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THE SEA SHELL.

39AST thou heard of a shell on the margin of ocean, Whose pearly recesses the echoes still keep,

Of the music it caught when, with tremulous motion,
It joined in the concert poured forth by the deep?

And fables have told us when far inland carried,
To the waste sandy desert and dark ivied cave,
In its musical chambers some murmurs have tarried,
It learnt long before of the wind and the wave.

Oh! thus should our spirits, which bear many a token
They are not of earth, but are exiles while here,
Preserve in their banishment, pure and unbroken,
Some sweet treasured notes of their own native sphere.

Though the dark clouds of sin may at times hover o'er us,
And the discords of earth may their melody mar;
Yet to spirits redeemed, some faint notes of that chorus
Which is born of the blest, will be brought from afar!

BERNARD BARTON.

ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.

THOU vast ocean! ever-sounding sea! Thou symbol of a drear immensity! Thou thing that windest round the solid world Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone, Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone! Thy voice is like the thunder; and thy sleep Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep. Thou speakest in the east and in the west At once; and on thy heavily laden breast

Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life
Or motion yet are moved and meet in strife.

The earth hath nought of this: nor chance nor change
Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare

Give answer to the tempest-waken air;
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range
At will, and wound its bosom as they go :
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow;
But in their stated round the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their viewless home,
And come again and vanish: the young Spring
Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;
And Winter always winds his sullen horn;
And the wild Autumn with a look forlorn
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies
Weep and flowers sicken when the Summer flies.
Oh! wonderful thou art, great element;
And fearful in thy spleeny humours bent,
And lovely in repose: thy summer form

Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves
Make music in earth's dark and winding caves,
I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,
Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach—
"Eternity-Eternity-and Power."

BARRY CORNWALL,

THE BURIAL AT SEA.

HE skies were dark with dusky night,
On outstretched wings the vessel flew ;
Upon whose deck by lantern's light
We stood, a sad and solemn few.

Hundreds were hushed below, on deck

One sleeper slept more sound than they;

For there of early hopes the wreck-
An infant, shrouded, coffined, lay:

A fair young child, whose spirit light
Had parted on the wide, wide sea,
Taken to upper worlds its flight,

From earth and all its troubles free.

And we had met, o'er that loved child
To pay our simple funeral rite;
To make its bed in waters wild,
And bid that babe our last "good-night."

We give thy body to the deep,

Sister, and friend of youthful years!
Dark is thy bed of breathless sleep;
O'er ocean's flood we shed our tears.

Sadly below the sullen wave

Thy loved dust sinks to its long home;
Would that thine were a gentler grave,
Where storms ne'er rock or billows foam!

We would that thou wert laid in peace
Beneath the green turf's grassy sod,
Till the blest morning of release,
When saints shall rise and reign with God!

I hear the sea-dirge loudly swell;

The depths lift up their voice and weep;

Old Ocean tolls his hollow knell

Dull ear of death! how sound thy sleep.

Sister, farewell! away, away,

Bounds o'er the brine our fleet-winged steed;

Though time may bring a happier day,

Long with this wound shall memory bleed.

ANON.

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