J. Freeman, T. Larkins, W. Penman, W. Matson, W. Solly. Other fearful scenes have most of these men, especially the captains of the life-boat and steam-tug, passed through in their efforts to save life; one so terrible that two out of the crew of the life-boat never recovered the shock given to their nerves. One died a few months after the event, and the other to this day is ailing, and subject to fits. Of the splendid lifeboat too much cannot be said; no fewer than eighty-eight lives have been saved by her during the last five years. signed and built by J. Beeching and

De

now

Sons, boat-builders, &c., of Yarmouth, she won the Northumberland prize of one hundred guineas in a competition of two hundred and eighty boats. Each time the men go out, their confidence in her increases, and they are ready to dare anything in the Northumberland prize life-boat. It is pleasing to be able to add, by way of postscript, that the Board of Control has presented each man engaged in this rescue with a medal and 2., and that the Spanish Government has also gratefully acknowledged the heroism of the men, and sent to each a medal and 37.

The babe lay hushed to a calmer rest
Than ever mother's loving breast
Or fondling arms in life had given,
Or lullaby that rose to heaven

And brought the angels down to guard the cradle-nest.

The husband and the wife,

As once in life,

Slept side by side,

And heart leapt not to heart:
Death had wooed both,

And come in room
To him of loving bride,

To her of fond bridegroom;
Yet they slept sweetly

With closed eyes,

And knew not Death had cheated both,

And won the prize.

None knelt to the king, yet none were ashamed;

None prayed unto God, yet no one blamed;

None weighed out silver or counted gold;

Nothing was bought, and nothing sold ;
None would give, and none would take,
No one answered, and no one spake.
There were crowds on crowds, and yet
no din,

Sinner on sinner, and yet no sin n;
Poverty was not, nor any wealth,
None knew sickness, and none knew
health;

None felt blindness, and none saw light, There were millions of eyes and yet no sight;

Millions of ears and yet no hearing,
Millions of hearts, and yet no fearing ;
None knew joy, and none knew sorrow;
Yesterday was the same as to-day and
to-morrow.

None felt hunger, none felt thirst,
No one blessed, and no one cursed,
None wasted the hours, and none saved
time,

None did any good, or committed crime;
Grief and woe, and guilt and care,
Fiery passion and sullen despair,
Were all unknown and unthought of

there :

might betide.

The bridegroom and the bride

Their fill of love might take;

None kept the lovers now apart; Yet neither to the other spake, No. 8.-VOL. II.

And sighed not for release; The widow dried her tear

And thought not of her lord's decease. The subtle brain

Of the curious priest,

K

No mourning nor crying,

No sobbing nor sighing,

None weeping over the dead or the dying,

Were heard on the way:
No singing, no laughing,
No joying, no daffing,

No reveller's glee when carousing and
quaffing,

Nor children at play : None shouted, none whispered; there rose not a hum

In that great city of the deaf and dumb.
They left her there among the rows
Of royal dead to find repose,
Where Silence with her soundless wings
Hovers o'er sleeping queens and kings,

And each in dumbness steeps:
And Darkness with her sightless eye,
Gazes down through a starless sky,
And all from waking keeps.

Think you he will quell his rage,

Bend his high and haughty head, Leave the air at one fell swoop, And with folded pinions stoop Underneath these bars; to droop Once again, with sullen eye Gazing at the far-off sky? and I his way,

He has

gone

Grudge him not his liberty.

Does the wanton butterfly

Long for her aurelia sleep, Sicken of the sunlit sky,

Shrivel up her wings and creep From the untasted rose's chalice, Back into her chrysalis? Does she on the wing deplore She can be a worm no more?

The melodious, happy bee,

Will she backward ring her bell, Grieving for a life so free,

Wishing back the narrow cell Where a cloistered nun she lay, Knowing not the night from day? Lithe and subtle serpents turning Wheresoe'er they will, Are they full of sad repining

That they cannot now be still, Coiled in the maternal prison Out of which they have arisen? Earth to earth, and dust to dust, Ashes unto ashes must;

Death precedeth birth. Infant gladness

Ends in madness,

And from blackest roots of sadness Rise the brightest flowers of mirth.

I am but the quiver, useless

When the bolts are shot;
But the dangling mocking scabbard
Where the sword is not.

I am like a shattered bark

Flung high up upon the shore; Gone are streamers, sails, and mast, Steering helm and labouring oar. River-joys, ye all are past;

I shall breast the Nile no more.

I was once a lamp of life,
Shining in upon the soul;

But I was a lamp of clay :
Death and I had bitter strife;

I could not enfold and keep it
From the chill, corrupting air;
Could not hide it out of sight
Of the peering prying light:-
Crushed and shattered, mean and vile,
I am fit only for the funeral pile.

I am not a harp whose strings
Wait but for the quivering wings
Of the breathing Spirit-wind
Over them its way to find,
Thrilling them with its fond greeting
Till they answer back. . . . repeating
Tone for tone;

Adding others of their own.
All my chords are tangled, broken,
And their breaking is a token
That, if now the wind-like spirit
Should come longing back to me,
It would vainly try to elicit
Note or any melody.

Life once by me stood and wound
Each string to its sweetest sound,

But Death stole the winding key,
And it would be woe to me
If my soul from heaven should come
But to find me hushed and mute,
Soundless as a shattered drum,
Voiceless as an unblown flute,
Speechless as a tongueless bell,
Silent as an unstrung lute,

Dumber than a dead sea shell:
I could not even as a lisper
Utter back the faintest whisper,
Were it but to say farewell.

Archangelic trumpet sounding,
Thou shalt wake us all;
On the startled universe

Shall thy summons fall;
And the sympathising planets
Shall obey thy call,
Weeping o'er their sinful sister,

Stretched beneath her funeral pall.
Earth, thou wert baptized in light,

When the Spirit brooded o'er thee; Fair thou wert in God's own sight,

And a life of joy before thee; But thy day was turned to night, And an awful change came o'er thee. Then thou wert baptized again;

In the avenging, cleansing flood, Afterward for guilty men

Christ baptized thee with his blood;