Where is the vessel? Shining through the light,
Like the white sea-fowl's horizontal flight,
Yonder she wings, and skims, and cleaves her way
Through refluent foam and iridescent spray.

The stars, in their nocturnal vigils, rest
Like signal-fires on its illumined crest;
The gliding moon around the ramparts wheels,
And all its magic lights and shades reveals ;
Beneath, the tide with equal fury raves,
To undermine it through a thousand caves ;
Rent from its roof, though thundering fragments oft
Plunge to the gulf, immovable aloft,
From age to age, in air, o'er sea, on land,
Its turrets heighten and its piers expand.

Hark! through the calm and silence of the scene,
Slow, solemn, sweet, with many a pause between,
Celestial music swells along the air!
No ! 'tis the evening-hymn of praise and prayer
From yonder deck, where, on the stern retired,
Three humble voyagers, with looks inspired,
And hearts enkindled with a holier flame
Than ever lit to empire or to fame,
Devoutly stand : their choral accents rise
On wings of harmony beyond the skies ;
And, ʼmidst the songs that seraph-minstrels sing,
Day without night, to their immortal king,
These simple strains, which erst Bohemian hills
Echoed to pathless woods and desert rills,
Now heard from Shetland's azure bound-are known
In heaven ; and He who sits upon the throne
In human form, with mediatorial power,
Remembers Calvary, and hails the hour
When, by the Almighty Father's high decree,
The utmost north to him shall bow the knee,
And, won by love, an untamed rebel-race
Kiss the victorious sceptre of his grace.
Then to his eye, whose instant glance pervades
Heaven's heights, earth's circle, hell's profoundest

shades,
Is there a group more lovely than those three
Night-watching pilgrims on the lonely sea ?
Or to his ear, that gathers, in one sound,
The voices of adoring worlds around,
Comes there a breath of more delightful praise
Than the faint notes his poor disciples raise,
Ere on the treacherous main they sink to rest,
Secure as leaning on their Master's breast ?

They sleep; but memory wakes; and dreams array
Night in a lively masquerade of day;
The land they seek, the land they leave behind,
Meet on mid-ocean in the plastic mind;
One brings forsaken home and friends so nigh,
That tears in slumber swell the unconscious eye :
The other opens, with prophetic view,
Perils which e'en their fathers never knew
(Though schooled by suffering, long inured to toil,
Outcasts and exiles from their natal soil);
Strange scenes, strange men; untold, untried distress;
Pain, hardships, famine, cold, and nakedness,
Diseases; death in every hideous form,
On shore, at sea, by fire, by flood, by storm;
Wild beasts, and wilder men—unmoved with fear,
Health, comfort, safety, life, they count not dear,
May they but hope a Saviour's love to shew,
And warn one spirit from eternal woe:
Nor will they saint, nor can they strive in vain,
Since thus to live is Christ, to die is gain.

Night. Night is the time for rest ;

How sweet, when labours close, To gather round an aching breast

The curtain of repose, Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightsul bed ! Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of lise,
When truth that is, and truth that seems,

Blend in fantastic strise ;
Ah! visions less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are !
Night is the time for toil ;

To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil

Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang or heroes wrought.
Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of memory where sleep

The joys of other years ;
Hopes that were angels in their birth,
But perished young like things on earth!
Night is the time to watch ;

Ön ocean's dark expanse
To hail the Pleiades, or catch

The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings into the home-sick mind
All we have loved and left behind.

Night is the time for care

Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of despair

Come to our lonely tent;
Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host,
Summoned to die by Cæsar's ghost.
Night is the time to think ;

Then from the eye the soul
Takes flight, and on the utmost brink

Of yonder starry pole,
Discerns beyond the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.
Night is the time to pray;

Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away;

So will his followers do ;
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And commune there alone with God.
Night is the time for death ;

When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath,

From sin and suffering cease : Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends—such death be mine !

The Pelican Island. Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, Keel-upward from the deep emerged a shell, Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled ; Fraught with young lise, it righted as it rose,

From din, and pageantry, and strife,

'Midst woods and mountains, vales and plains, She treads the paths of lowly life,

Yet in a bosom-circle reigns,
No fountain scattering diamond-showers,
But the sweet streamlet watering flowers.

And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wasting breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light.
Worth all the dead creation, in that hour,
To me appeared this lonely Nautilus,
My fellow-being, like myself alive.
Entranced in contemplation, vague yet sweet,
I watched its vagrant course and rippling wake,
Till I forgot the sun amidst the heavens.

It closed, sunk, dwindled to a point, then nothing ;
While the last bubble crowned the dimpling eddy,
Through which mine eye still giddily pursued it,
A joyous creature vaulted through the air--
The aspiring fish that fain would be a bird,
On long, light wings, that flung a diamond-shower
Of dew-drops round its evanescent form,
Sprang into light, and instantly descended.
Ere I could greet the stranger as a friend,
Or mourn his quick departure, on the surge
A shoal of dolphins, tumbling in wild glee,
Glowed with such orient tints, they might have been
The rainbow's offspring, when it met the ocean
In that resplendent vision I had seen.
While yet in ecstasy I hung o'er these,
With every motion pouring out fresh beauties,
As though the conscious colours came and went
At pleasure, glorying in their subtle changes,
Enormous o'er the flood, Leviathan
Looked forth, and from his roaring nostrils sent
Two fountains to the sky, then plunged amain
In headlong pastime through the closing gulf.

Aspirations of Youth. Higher, higher, will we climb,

Up the mount of glory, That our names may live through time

In our country's story; Happy, when her welfare calls, He who conquers, he who falls ! Deeper, deeper, let us toil

In the mines of knowledge; Nature's wealth and learning's spoil,

Win from school and college ; Delve we there for richer gems Than the stars of diadems. Onward, onward, will we press

Through the path of duty; Virtue is true happiness,

Excellence true beauty. Minds are of supernal birth, Let us make a heaven of earth. Closer, closer, then we knit

Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit,

In the wildest weather ;
Oh, they wander wide who roam,
For the joys of life, from home.
Nearer, dearer bands of love

Draw our souls in union,
To our Father's house above,

To the saints' communion ; Thither every hope ascend, There may all our labours end.

The Recluse.
A fountain issuing into light

Before a marble palace, threw
To heaven its column, pure and bright,

Returning thence in showers of dew;
But soon a humbler course it took,
And glid away a nameless brook.
Flowers on its grassy margin sprang,

Flies o'er its eddying surface played,
Birds 'midst the alder-branches sang,

Flocks through the verdant meadows strayed ; The weary there lay down to rest, And there the halcyon built her nest. 'Twas beautisul to stand and watch

The fountain's crystal turn to gems,
And from the sky such colours catch

As if 'twere raining diadems;
Yet all was cold and curious art,
That charmed the eye, but missed the heart
Dearer to me the little stream

Whose unimprisoned waters run,
Wild as the changes of a dream,

By rock and glen, through shade and sun;
Its lovely links had power to bind
In welcome chains my wandering mind.
So thought I when I saw the face

By happy portraiture revealed,
Or one adorned with every grace,

Her name and date from me concealed,
But not her story ; she had been
The pride of many a splendid scene.
She cast her glory round a court,

And frolicked in the gayest ring,
Where fashion's high-born minions sport

Like sparkling fireflies on the wing;
But thence, when love had touched her soul,
To nature and to truth she stole.

The Common Lot. Once, in the flight of ages past,

There lived a man : and who was he? Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast,

That man resembled thee. Unknown the region of his birth,

The land in which he died unknown:
His name has perished from the earth,

This truth survives alone :
That joy, and grief, and hope, and fear,

Alternate triumphed in his breast;
His bliss and woe--a smile, a tear !

Oblivion hides the rest.
The bounding pulse, the languid limb,

The changing spirits' rise and sall;
We know that these were felt by him,

For these are felt by all.
He suffered—but his pangs are o'er ;

Enjoyed—but his delights are fled ;
Had friends--his friends are now no more ;

And foes-his foes are dead.
He loved—but whom he loved the grave

Hath lost in its unconscious womb :
Oh, she was fair! but nought could save

Her beauty from the tomb.
He saw whatever thou hast seen ;

Encountered all that troubles thee :
He was—whatever thou hast been ;
He is—what thou shalt be.

149

TO

Too late I stayed-forgive the crime;

Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of Time,

That only treads on flowers !
What eye with clear account remarks

The ebbing of the glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks,

That dazzle as they pass !
Oh, who to sober measurement

Time's happy swiftness brings,
When birds of Paradise have lent

Their plumage for his wings !

But, when he gained his castle-door,

Aghast the chieftain stood; The hound all o'er was smeared with gore ;

His lips, his fangs, ran blood.
Llewelyn gazed with fierce surprise ;

Unused such looks to meet,
His favourite checked his joyful guise,

And crouched, and licked his feet.
Onward, in haste, Llewelyn passed,

And on went Gêlert too;
And still, where'er his eyes he cast,

Fresh blood-gouts shocked his view.
O'erturned his infant's bed he found,

With blood stained covert rent ;
And all around, the walls and ground

With recent blood besprent.
He called his child—no voice replied-

He searched with terror wild ;
Blood, blood he found on every side,

But nowhere found his child. 'Hell-hound ! my child's by thee devoured,'

The frantic father cried ;
And to the hilt his vengeful sword

He plunged in Gêlert's side.
His suppliant looks, as prone he fell,

No pity could impart ;
But still his Gêlert's dying yell

Passed heavy o'er his heart.
Aroused by Gelert's dying yell,

Some slumberer wakened nigh: What words the parent's joy could tell

To hear his infant's cry! Concealed beneath a tumbled heap

His hurried search had missed,
All glowing from his rosy sleep,

The cherub boy he kissed.
Nor scathe had he, nor harm, nor dread,

But, the same couch beneath,
Lay a gaunt wolf, all torn and dead,

Tremendous still in death.

Stanzas.
When midnight o'er the moonless skies

Her pall of transient death has spread,
When mortals sleep, when spectres rise,

And nought is wakeful but the dead :
No bloodless shape my way pursues,

No sheeted ghost my couch annoys ;
Visions more sad my fancy views,

Visions of long-departed joys !
The shade of youthful hope is there,

That lingered long, and latest died ;
Ambition all dissolved to air,

With phantom honours by his side.
What empty shadows glimmer nigh?

They once were Friendship, Truth, and Love !
Oh, die to thought, to memory die,

Since lifeless to my heart ye prove ! These last two verses, Sir Walter Scott, who knew and esteemed Spencer, quotes in his diary, terming them “fine lines,' and expressive of his own feelings amidst the wreck and desolation of his fortunes at Abbotsford.

Ah, what was then Llewelyn's pain!

For now the truth was clear ;
His gallant hound the wolf had slain

To save Llewelyn's heir.
Vain, vain was all Llewelyn's woe;

‘Best of thy kind, adieu ! The frantic blow which laid thee low

This heart shall ever rue.'

HENRY LUTTRELL, Another man of wit and fashion, and a pleasing versifier, was HENRY LUTTRELL (1770-1851), author of Advice to Julia : a Letter in Rhyme, 1820, and Crockford House, 1827. Mr Luttrelí was a favourite in the circle of Holland House : 'none of the talkers whom I meet in London society,' said Rogers, 'can slide in a brilliant thing with such readiness as he does. The writings of these witty and celebrated conversationists seldom do justice to their talents, but there are happy descriptive passages and touches of light satire in Luttrell's verses. Rogers used to quote an epigram made by his friend on the celebrated vocalist, Miss Tree :

On this tree when a nightingale settles and sings,

The tree will return her as good as she brings. Luttrell sat in the Irish parliament before the Union. He is said to have been a natural son of Lord Carhampton. The following are extracts from the Advice to Julia :

And now a gallant tomb they raise,

With costly sculpture decked ;
And marbles storied with his praise

Poor Gêlert's bones protect.
There, never could the spearman pass,

Or forester unmoved ;
There, oft the tear-besprinkled grass

Llewelyn's sorrow proved.
And there he hung his horn and spear,

And there, as evening sell,
In fancy's ear he oft would hear

Poor Gelert's dying yell.
And, till great Snowdon's rocks grow old,

And cease the storm to brave, The consecrated spot shall hold

The name of Gelert's Grave.'

London in Autumn. 'Tis August. Rays of fiercer heat Full on the scorching pavement beat. As o'er it the faint breeze, by fits Alternate, blows and intermits.