“Come hither, hither, my little page!

Why dost thou weep and wail ?
Or dost thou dread the billow's rage,

Or tremble at the gale?
But dash the tear-drop from thine eye ;

Our ship is swift and strong :
Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly

More merrily along."
“Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high,

I fear not wave nor wind :
Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I

Am sorrowful in mind;
For I have from

my
father

gone,
A mother whom I love,
And have no friend, save these alone,

But thee-and One above. “My father bless'd me fervently,

Yet did not much complain; But sorely will my mother sigh

Till I come back again.” * Enough, enough, my little lad,

Such tears become thine eye; If I thy guileless bosom had,

Mine own would not be dry. “Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman

Why dost thou look so pale ?
Or dost thou dread a French foeman ?

Or shiver at the gale ?”
“ Deem'st thou I tremble for my life?

“ Sir Childe, I'm not so weak; But thinking on an absent wife

Will blanch a faithful cheek. “My spouse and boys dwell near thy ball,

Along the bordering lake,
And when they on their father call,

What answer shall she makep”
Enough, enough, my yeoman good,

Thy grief let none gainsay;
But I, who am of lighter mood,

Will laugh to flee away.
“ With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go

Athwart the foaming brine;
Nor care what land thou bears't me to,

So not again to mine.
Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves !

And when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts, and

My native land! good night!”

a

66

ye caves !

57.-THE DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.

A. A. WATTS.

a

My sweet one, my sweet one, the tears were in my eyes
When first I clasped thee to my heart, and heard thy feeble cries;
For I thought of all that I had torne as I bent me down to kiss
Thy cherry lips and sunny brow, my first-born bud of bliss !
I turned to many a withered hope, to years of grief and pain,
And the cruel wrongs of a bitter world fashed o'er my boding brain;
I thought of friends, grown worse than cold-of persecuting foes,
And I asked of heaven if ills like these must mar thy youth's repose.
I gazed upon thy quiet face, half-blinded by my tears,
Tiil gleams of bliss, unfelt before, came brightening on my fears;
Sweet

rays of hope that fairer shone ʼmid the clouds of gloom that

bound them, As stars dart down their loveliest light when midnight skies are

round thom. My sweet one, my sweet one, thy life's brief hour is o’er, And a father's anxious fears for thee can fever thee no more ! And for the hopes, the sun-bright hopes, that blossomed at thy birth, They, too, have fled, to prove how frail are cherished things of

earth! 'Tis true that thou wert young, my child; but though brief thy

span below, To me it was a little age of agony and woe; For, from thy first faint dawn of life, thy cheek began to fade, And my lips had scarce thy welcome breathed, ere my hopes were

wrapt in shade. Oh! the child in its hours of health and bloom, that is dear as thou

wert then, Grows far more prized, more fondly loved, in sickness and in pain ! And thus 'twas thine to prove, dear babe, when every hope was lost, Ten times more precious to my soul, for all that thou hadst cost ! Cradled in thy fair mother's arms, we watched thee day by day, Pale like the second bow of heaven, as gently waste away ; And, sick with dark foreboding fears, we dared not breathe aloud, Sat, hand in hand, in speechless grief, to wait death's coming cloud It came at length : o’er thy bright blue eye the film was gathering!

fast, And an awful shade passed o'er thy brow, the deepest and the last : In thicker gushes strove thy breath-we raised thy drooping head: A moment m re—the final pang-and thou wert of the dead !

Thy gentle mother turned away to hide her face from me,
And murmured low of heaven's behests, and bliss attained by thee;
She would have chid me that I mourned a doom so blest as thine,
Had not her own deep grief burst forth in tears as wild as mine!
We laid thee down in thy sinless rest, and from thine infant brow
Culled one soft lock of radiant hair, our only solace now:
Then placed around thy beauteous corse flowers, not more fair and

sweet-
Twin rosebuds in thy little hands, and jasmine at thy feet.
Though other offspring still be ours, as fair perchance as thou,
With all the beauty of thy cheek, the sunshine of thy brow,
They never can replace the bud our early fondness nurst:
They may be lovely and beloved, but not like thee, the first!
The first! How manya memory bright that one sweet word can bring,
Of hopesthat blossom'd, droop'd, and died, in life's delightfulspring-
Of fervid feelings passed away—those early seeds of bliss
That germinate in hearts unseared by such a world as this !
My sweet one, my sweet one, my fairest and my first !
When I think of what thou mightst have been, my heart is like to

burst; But gleams of gladness through my gloom their soothing radiance

dart, And my sighs are hushed, my tears are dried, when I turn to what

thou art!
Pure as the snow-flake ere it falls and takes the stain of earth,
With not a taint of mortal life, except thy mortal birth,
God bade thee early taste the spring for which so many thirst,
And bliss, eternal bliss is thine, my fairest and my first!

a

a

58.—THE ALMA.

THE NIGHT REV. RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.,

ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. [The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Richard Chenevix Trench, is the author of 1. Justin Martyr and other Poems," a work which, beyond the Christian piety, inculcated in its pages, is marked by strong poetic power and command of vorsification. When Dean of Westminster, Dr. Trench afforded valuable aid to the causo of education by lecturing to the members of various literary institutions on “ The Study of Words,” and the language of our Saxon ancestors. His works on this subject abound with curious and instructive information. His graco was born 1807.] Though till now ungraced in story, scant although thy waters be, Alma, roll those waters proudly, proudly roll them to the sea : Yesterday, unnamed, unhonoured, but to wandering Tartar knownNow thou art a voice for ever, to the world's four corners blown.

a

In two nations' annals graven, thou art now a deathless name,
And a star for ever shining in the firmament of fame.
Many a great and ancient river, crowned with city, tower and

shrine,
Little streamlet, knows no magic, boasts no potency like thine,
Cannot shed the light thou sheddest round many a living head,
Cannot lend the light thou lendest to the memories of the dead.
Yea, nor all unsoothed their sorrow, who can, proudly mourning,

sayWhen the first strong burst of anguish shall have wept itself away“He has pass'd from us, the loved one ; but he sleeps with them

that died By the Alma, at the winning of that terrible hill-side.” Yes, and in the days far onward, when we all are cold as those Who beneath thy vines and willows on their hero-beds repose, Thou on England's banners blazon’d with the famous fields of old, Shalt, where other fields are winning, wave above the brave and And our sons unborn shall nerve them for some great deed to be

done, By that Twentieth of September, when the Alma's heights were Oh! thou river! dear for ever to the gallant, to the freeAlma, roll thy waters proudly, proudly roll them to the sea.

(By permission of the Author.)

bold;

won.

59.-SKIPPER BEN.

LUCY LARCOM.

SAILING away!
Losing the breath of the shores in May,
Dropping down from the beautiful bay,
Over the sea slope vast and grey!
And the skipper's eyes with a mist are blind;
For thoughts rush up on the rising wind
Of a gentle face that he leaves behind,
And a heart that throbs through the fog-bank dim,

Thinking of him.

Far into night
He watches the gleam of the lessening light,
Fixed on the dangerous island height
That bars the harbour he loves from sight;
And he wishes at dawn he could tell the tale
Of how they had weathered the south-west gale,
To brighten the cheek that had grown so pale
With a sleepless night among spectres grim,

Terrors for him.

Yo-heave-yo!
Here's the bank where the fishermen go!
Over the schooner's sides they throw
Tackle and bait to the deeps below.
And Skipper Ben in the water sees,
When its ripples curl to the light land-breeze,
Something that stirs like his apple-trees,
And two soft eyes that beneath them swim

Lifted to him.

Hear the wind roar, And the rain through the slit sails tear and pour ! “ Steady! we'll scud by the Cape Ann shore,Then hark to the Beverley bells once more !" And each man worked with the will of ten; While

up in the rigging, now and then, The lightning glared in the face of Ben, Turned to the black horizon's rim,

Scowling on him.

Into his brain Burned with the iron of hopeless pain, Into thoughts that grapple, and eyes that strain, Pierces the memory, cruel and vain ! Never again shall he walk at ease Under his blossoming apple-trees, That whisper and sway in the sunset breeze, While the soft eyes float where the sea-gulls skim,

Gazing with him

How they went down Never was known in the still old town; Nobody guessed how the fisherman Brown, With the look of despair that was half a frown, Faced his fate in the furious nightFaced the mad billows with hunger white, Just within hail of the beacon light, That shone on a woman neat and trim,

Waiting for him.

Beverley bells
Ring to the tide as it ebbs and swells !
His was the anguish a moment tells, —
The passionate sorrow death quickly knells;
But the wearing wash of a lifting woe
Is left for the desolate heart to know
Whose tides with the dull years come and go,
Till hope drifts dead to its stagnant brim,

Thinking of him.