She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,

But the cruel rocks, they gored her side,
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts, went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At day-break, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,

To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!

Christ save us all from a death like this,

On the reef of Norman's Woe!

Longfellow.

EXCELSIOR.

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner, with the strange device,
Excelsior!

His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a faulchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,

Excelsior!

Try not the Pass!" the old man said, "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, Excelsior!

"O stay!" the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye,
But still he answered, with a sigh,
Excelsior!

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche !"

This was the peasant's last good-night! A voice replied, far up the height, Excelsior!

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,

A voice cried through the startled air,
Excelsior!

A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Half-buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner, with the strange device,
Excelsior!

There, in the twilight cold and grey,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,

And from the sky, serene and far,

A voice fell, like a falling star,

Excelsior!

Longfellow.

SUNRISE ON THE HILLS.

I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch Was glorious with the sun's returning march, And woods were brightened, and soft gales Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.

The clouds were far beneath me; bathed in light,

They gathered mid-way round the wooded height, And, in their fading glory, shone

Like hosts in battle overthrown,

As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance, Through the grey mist thrust up its shattered lance,

And rocking on the cliff was left

The dark pine, blasted, bare, and cleft.
The veil of cloud was lifted, and below
Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow
Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade ;

Where upward, in the mellow blush of day,
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.

I heard the distant waters dash, I saw the current whirl and flash,

And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,
The woods were bending with a silent reach.
Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell,

The music of the village bell

Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills;

And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills,

Was ringing to the merry shout,

That faint and far the glen sent out,

Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke,

Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle broke.

If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills!-No tears

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.

Longfellow.