Still morns to stiller evenings creep, And the ruins, lapsed again Into Nature's wide domain, Sow themselves with seed and grain, Here fresh funeral tears were shed; W. ALLINGHAM. THE BAY OF NAPLES. THE sun is warm, the sky is clear, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, I see the Deep's untrampled floor With green and purple sea-weeds strown; I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown; I sit upon the sands alone, The lightning of the noon-tide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. Alas! I have nor hope nor health, And walked with inward glory crowned - Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear, Till death like sleep might steal on me, And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. Some might lament that I were cold, As I when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Whom men love not, and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. FISHER'S SONG. SHELLEY. Up and down, all day long, On the restless sea we float, Up and down, all day long, Far from care, far from pain, Far from care, far from pain, Far from thoughts of greedy gain. From the German. SONG. RUSHES lean over the water, And thou, the blue Ocean's daughter, Clouds sail over the ocean, But never its wildest motion White feet on the edge of the billow Like tangles of sea-weed streaming Thy fair hair fringes thy dreaming, O sleeping Lido girl! G. W. CURTIS. THE CORAL GROVE. DEEP in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove, Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow; For the winds and the waves are absent there, There, with its waving blade of green, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea; |