Health, too, and Strength, tugged at the oar, To guide the boat aright: Bubbles did half their thoughts employ, Then Prudence told them all she feared, Though none knew how he went. To where, upon the distant sea, Still touched the whirling wave. And though she steers with better skill, And day is almost spent. Oh! that I could as merry be, On some gay voyage sent. AUTHOR OF RICHELIEU. THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. COME, see the Dolphin's Anchor forged; 'tis a white heat now; The bellows 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; 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! chains, But courage still brave mariners, the bower yet remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch skyhigh, Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing-here am I!" Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time, sped; Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array, When weighing slow, at eve they go, far, far from love and home, And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam. 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 monster's 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, He lies, a lubber anchorage, for sudden shallowed miles; 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, 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! BLACKWOOD'S Magazine. THE SONG OF THE BREEZE. I'VE swept o'er the mountain, the forest, and fell, I have moaned in the ear through the rosy shell; I have hung over groves where the citron grows, I have hushed the babe in its cradled rest, And the flaming brand of the fire-king sped; Where thou may'st not, enthusiast, wander with me. NOTHING. MOST writers like on something to dilate, And some on anything would spend their time; But everything is now in such a state That "nothing" best fits my humble chime. Hail! then, the subject; and all hail! the bard What art thou, Nothing?-Nothing but a name! All end in thee-from whom they took their rise! What's Friendship? Nothing!-Love? "an emptier sound!" Honour?-Wealth?-Splendour?-Dignity?—and Pride? I asked the tombs-(with solemn sculptures crowned)‘Nothing!”—a hollow moan from each replied. Yet much depends on Nothing!-Nothing known, |