With glowing lips

Sings as he skips,

Or gazes at the far-off ships.

Yon deep bark goes

Where Traffic blows

From lands of sun to lands of snows;-
This happier one,

Its course is run

From lands of snow to lands of sun.

O happy ship,

To rise and dip,

With the blue crystal at your lip!

O happy crew,

My heart with you

Sails, and sails, and sings anew!

No more, no more

The worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar !
With dreamful eyes

My spirit lies

Under the walls of Paradise!

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

ROLL ON, THOU SUN.

29

Roll on, thou Sun.

OOLL on, thou Sun, forever roll,

Thou giant, rushing through the heaven!
Creation's wonder, nature's soul,

Thy golden wheels by angels driven !
The planets die without thy blaze,
And cherubim, with star-dropt wing,
Float in thy diamond-sparkling rays,
Thou brightest emblem of their King!

Roll, lovely Earth, and still roll on,

With ocean's azure beauty bound;
While one sweet star, the pearly moon,
Pursues thee through the blue profound;
And Angels, with delighted eyes,

Behold thy tints of mount and stream,

From the high walls of Paradise,

Swift wheeling like a glorious dream.

Roll, Planets! on your dazzling road,
Forever sweeping round the sun!
What eye beheld when first ye glowed?
What eye shall see your courses done?
Roll in your solemn majesty,

Ye deathless splendors of the skies!
High altars, from which Angels see
The incense of creation rise!

Roll, Comets! and ye million Stars!

Ye that through boundless nature roam;
Ye monarchs on your flame-wing cars ;

Tell us in what more glorious dome,—
What orbs to which your pomps are dim,
What kingdom but by angels trod,—
Tell us where swells the eternal hymn
Around His throne where dwells your God.
ANONYMOUS.

Morning Hymn to Mont Blanc.

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star

In his steep course?-so long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc !
The Arve and Aveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark,—substantial black,—
An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody,

So sweet we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thoughts,
Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy,—
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty vision passing-there

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven,

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest-not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy. Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!
Oh! struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn

MORNING HYMN TO MONT BLANC.

Co-herald! wake, oh wake! and utter praise.
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shattered and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ?

And who commanded-and the silence came--
"Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?"

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain—
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!-

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
"GOD!" let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer; and let the ice-plains echo, "GOD!"

31

"GOD!" sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, “GOD!" Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! Utter forth "GOD!" and fill the hills with praise !

Once more, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peak, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,

Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast,—
Thou, too, again, stupendous Mountain! thou,
That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow-traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,

To rise before me--rise, oh ever rise,

Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD!

SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE,

The Beacon.

HE scene was more beautiful far to my eye,

THE

Than if day in its pride had arrayed it;

The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky
Looked pure as the Spirit that made it.

The murmur rose soft as I silently gazed

On the shadowy wave's playful motion,

From the dim distant isle till the beacon-fire blazed,
Like a star in the midst of the ocean.

No longer the joy of the sailor boy's breast
Was heard in his wildly breathed numbers;
The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest,
And the fisherman sunk to his slumbers.