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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,

Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,

And walked with inward glory crowned
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
Others I see whom these surround

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,
Insults with this untimely moan;
They might lament for I am one

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,
Life glides by us, like our song;
In our little fisher-boat,

On the restless sea we float,

Up and down, all day long,
Life glides by us, like our song.

Far from care, far from pain,
Far from thoughts of greedy gain,
Calmly, cheerfully we ride
Over life's tempestuous tide,

Far from care, far from pain,
Far from thoughts of greedy gain.

From the German.

SONG.

RUSHES lean over the water,

Shells lie on the shore,

And thou, the blue Ocean's daughter,
Sleep'st soft in the song of its roar.

Clouds sail over the ocean,

White gusts fleck its calm,

But never its wildest motion

Thy beautiful rest should harm.

White feet on the edge of the billow
Mock its smooth-seething cream;
Hard ribs of beach-sand thy pillow,
And a noble lover thy dream.

Like tangles of sea-weed streaming
Over a perfect pearl,

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,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with falling dew,

But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.
The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift.

Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and the waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air:
There, with its waving blade of green,
The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter :
There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean

Are bending like corn on the upland lea :

And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the waves his own:
And when the ship from his fury flies,
When the myriad voices of Ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore;
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,

The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly,

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

J. G. PERCIVAL.

THE SONG OF THE SEA-SHELL.

I CAME from the ocean, a billow past o'er me,
And, covered with sea-weeds and glittering foam,
I fell on the sands, and a stranger soon bore me,
To deck the gay halls of his far distant home.
Encompassed by exquisite myrtles and roses,
Still, still in the deep I am pining to be,
And the low voice within me my feeling discloses,
And evermore murmurs the sound of the sea.

The skylark at morn pours a carol of pleasure,
At eve the sad nightingale warbles her note;
The harp in our halls nightly sounds a glad measure,
And beauty's sweet songs on the air lightly float.

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