When close they reef'd the timid sail,
When, every plank complaining loud,
We labour'd in the midnight gale,

And ev'n our haughty main-mast bow'd!
Fancy, in that unlovely hour,
Propitious came, her dream to shed,
And turn'd my cabin to a bower,
My canvass cot to rapture's bed!
For she, the maid I've left behind,
Lay blushing in that canvass cot-
Oh! where was then the raving wind?
Amid her sighs I heard it not!

One night, I own, the storms it blew
Our little ship so rudely tost,
That slumber's web was torn in two,

And fancy's sweet embroidery lost!
Yet even then, the gentle muse,
Whose willing soul can ne'er refuse,

Compton, who in July last was killed aboard the Lilly in an action with a French privateer. Poor Compton! he fell a victim to the strange impolicy of allowing such a miserable thing as the Lilly to remain in the service; so small, crank, and unmanageable, that a well manned merchantman was at any time a match for

her.

(Would every maid were half so kind!)
With song's endearment sooth'd my mind.
She open'd, with her golden key,
The casket where my memory lays
Those little gems of poesy,

Which time has sav'd from ancient days!
Take one of these, to LAIS sung,

I wrote it, while my hammock swung,
As one might write a dissertation
Upon "suspended animation!"

4 SWEETLY you kiss, my

LAIS dear!

But, while you kiss, I feel a tear

✦ This epigram is by Paulus Silentiarius, and may be found in the Analecta of Brunck, Vol. 3. p. 72. But as the reading there is somewhat different from what I have followed in this translation, I shall give it as I had it in my memory at the time, and as it is in Heinsius, who, I believe, first produced the epigram. See his Poemata.

Ηδυ μεν εστι φιλημα το Λαίδος· ἡδυ δε αυτων

Ηπιοδινητων δακρυ χεεις βλεφάρων,

Και πολυ κιχλίζεσα σοβείς ευβοστρυχον αιγλην,
Ημέτερα κεφαλην δηρον ερεισάμενη.

Μυρομενην δ' εφιλησα· τα δ'ως δροσερης απο πηγης,

Δακρυα μιγνυμενων πίπτε κατα στομάτων

Είπε δ' ανειρομένω, τινος ένεκα δακρυα λείβεις ;

Δείδια μη με λιπης εστε γαρ ορκαπαται.

Bitter, as those when lovers part,
In mystery from your eye-lid start!
Sadly you lean your head to mine,
And round my neck in silence twine,
Your hair along my bosom spread,
All humid with the tears you shed!
Oh! I have kiss'd those lids of snow,

Yet still, my love, like founts they flow,
Bathing our cheeks, whene'er they meet—
Why is it thus? do, tell me, sweet!

Ah, LAIS! are my bodings right?

Am I to lose you? is to-night

The muse and I together sung,

With Boreas to make out the trio.

But, bless the little fairy isle!
How sweetly after all our ills,

We
e saw the dewy morning smile
Serenely o'er its fragrant hills!

And felt the pure, elastic flow
Of airs, that round this Eden blow,
With honey freshness, caught by stealth
Warm from the very lips of health !

Oh! could you view the scenery dear,
That now beneath my window lies,
You'd think, that nature lavish'd here

Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in!
Close to my wooded bank below,

In glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sun-beam proudly show
The coral rocks they love to steep 5!
The fainting breeze of morning fails,
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails

That languish idly round the mast.

The water is so beautifully clear around the island, that the rocks are seen beneath to a very great depth, and as we entered the harbour, they appeared to us so near the surface, that it seemed impossible we should not strike on them. There is no necessity, of course, for heaving the lead, and the negro pilot, looking down at the rocks from the bow of the ship, takes her through

The sun has now profusely given
The flashes of a noontide heaven,
And, as the wave reflects his beams,
Another heaven its surface seems!
Blue light and clouds of silvery tears
So pictur'd o'er the waters lie,
That every languid bark appears
To float along a burning sky!

Oh! for the boat the angel gave

To him, who in his heaven-ward flight,
Sail'd, o'er the sun's ætherial wave,
To planet-isles of odorous light!
Sweet Venus, what a clime he found

Within thy orb's ambrosial round'!

this difficult navigation, with a skill and confidence which seem to astonish some of the oldest sailors.

"In Kircher's "Extatic Journey to Heaven," Cosmiel, the genius of the world, gives Theodidactus a boat of asbestos, with which he embarks into the regions of the sun. "Vides (says Cosmiel) hanc asbestinam naviculam commoditati tuæ præparatam." Itinerar. 1. Dial. 1. Cap. 5. There are some very strange fancies in this work of Kircher.

"When the Genius of the world and his fellow-traveller arrive at the planet Venus, they find an island of loveliness, full of odours and intelligences, where angels preside, who shed the cosmetic influence of this planet over the earth;