Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea:

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream.
The spirit he loves remains ;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead.

As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may

sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardours of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;

The volcanos are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-coloured bow ;,

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,

I pass

And the nursling of the sky;

through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain

The pavilion of heaven is hare,

And the winds and the sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.

Shelley.

LINES,

SUPPOSED TO BE SPOKEN BY A DYING SON.

Weep not for me, mother! because I must die,

And sink in death's coldness to rest;

Weep not for me, mother! because death is nigh,

I go to the home of the blest!

It is but a moment-a pang-and no more

A struggle and that to be free;

'Tis the spirit's last look on a journey that's o'er; Oh death has no terror for me.

Weep not for me, mother! the Christian should fling
His frailties and fears to the wind;

But only in death when his spirit takes wing,
Can he leave them for ever behind.

Farewell to thee now-t
-the mist thickens fast;
The cold hand is laid on my breast;

-

The moments are numbered another the last,
I go to the home of the blest!

Anon.

EXTRACT FROM THE MINSTREL.

Yet such the destiny of all on earth;

So flourishes and fades majestic man;

Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth,

And fostering gales a while the nursling fan.

O smile, ye heavens, serene; ye mildews wan,
Ye blighting whirlwinds, spare his balmy prime,
Nor lessen of his life the little span.

Borne on the swift, though silent wings of time,
Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.
And be it so. Let those deplore their doom,
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn;
But lofty souls who look beyond the tomb,
Can smile at fate, and wonder how they mourn.
Shall spring to these sad scenes no more return?
Is yonder wave the sun's eternal bed?

Soon shall the orient with new lustre burn,
And spring shall soon her vital influence shed,
Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead.
Shall I be left abandoned in the dust,

When fate relenting lets the flowers revive?
Shall nature's voice, to man alone unjust,
Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live?

Is it for this fair virtue oft must strive

With disappointment, penury, and pain ?

No: Heaven's immortal spring shall yet arrive,

And man's majestic beauty bloom again,

Bright through the eternal year of love's triumphant reign.

Beattie.