When from these lofty thoughts I woke,
"What is it," said I," that you bear,
Beneath the covert of your cloak,
Protected from this cold damp air ?"

She answered, soon as she the question heard,
"A simple burthen, Sir, a little singing-bird."
And, thus continuing, she said,

"I had a son, who many a day
Sailed on the seas, but he is dead;

In Denmark he was cast away:

And I have travelled weary miles to see

If aught which he had owned might still remain for me.

The bird and cage they both were his :
'Twas my son's bird; and neat and trim
He kept it: many voyages

This singing-bird had gone with him;
When last he sailed, he left the bird behind;
From bodings, as might be, that hung upon his mind.

He to a fellow-lodger's care

Had left it, to be watched and fed,
And pipe its song in safety;-there
I found it when my son was dead;

And now, God help me for my little wit!

I bear it with me, Sir;-he took so much delight in it."

WORDSWORTH.

XVI. THE MARINER'S SONG.

"MORE than half my boys never saw the sea, and never were in London, and it is surprising how the first of these disadvantages interferes with their understanding much of the ancient poetry, while the other keeps the range of their ideas in an exceedingly narrow compass. Brought up myself in the Isle of Wight, amidst the bustle of soldiers and sailors, and familiar from a child with boats and ships, and the flags of half Europe, which gave me an instinctive acquaintance with geography, I quite marvel to find in what a state of ignorance boys are at seventeen or eighteen, who have lived all their days in inland country parishes or small country towns."-Dr. Arnold.

A WET sheet and a flowing sea,

A wind that follows fast,

And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast;

And bends the gallant mast, my boys,

While, like the eagle free,

Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.

THE SHIP AT SEA.

O for a soft and gentle wind!

I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze,

And white waves heaving high;

And white waves heaving high, my boys,
The good ship tight and free-
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon horned
And lightning in yon cloud;
And hark the music, mariners,
The wind is piping loud;

moon,

The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashing free-
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.

165

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM,

XVII. THE SHIP AT SEA.

"THAT a man, by merely measuring the moon's apparent distance from a star with a little portable instrument held in his hand, and applied to his eye, even with so unstable a footing as the deck of a ship, shall say positively, within five miles, where he is, on a boundless ocean, cannot but appear to persons ignorant of physical astronomy an approach to the miraculous. Yet, the alternatives of life and death, wealth and ruin, are daily and hourly staked with perfect confidence on these marvellous computations, which might almost seem to have been devised on purpose to show how closely the extremes of speculative refinement and practical utility can be brought to approximate."-Sir John Herschel.

A WHITE Sail gleaming on the flood,
And the bright orbed sun on high,
Are all that break the solitude
Of the circling sea and sky;—
Nor cloud nor cape is imaged there,
Nor isle of ocean, nor of air.

Led by the magnet o'er the tides,
That bark her path explores;
Sure as unerring instinct guides
The birds to unseen shores,

With wings, that o'er the waves expand,
She wanders to a viewless land.

Yet not alone;-on ocean's breast,
Though no green islet glows,
No sweet refreshing spot of rest
Where fancy may repose,

Nor rock, nor hill, nor tower, nor tree
Breaks the blank solitude of sea.

No! not alone;-her beauteous shade
Attends her noiseless way,

As some sweet memory, undecayed,
Clings to the heart for aye,

And haunts it wheresoe'er we go,
Through every scene of joy and woe.

And not alone ;-for day and night
Escort her o'er the deep,
And round her solitary flight
The stars their vigils keep;

Above, below, are circling skies,

And heaven round her pathway lies.

And not alone;-for hopes and fears,

Go with her wandering sail;

And bright eyes watch, through gathering tears,

The distant cloud to hail;

And prayers for her, at midnight lone,

Ascend, unheard, by all save One.

And not alone;—with her bright dreams

Are on the pathless main;

And o'er its moan-earth's woods and streams,

Put forth their choral strain;

When sweetly are her slumbers blest

With visions of the land of rest.

And not alone;-for round her glow

The vital light and air,

And something that, in whispers low,
Tells to man's spirit there,
Upon her waste and weary road,
A present, all-pervading God!

MALCOLM.

NELSON.

XVIII. COLUMBUS.

167

"ALL work of man is like that of a swimmer, whom an ocean threatens to devour. If he front it bravely, behold how loyally it supports him, and bears him as its conqueror along! The winds had something else to do than to fill, rightly or wrongly, the sails of Columbus's cockle-boats. He was not among articulately speaking men, but among dumb monsters, tumbling and howling. Patiently he waited till the mad south-wester spent itself; with swift decision he struck in when the favouring east sprung up. Mutiny of men he sternly repressed. Complaint of weariness, weakness, or despondency in others, and in himself, he swallowed down. There was a depth of silence in him, deeper than the sea. His strong soul embraced and harnessed the unmeasured world."-Carlyle.

THY soul was nerved with more than mortal force,
Bold mariner upon a chartless sea,

With none to second, none to solace thee.
Alone, who daredst keep thy resolute course

Through the broad waste of waters drear and dark,
'Mid wrathful skies, and howling winds, and worse,
The prayer, the taunt, the threat, the muttured curse
Of all thy brethren in that fragile bark:
For on thy brow, throbbing with hopes immense,
Had just Ambition set his royal mark,
Enriching thee with noble confidence

That having once thy venturous sails unfurled
No danger should defeat thy recompense,

The god-like gift to man of half the world.

TUPPER'S Ballads and Poems.

XIX. NELSON.

"GIFTED by nature with undaunted courage, indomitable resolution, and undecaying energy, Nelson was also possessed of the eagle glance, the quick determination, and coolness in danger, which constitute the rarest qualities of a consummate commander. Generous, openhearted, and enthusiastic, the whole energies of his soul were concentrated in the love of his country; like the youth in Tacitus, he loved danger itself, not the rewards of courage; he was incessantly consumed by that passion for great achievements, that sacred fire which is the invariable characteristic of heroic minds. His soul was constantly striving for historic exploits; generosity and magnanimity in danger were so natural to him, that they arose unbidden on every occasion calculated to call them forth. On one occasion, during a violent storm off Minorca, Nelson's ship was disabled, and Captain Ball took his vessel in tow. Nelson thought, however, that Ball's ship would be lost if she kept her hold, and deeming his own case desperate, he seized the speaking-trumpet, and with passionate threats ordered Ball to set him loose. But Ball took his own trumpet, and in a solemn voice replied, 'I feel confident I can bring you in safe: I

therefore must not, and, by the help of Almighty God, I will not
leave you.' What he promised he performed, and on arriving in
harbour, Nelson embraced him as his deliverer, and commenced a
friendship which continued for life."-Alison's History of Europe.
WELL hast thou done thy duty, gallant son;
What truer fame can greet a mortal's ear
Than duty's task heroically done?—

So are they hailed, who better crowns have won :
Thou, to the patriot's soul so justly dear,
O let us blot thy failings with a tear,
And read alone the record of thy worth;

Man without pride, or hate, or fraud, or fear,
Who banished discord, and gave peace to earth,
Thine was the generous heart, though gentle, brave,
The will to bless, the godlike power to save:
What nobler pæan can the poet raise?

A glorious life, an honourable grave,
Trafalgar and Aboukir be thy praise!

TUPPER'S Ballads and Poems.

XX. LOOK ALOFT.

"ONE grand purpose the ocean is always promoting, and this is, that it kindles irresistably in every mind which views it, the emotion, and sentiment of sublimity, a feeling of vastness of extent and moving power, a perception of grandeur combined with the most attractive beauty, when its radiant waters are slumbering in the sunny calm; and of terrific majesty and awe, when the storm throws up its waves, and hurls their foaming masses with resistless fury, as if destruction was acting in a living form, and rustling determinedly to overwhelm us. Nothing more fully impresses man with a conviction of his personal helplessness and comparative feebleness, than the confronting him with the forces of surrounding nature; nor more compels him to feel, that power, infinitely greater than his own, is ever subsisting above and about him, to which he is completely subjected, and against which he is impotent to struggle. He may give this never-dying power what denomination he chooses; but it forces him, by the ocean tempest, by the aerial whirlwind, and by the appalling thunder, to feel the certainty of its existence, and the tremendous possibilities of its agency. If he be wise, he will recognise it as the herald and representative and proclaimer of the Deity himself, and as the sensorial proof that He exists, and reigns, and actuates, and providentially governs; for the more terrible the agitation of the winds and waves and lightning appear, and by their effects prove themselves to be, the more evidence they give to our eyesight and judgment, how speedily they would spread ruin and desolation through material nature, and over man's human world, if no superintending and controlling mind watched and limited their agency."-Turner's Sacred History of the World.