And brook'st commandment from the heavens alone

For marshalling thy waves.

Yet, potent sea!

How placidly thy moist lips speak ev'n now
Along yon sparkling shingles! Who can be
So fanciless, as to feel no gratitude

That power and grandeur can be so serene,
Soothing the home-bound navy's peaceful way,
And rocking ev'n the fisher's little bark
As gently as a mother rocks her child?

Earth has her gorgeous towns; the earth-circling sea
Has spires and mansions more amusive still
Men's volant homes, that measure liquid space
On wheel or wing. The chariot of the land,
With pain'd and panting steeds and clouds of dust,
Has no sight-gladdening motion like these fair
Careerers with the foam beneath their bows,
Whose streaming ensigns charm the waves by day,
Whose carols and whose watch-bells cheer the night,
Moor'd as they cast the shadows of their masts
In long array, or hither flit and yond
Mysteriously with slow and crossing lights,
Like spirits on the darkness of the deep.

There is a magnet-like attraction in
These waters to the imaginative power,
That links the viewless with the visible,
And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond
Yon highway of the world my fancy flies,
When by her tall and triple mast we know

Some nobler voyager, that has to woo

The trade-winds, and to stem the ecliptic surge.
The coral groves
the shores of conch and pearl,

Where she will cast her anchor, and reflect
Her cabin-window lights on warmer waves,
And under planets brighter than our own:
The nights of palmy isles, that she will see
Lit boundless by the fire-fly-all the smells
Of tropic fruits that will regale her - all
The pomp of nature, and the inspiriting
Varieties of life she has to greet,
Come swarming o'er the meditative mind.

CAMPBELL.

LINES WRITTEN AT SORRENTO.

THE wild waves madly dash and roar,
In thunder-throbs, upon the beach;
Their broad white hands upon the shore
They struggle evermore to reach.

Up through the cavernous rocks amain,

With short, hoarse growl, they plunge and leap,

Like an armed host, again and again,

Battering some castellated steep.

Great pulses of the ocean heart,
Beating from out immensity,
What mystic news would ye impart
From the great spirit of the sea?

Ever, in still increasing force,
Earnest as cries of love or hate,
Your large and eloquent discourse
Is mighty as the march of fate.

I sit alone on the glowing sand,
Filled with the music of your speech,
And only half may understand

The wondrous lore that ye would teach.

The sea-weed and the shells are wise,

And versed in your broad Sanscrit tongue;

The rocks need not our ears and eyes

To comprehend the under-song.

The ocean and the shore are one;
The rocks and trees that hang above,

The birds and insects in the sun

Are linked in one strong tie of love.

Would that I might with freedom be
A seer into your hidden truth,
Joining your firm fraternity,

To drink with you perpetual youth!

C. P. CRANCH.

HAMPTON BEACH.

THE sunlight glitters keen and bright,
Where, miles away,

Lies stretching to my dazzled sight
A luminous belt, a misty light,

Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy grey.

The tremulous shadow of the sea!
Against its ground

Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree,

Still as a picture, clear and free,

With varying outline mark the coast for miles around.

on- we tread with loose-flung rein

Our seaward way,

Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain,

Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane, And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray.

Ha! like a kind hand on my brow

Comes this fresh breeze,

Cooling its dull and feverish glow,

While through my being seems to flow

The breath of a new life-the healing of the seas!

Now rest we, where this

grassy

mound

His feet hath set

In the great waters, which have bound

His granite ankles greenly round

With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray

wet.

Good-bye to Pain and Care! I take
Mine ease to-day;

Here where these sunny waters break,

And ripples this keen breeze, I shake

All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.

I draw a freer breath-I seem
Like all I see

Waves in the sun-the white-winged gleam

Of sea-birds in the slanting beam

And far-off sails which flit before the south wind free.

So when Time's veil shall fall asunder,

The soul may know

No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,

Nor sink the weight of mystery under, But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.

And all we shrink from now may seem

No new revealing;

Familiar as our childhood's stream, Or pleasant memory of a dream The loved and cherished Past upon

the new life stealing