FORMS OF PRAYER TO BE USED AT

SEA.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.

Isaiah xliii. 2.

THE shower of moonlight falls as still and clear Upon the desert main,

As where sweet flowers some pastoral garden cheer
With fragrance after rain:

The wild winds rustle in the piping shrouds,
As in the quivering trees:

Like summer fields, beneath the shadowy clouds
The yielding waters darken in the breeze.

Thou too art here with thy soft inland tones,
Mother of our new birth;

The lonely ocean learns thy orisons,

And loves thy sacred mirth:

When storms are high, or when the fires of war

Come lightening round our course,

Thou breath'st a note like music from afar,

Tempering rude hearts with calm angelic force.

Far far away, the homesick seaman's hoard,
Thy fragrant tokens live,

Like flower-leaves in a precious volume stor❜d,
To solace and relieve

Some heart too weary of the restless world;
Or like thy sabbath Cross,

That o'er the brightening billow streams unfurl'd,
Whatever gale the labouring vessel toss.

O kindly soothing in high Victory's hour,
Or when a comrade dies,

In whose sweet presence Sorrow dares not lower,
Nor Expectation rise

Too high for earth; what mother's heart could spare
To the cold cheerless deep

Her flower and hope? but thou art with him there,

Pledge of the untir'd arm and eye that cannot

sleep :

The eye that watches o'er wild Ocean's dead,
Each in his coral cave,

Fondly as if the green turf wrapt his head
Fast by his father's grave.—

One moment, and the seeds of life shall spring
Out of the waste abyss,

And happy warriors triumph with their King
In worlds without a sea, unchanging orbs of
bliss.

GUNPOWDER TREASON.

As thou hast testified of me at Jerusalem, so must thou also bear witness Acts xxiii. 11.

at Rome.

BENEATH the burning eastern sky

The Cross was rais'd at morn :
The widow'd Church to weep stood by,

The world, to hate and scorn.

And there was no more sea. Rev. xxi. 24.

Now, journeying westward, evermore
We know the lonely Spouse

By the dear mark her Saviour bore

Trac'd on her patient brows.

At Rome she wears it, as of old
Upon th' accursed hill :

By monarchs clad in gems and gold,
She goes a mourner still.

She mourns that tender hearts should bend
Before a meaner shrine,
And upon Saint or Angel spend
The love that should be thine.

By day and night her sorrows fall

Where miscreant hands and rude

Have stain'd her pure ethereal pall
With many a martyr's blood.

And yearns not her parental heart,
To hear their secret sighs,

Upon whose doubting way apart

Bewildering shadows rise?

Who to her side in peace would cling,

But fear to wake, and find

What they had deem'd her genial wing Was Error's soothing blind.

She treasures up each throbbing prayer: Come, trembler, come and pour

Into her bosom all thy care,

For she has balm in store.

Her gentle teaching sweetly blends
With the clear light of Truth

The' aerial gleam that Fancy lends
To solemn thoughts in youth.-

If thou hast lov'd, in hours of gloom,
To dream the dead are near,

And people all the lonely room
With guardian spirits dear,

Dream on the soothing dream at will:
The lurid mist is o'er,

That show'd the righteous suffering still
Upon th' eternal shore.