They rang the sailor lads to guide
From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed;
And I-my sonne was at my side,

And yet the ruddy beacon glowed:
And yet he moaned beneath his breath,
"O come in life, or come in death!
O lost! my love, Elizabeth."

And didst thou visit him no more?

Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;
The waters laid thee at his doore,

Ere yet the early dawn was clear.
Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace,
The lifted sun shone on thy face,
Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.

That flow strewed wrecks about the grass,
That ebb swept out the flocks to sea;
A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!

To manye more than myne and mee:
But each will mourn his own (she saith),
And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath
my sonne's wife, Elizabeth.

Than

(By permission of the Author.)

18.-UNDER CANVAS.-WOUNDED.

HON. HENRY BULWER LYTTON.

[Son of the eminent novelist, Lord Lytton, and worthy of his high literary parentage, Mr. Bulwer writes genuine poetry. His lines are full of music and tenderness; and his subjects, though generally drawn from nature, are placed in dramatic situations by a skilful hand. His published poems are 66 The Wanderer," "Clytemnestra," and "Lucile," from which the following is extracted.]

"OH is it a phantom? a dream of the night?
A vision which fever hath fashion'd to sight?
The wind, wailing ever, with motion uncertain

Sways sighingly there the drench'd tent's tatter'd curtain,
To and fro, up and down.

But it is not the wind

That is lifting it now: and it is not the mind
That hath moulded that vision.

A pale woman enters,
As wan as the lamp's waning light, which concentres
Its dull glare upon her. With eyes dim and dimmer,
There, all in a slumbrous and shadowy glimmer,
The sufferer sees that still form floating on,
And feels faintly aware that he is not alone.
She is flitting before him. She pauses. She stands

By his bedside all silent. She lays her white hands
On the brow of the boy. A light finger is pressing
Softly, softly, the sore wounds: the hot blood-stain'd dressing
Slips from them. A comforting quietude steals

Thro' the racked weary frame: and throughout it, he feels
The slow sense of a merciful, mild neighbourhood.
Something smoothes the toss'd pillow. Beneath a gray
hood
Of rough serge, two intense tender eyes are bent o'er him,
And thrill thro' and thro' him. The sweet form before him,
It is surely Death's angel Life's last vigil keeping!
A soft voice says-'Sleep!'

And he sleeps: he is sleeping.

"He waked before dawn. Still the vision is there :
Still that pale woman moves not. A minist'ring care
Meanwhile has been silently changing and cheering
The aspect of all things around him.

Revering

Some power unknown and benignant, he bless'd
In silence the sense of salvation. And rest

Having loosen'd the mind's tangled meshes, he faintly
Sigh'd-Say what thou art, blessed dream of a saintly
And minist ring spirit!'

A whisper serene Slid softer than silence-"The Sour Seraphine,

A poor Sister of Charity. Shun to inquire

Aught further, young soldier. The son of thy sire,

For the sake of that sire, I reclaim from the grave.

Thou didst not shun death: shun not life. 'Tis more brave To live than to die. Sleep!'

He sleeps: he is sleeping.

"He waken'd again, when the dawn was just steeping
The skies with chill splendour. And there, never flitting,
Never flitting, that vision of mercy was sitting.

As the dawn to the darkness, so life seem'd returning
Slowly, feebly within him. The night-lamp, yet burning,
Made ghastly the glimmering daybreak.

He said,

If thou be of the living, and not of the dead, Sweet minister, pour out yet further the healing 'Of that balmy voice; if it may be, revealing "Thy mission of mercy! whence art thou?'

'O son

'Of Matilda and Alfred, it matters not! One 'Who is not of the living nor yet of the dead: "To thee, and to others, alive yet'—she said

So long as there liveth the poor gift in me

"Of this ministration: to them, and to thee,

'Dead in all things beside. A French Nun, whose vocation

'Is now by this bedside. A nun hath no nation.
'Wherever man suffers, or woman may soothe,
"There her land! there her kindred!'

She bent down to smoothe

The hot pillow, and added--' Yet more than another 'Is thy life dear to me. For thy father, thy mother, 'I know them-I know them.'

'Oh can it be? you!

'My dearest, dear father! my mother! you knew,

'You know them ?'

She bow'd half averting, her head

In silence.

He brokenly, timidly said,

'Do they know I am thus ?'

'Hush!'-she smiled, as she drew

From her bosom two letters: and-can it be true?
That beloved and familiar writing!

He burst

Into tears-'My poor mother, my father! the worst 'Will have reached them!'

6

'No, no!' she exclaim'd with a smile,
They know you are living; they know that meanwhile
I am watching beside you. Young soldier, weep not!'
But still on the nun's nursing bosom, the hot
Fever'd brow of the boy weeping wildly is press'd.
There, at last, the young heart sobs itself into rest:
And he hears, as it were between smiling and weeping,
The calm voice say 'Sleep!'

And he sleeps, he is sleeping.

(By permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall.)

19.-THE MOUNTAIN GRAVE.

MRS. MACLEAN (L. E. L.)

[Elizabeth Letitia Landon was born in Chelsea, 1802; she was the daughter of an army agent, but her father dying, she not only maintained herself, but assisted her relations by the efforts of her pen. Her earliest poems were contributed (1834) to the "Literary Gazette." She subsequently published "The Improvisatrice," "The Venetian Bracelet," "The Golden Violet," and "The Vow of the Peacock," and other poems; and three novels, entitled, "Romance and Reality," "Francesca," and "Ethel Churchill," improving as she went on in vigour and depth of thought, and giving promise of a high literary career which was not to be realized. In 1838 she married Mr. George Maclean, the Governor of Cape Coast Castle, and proceeded with him to his solitary African home. On Oct. 16, 1838, she was found dead in her room; in her hand a bottle which had contained prussic acid. It was conjectured that she had undesignedly taken an overdose of the fatal medicine, as a relief for spasms in the stomach.]

SHE sat beside the rock from which arose

A mountain rivulet's blue wanderings;

And there, with careless hand, cast leaves and flowers

M

To float upon the surface, or to sink,

As the wind listed, for she took no heed,

Nor watch'd their progress. Suddenly she ceased,
While pass'd a cloud across her deep blue eyes:
"Are ye not symbols of me, ye fair flowers?
Thus in mere recklessness my wilful hand
Has wasted the whole beauty of a spring,
And I have thrown your fragrant lives away
In one vain moment's idleness.' 'Tis strange
How the heart, overpress'd with its own thoughts,—
And what oppresses the young heart like love?—
Grows superstitious, finds similitudes

And boding fears in every change and chance.
She bow'd her face upon her hands and wept,
When suddenly her bright hair was flung back,
Her cheek was turn'd to crimson, and the tears
Lay like dew on the rose. "Mine, Agatha !
What! weeping, love? I am not late to-night;
Our meeting star but trembles in the sky,
In light as glistening as thine own sweet eyes."
His words had a strange sound; she had forgot
Her sorrow and its cause in the deep joy
His presence brought. She gazed upon his face,
As it 'twould vanish if she did not gaze;
She stay'd her breath to listen to his words,
Scarce daring credit her own happiness.
There stood they, with the rich red light of eve
Yet lingering, like a glory, on their heads,
In the snow mirror of the mountain peak;-
A bright laburnum grew beside,--its boughs
Flung over them a golden shower: the wave
That wander'd at their feet was clear as Hope;
Their shapes were outlined in it; and one star,
Reflected too, shone like an augury

Of good between them.-There they leant, while hours
Pass'd, as time had no boundaries. O earth,

Yet art thou touch'd by heaven, though only touch'd,— Thy pleasures are but rainbows, which unite

The glad heavens with thee in their transient beauty,

Then melt away again upon the clouds.

O youth, and love, which is the light of youth.

Why pass ye as the morning ?-life goes on,
But like a bark, first in carelessness,

And afterwards in fear of each rough gale,
Has flung her richest freightage overboard.

Who is there, though young still, yet having lost

The warmth, the freshness, morning's dew and light,
Can bear to look back on their earlier hours,

When faith made its own happiness, and the heart
Was credulous of its delight, and gave

Its best affections forth so trustingly,
Content to love, not doubting of return?

66

'Twas Agatha broke the sweet silence first:
My father told me he had seen to-day

The gathering, Herman, of your hardy troops:

truth

You led them, mounted on your snow-white steed.—
He bade me fling to-night a double chain
Of sighs and smiles, for the young warrior's
Was sorely tried by absence. You will go,
Like our bold river, into other lands,
On its own proud free course; whilst I shall send
After thee hopes and prayers, like the poor leaves
That I have cast upon the waves to perish."

She spoke in mirth; yet as she spoke, her words
Caught such a sadness in their omen tone,

In silence Herman took her hand, and gazed
Upon her face as he would picture it

Within his utmost soul. A brow more fair
Ne'er caught the silver softness of moonlight.
Her cheek was as the mirror of her heart,
Eloquent in its blushes, and its hues
Now varied like the evening's;-but 'tis vain
To dwell on youthful lovers' parting hour.
A first farewell, with all its passionate words,
Its lingering looks, its gushing tears, its hopes
Scarcely distinguish'd from its fears, its vows,
They are its least of suffering; for the heart
Feels that it needs them not, yet breathes them still,
Making them oracles. But the last star
Sinks down amid the mountains:-he must go;
By daybreak will his gallant vassals look

To hear their chieftain's bugle. Watch'd she there
His dark plume cast its shadow on the snows,
His rapid foot bound on from crag to crag:-
The rocks have hid him from her eager view,
But still she hears the echo of his step,-
That dies too into silence; then she feels
Her utter loneliness :-he is quite gone!

Long days have pass'd-that evening star hath left
Its throne of beauty on the snow-crown'd hill,
Yielding its place to winter's thousand lights;-
Long days have pass'd:-again the twilight hour
Smiles in the influence of that lovely star;
The bright laburnum's golden wealth is heap'd,
The spring's first treasure, and beneath its shade
Rests Agatha alone:-what! still alone?

A few short words will tell what change has wrought

In their once love; it is a history

That would suit half mankind. In its first spring,For the heart has its spring of bud and bloom