Sunlight and moonlight minister to thee;-
O'er the broad circles of the shoreless sea

Heaven's two great lights forever set and rise;
While the round vault above

In vast and silent love

Is gazing down upon thee with his hundred eyes.

All night thou utterest forth thy solemn moan,
Counting the 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.

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 journiedst not with him.

HENRY ALFord.

O HOLY SEA!

O CRADLE of the rising sun, O holy sea!
O grave of every setting sun, O holy sea!

O thou in balmy nights outspreading the crystal mirror
Where Luna looks, a silent nun, O holy sea !

O thou in silent midnights chiming, through thy wide

Two roses of thy garden-bed, O holy sea!

O Amphitrite's panting bosom, whose heavy waves Now swell, now sink, beneath the moon, O holy sea! O Aphrodite's womb maternal! bring forth thy child, And borrow splendor from thy son, O holy sea! Sprinkle the earth's green wreath of spring with pearly dew,

For thine the pearls are, every one, O holy sea! The Naiads of the meadows all, that sprang from thee, Come back as Nereids at thy call, O holy sea! The ships of thought sail over thee and sink in thee; Atlantis rests there, mighty one, O holy sea! The beaker of the gods, that fell from high Olympus, Hangs on the coral-twigs, far down, O holy sea! My spirit yearneth like the moon to sink in thee; Forth send me from thee like the sun, O holy sea! From the German of RÜCKERT.

HYMN TO THE SEA.

ALONG yon soft tumultuousness, the dawn

Reaches a glowing hand, and the mute world
Thrills back to life. This lustrous blossom, curled

In on its dreaming heart, feels the forlorn

Old Shadow lift, and guardedly discloses

Its wayside cheer; and endless waves away
Flash the broad triumph of the light,
Rejoicing in the infinite

And quenchless possibility of Day;

Day,—that at least shall win far more than darkness loses.

Over those morning waves, or when the bare

Stars glow, or moon her tireless lover nears, The eternal Beauty, that, these countless years, Makes earthly musings so divinely fair,

Broods, listening to the prophecy thou chantest;-
The subtle breath of mortal sympathies

Is she wooing us unto right

In unsuspected ways—a light

From inmost heaven, tempered to dreaming eyesA sweet foreshadow of the joy for which thou pantest.

Roll in from far thy deep, broad-skirted thunder,
On which the wild winds fawn! Thy voice by day!

But night adopts and trances it away
Into its clear, sad universe of wonder.
O, weary of life's shallow, lavish sound,
Enrich me beyond hunger with that tone!
Tell in what deep, grey solitude

Thy voice is born

what caverns rude

Still haunt it and if the Infinite ALONE

Touch it himself with calm, and utterance so profound.

I am borne outward by this fragrant breeze,

Which seems to press its warm lips to the sand And then away,-beyond the singing land, To that hoar silence of the lone mid-seas, Where thou, in unrelated strength, a bare, Vast heart, throbbest beneath the eternal Eye.

Life soars like an enfranchised flame; The needy doubt, the hope, that came Before the laggard dawn to wake me, — fly; And dim Eternity flows in, like silent air.

Do tempests swing thee, or deep, choral nights
Chant unto murmurous slumber-yield me still
The calm of hushed abysses: human ill,
Patience transfigures on her visioned heights.
Thou dost not rive the blood-drenched deck apart,
Nor whelm the slaver's freight of woes; but, soft,
On patient, swelling breast upborne,

Waftest the dismal burthen on,

As trusting in the love that waits aloft,

And the slow germ of good in man's unquiet heart.

Ah! meagre happiness! and hopes that reach
To some dull dream, a vapor of the sense

And, on the plain of the old Permanence,
Are but as hasty sunshine in the beach
Of idle footprints! O make more divine
Dim sea, our thoughts! nor may we dully grope
Mid slavish fears, while thou dost girth.

All continents and isles with mirth,

And music of unconquerable hope

That Light and Freedom shall be earth's, as they are thine.

Oh, old Consoler! that dost tenderly

In thy great longing merge my day-born pain,
Uplift me to the stature of your strain,

And bid all vulgar aspirations flee!

The nobler earth is built of stubborn good;
Who brings his little vanity, his grave

Appeal to men's applause or wonder,

Warn him away with thy deep thunder!

Flash o'er the graven sands a liberal wave
And let us know no more his memory or his blood!

Mild, herald beams, wooing the folded sight,

Shed warmth far down in many a sunless nook. Thank God, there are no eyes in which we look, But some heart's love doth lend them beauteous light! Dreams that prefigure hopes, and hopes that take Fresh courage from all life-from starlight bold, Sung softly in by whippoorwills

From sunset's broad'ning sails, o'er hills

Afar and from the earth that grows not old,-
Float lightly o'er our heads, whether we sleep or wake.