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THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR.

FROM BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

COME, see the Dolphin's Anchor forged; 'tis at a white heat

now;

The billows ceased, the flames decreased; though on the forge's brow

The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound; And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round, All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare; Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.

The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below,

And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every

throe;

It rises, roars, rends all outright—O Vulcan, what a glow! 'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright, the high sun shines not so !

The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful

show;

The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid

row

Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the

foe;

As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow

Sinks on the anvil—all about the faces fiery grow— "Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out-leap out :" bang, bang, the sledges go;

Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low ; A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow; The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders

strow

The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow:

And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant "Ho!"

Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load!
Let's forge a goodly Anchor, a bower, thick and broad ;
For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,

And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road;
The low reef roaring on her lee, the roll of ocean poured
From stem to stern, sea after sea, the mainmast by the

board;

The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains,

But courage still, brave mariners, the bower still remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch

sky high,

Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothinghere am I !"

Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep

time,

Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's

chime !

But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden

be,

The Anchor is the Anvil King, and royal craftsmen we; Strike in, strike in, the sparks begin to dull their rustling

red!

Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be

sped;

Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array, For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of

clay;

Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here,

For the Yeo-heave-o, and the Heave-away, and the sighing seaman's cheer;

Then weighing slow, at eve they go, far, far from love and home,

And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean

foam.

In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last,
A shapely one he is and strong, as e'er from cat was cast.
A trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me,
What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep
green sea!

O deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?

The hoary monsters' palaces! methinks what joy 'twere now To go plump plunging down amid the assembly of the

whales,

And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails!

Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory

horn;

To leave the subtle sworder-fish, of bony blade forlorn,
And for the ghastly grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to

scorn;

To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles

;

He lies, a lubber anchorage, for sudden shallowed miles Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls, Meanwhile to swing, a buffeting the far-astonished shoals Of his back-browsing ocean calves; or haply in a cove, Shell-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love, To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands, To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands.

O broad-armed Fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine ?

The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable

line:

And night by night 'tis thy delight, thy glory day by day,

Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to

play;

But, shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave, A fisher's joy is to destroy,—thine office is to save.

O, lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst thou but understand

Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping band,

Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend,

With sounds like breakers in a dream, blessing their ancient friend

Oh, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee,

Thine iron side would swell with pride, thou'dst leap within the sea!

Give honour to their memories who left the pleasant strand,

To shed their blood so freely for the love of FatherlandWho left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard

grave

So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave—

Oh, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, Honour him for their memory, whose bones he goes among!

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.

BY SOUTHEY.

It was a summer evening,

Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,

And by him sported on the green

His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet

In playing there had found;

He came to ask what he had found,

That was so large, and smooth, and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,
And with a natural sigh,

""Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory!

"I find them in the garden, for There's many here about; And often when I go to plough,

The ploughshare turns them out! For many thousand men," said he, "Were slain in that great victory." "Now tell us what 'twas all about," Young Peterkin he cries; And little Wilhelmine looks up

With wonder-waiting eyes;

"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for ?"
"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
“Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for,
I could not well make out;

But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory.

“My father lived at Blenheim theu, Yon little stream hard by ;

They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly :

So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

H

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