race, when the earth was but one chilling expanse of inactivity, life was stirring in the waters; there began that spirit whose genial influence has now reached the land, has broken the chains of winter, and covered the face of the earth with beauty."-Arnold.

YE mariners of England!

That guard our native1 seas;

Syntax.

"Battle and breeze." "Loud and long."

Whose flag has braved a thousand years

The battle and the breeze.

Your glorious standard launch again

To match another foe!

And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

The spirits of your fathers

Shall start from every wave!

For the deck it was their field of fame,2
And ocean was their grave;
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
Britannia needs no bulwark,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.

With thunders from her native' oak,
She quells the floods below,

As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.