Red and fierce upon the sky

Until midnight shone the glare,
And the burning ship drove on

Like a meteor of the air.
She was driven and hurried past,
Mid the roaring of the blast.
And of Balder, warrior born,
Naught remain'd at break of morn,
On the charr'd and blacken'd hull,
But some ashes and a skull;
And still the vessel drifted

Heavily.

With a pale and hazy light
Until far into the night,
When the storm had spent its rage,

On the sea.

Then the ocean ceased her strife With the wild winds, lull'd to rest, And a full, round, placid moon

Shed a halo on her breast; And the burning ship still lay On the deep sea, far away; From her ribs of solid oak, Pouring forth the flame and smoke;Until burnt through all her bulk,

To the water's edge, the hulk Down a thousand fathoms sank

Suddenly,

With a low and sullen sound; –
While the billows sang around
Sad requiems for the Monarch

Of the Sea.

SAND-SONG.

CHARLES MACKAY.

SING of Sand!

not such as gloweth

Hot upon the path of the tiger and snake
Rather such sand as, when the loud winds wake,
Each ocean-wave knoweth.

Like a Wrath with pinions burning Travels the red sand of the desert abroad;

While the soft sea-sand glisteneth smooth and untrod, As eve is returning.

Here is no caravan or camel;

Here the weary mariner alone finds a grave,
Nightly mourned by the moon, that now on yon wave
Sheds a silver enamel.

From the German of F. FREILIGRATH.

SEA-WEED.

WHEN descends on the Atlantic

The gigantic

Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges

The toiling surges,

Laden with sea-weed from the rocks:

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far off, bright Azore;

From Bahama, and the dashing
Silver-flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries,
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas:—

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main ;

Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean

Of the poet's soul, ere long,

From each cave and rocky fastness,

In its vastness

Floats some fragment of a song;

From the far-off isles enchanted
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of Truth
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor That forever

Wrestles with the tides of Fate;

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate :

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,
On the shifting

Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,

They, like hoarded
Household worlds, no more depart.

H. W. LONgfellow.

SONNET.

THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.

WORDSWORTH.