and noxious passion-mist, which we call our soul, is driven without; and our TRUE Soul-the soul of the universe, which we are -enters into us.

3. The spirit which rests like a vapor visibly upon the bosom of the waters, is a presence and a pervading power; and the breath which it exhales is life, and love, and splendid strength. Nothing in nature renders back to man the full and instant sympathy which is accorded by the mighty being who thus re poses mildly in the generous grandeur of his glorious power. We may love the forms of the trees, the colors of the sky, and the impressive vastness of the hills; but we can cover animate them with a soul of life, and persuade ourselves that they experience the feeling which they cause.

4. But the sea, as its countenance shows its myriad mutations with the variety and rapidity of the passions which sport through the breast of man, seems truly to return the emotion which is breathed toward him; and fellowship and friendship-yea, and personal affection—are the sentiments which his gambols rouse in the spectator's heart. The flashing smiles that sparkle in his eye are they not his happy thoughts? and the ripples that fit their scouring dance over his breast-are they not feelings of delight that agitate his frame?

5. Whether I am amid mountains or on plains, there is not an hour in which my existence is not haunted by the remembrance of the ocean. It abides beside me like a thought of my mind; it occupies my total fancy;-I ever seem to stand before it. And I know that whenever it shall fare so ill with me in the world that comfort and consolation can no longer be found in it, I have a păraclete' beside the shelving beach who will give the consolation man withholds. The strong, thick wind which comes from it will be full of life; the petty tumult of care will be shamed by the gigantic struggle of the elements, and subside to peace. What can be more noble or more affecting than the picture of the old priest, who, wronged by the Grecian king— his calm age fired with passion-retires along the shore of the sounding sea, and soothes his breast ere he invokes the god! "Thoughts like those are medicined best by nature."

'Pår' a clote, a comforter; advocate; intercessor.

6. I have never stood by the banks of the ocean thus superbly fringed with curling waves, and listened to that strange, questionable, echoed roar, without an emotion altogether supernatural. That moan-that wail of the waters-which comes to the ear, borne on the wind in the stillness of evening, sounds like the far-off complaint of another world, or the groan of our own world's innermost spirit. Like some of the unearthly music of Germany, when heard for the first time, it startles a feeling in the secret mind which has never before been wakened in this world, giving us assurance of another life, and the strongest proof that our soul is essentially immortal.

H. B. WALLACE.1

185. APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.

1. HERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shōre;

There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its rōar.
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.
2. Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean-roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain:
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore:-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths, with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
3. His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him: thou dost arise

And shake him from thee: the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

'See Biographical Sketch, p. 542.

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near pōrt or bay,
And dashèst him again to earth :—there let him lay
4. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;-

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's' pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.'
5. Thy shōres are empires, changed in all save thee:
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage-what are they!
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since: their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage: their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts. Not so thou:

Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,
Time writes no wrinkle on thine ăzure brow-
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollèst now.

6. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time-

Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime,—

'Ar ma' da, a fleet of armed ships; a squadron. The term is usually applied to the Spanish fleet called the Invincible Armada, consisting of 130 ships, intended to act against England in the reign of Queen ELIZABETH, A. D. 1588.-- Tråf al går', a cape on the coast of Spain, rendered famous by a naval battle fought there on the 19th of October, 1805, in which Lord NELSON, with an English fleet of 27 sail of the line and 5 frigates, gained a complete victory over a French fleet of 33 sail and 7 frigates. In the heat of the action, NELSON was shot through the back by a musket ball. He survived till the victory was complete; and his last words were, "Thank God, I have done my duty."

The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible !-even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made: each zone
Obeys thee-thou goèst forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
7. And I have loved thee, OCEAN! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward :-from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers: they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was, as it were, a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here. BYRON.

186. BRUTUS AND TITUS.

Brutus. Well, Titus, speak; how is it with thee now!

I would attend a while this mighty motion,
Wait till the tempest were quite overblown,
That I might take thee in the calm of nature,
With all thy gentler virtues brooding on thee:
So hush'd a stillness, as if all the gods

Look'd down and listen'd to what we were saying:
Speak, then, and tell me, O my best beloved,

My son, my Titus! is all well again?

Titus. So well, that saying how must make it nothing: So well, that I could wish to die this moment,

For so my heart, with powerful throbs, persuades me

That were indeed to make you reparation;

That were, my lord, to thank you home-to die

And that, for Titus, too, would be most happy.

Brutus. How's that, my son? would death for thee be happy! Titus. Most certain, Sir; for in my grave I 'scape All those affronts which I, in life, must look for; All those reproaches which the eyes, the fingers, And tongues of Rome will daily cast upon me,— From whom, to a soul so sensible as mine,

'See Biographical Sketch, p. 292.

Each single scorn would be far worse than dying.
Besides, I 'scape the stings of my own conscience,
Which will forever rack me with remembrance,
Haunt me by day, and torture me by night,
Casting my blotted honor in the way,
Where'er my melancholy thoughts shall guide me.
Brutus. But, is not death a very dreadful thing?
Titus. Not to a mind resolved. No, Sir; to me
It seems as natural as to be born.

Groans and convulsions, and discolor'd faces,
Friends weeping round us, crapes and obsequies,
Make it a dreadful thing: the pomp of death
Is far more terrible than death itself.

Yes, Sir; I call the powers of heaven to witness,
Titus dares die, if so you have decreed;
Nay, he shall die with joy to honor Brutus.

Brutus. Thou perfect glory of the Junian race!
Let me endear thee once more to my bosom;
Groan an eternal farewell to thy soul;
Instead of tears, weep blood, if possible;-
Blood, the heart-blood of Brutus, on his child!
For thou must die, my Titus-die, my son!
I swear, the gods have doom'd thee to the grave.
The violated genius of thy country

Bares his sad head, and passes sentence on thee.
This morning sun, that lights thy sorrows on
To the tribunal of this horrid vengeance,

Shall never see thee more!

Titus.

Why art thou moved thus?

Alas! my lord,

Why am I worth thy sorrow? Why should the godlike Brutus shake to doom me? Why all these trappings for a traitor's hearse?

The gods will have it so.

Brutus.

They will, my Titus ;

Nor heaven nor earth can have it otherwise.
Nay, Titus, mark! the deeper that I search,
My harass'd soul returns the more confirm'd.
Methinks I see the very hand of Jove
Moving the dreadful wheels of this affair,-