RAVELY ride the Ocean-Daughters,

When tempests lash the bounding waters;

Their music then is the thunder's crash,

And their midnight torch the lightning flash;
Then they garland their reeking locks

With the weeds that are torn from the streaming rocks;
And as he sees them shine through the gloom,
The mariner deems them wreaths of foam,

And breathes a prayer, that the next wild wave
May not prove his gallant vessel's grave.

Gracefully ride the Ocean-Daughters,

When moonlight floods the sleeping waters;

78

SEA-NYMPHS.

Then the lotus that opens at night

Is wreathed in their tresses, soft and bright,
The breeze that kisses the swelling sea

Is their best joyous minstrelsy;

And they snatch at the stars when they see them glow

In the liquid depths of the tide below;

Or chase the sword-fish in merry glee,

As they start through the still waves wild and free.

But fairest far are the Ocean-Daughters
When noontide sleeps on the quivering waters;
Then they cluster, like breathing flowers,

On their watery couch in those dreamy hours;
Whispering soft tales, 'mid the listening waves,
Of the sea-gods who dwell in their coral caves—
Tales such as earthly maidens tell

Of those whom they love, and who love them well;
One to the other murmuring low,

What must not be heard in the depths below.

Crowned with pearls, and draped in mist,

Tenderly by the sun-beams kissed,
Just where the rainbow spans the sea,

A triad of these sisters see!

Nought reck they of the cark and care
Of the toiling earth, or the fitful air;
Dreams of love, and forms of grace,
Fill up for them the realms of space;
And blithely, o'er the heaving waters,
Swells out the song of the Ocean-Daughters.

MISS PARDOE.

THE HAUNTED LAKE.

49

THE HAUNTED LAKE.

OW, with religious awe, the farewell light

Blends with the solemn colouring of the night; Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow, And round the west's proud lodge their shadows throw, Like Una shining on her gloomy way, The half-seen form of Twilight roams astray, Shedding, through paly loop-holes mild and small, Gleams that upon the lake's still bosom fall; Soft o'er the surface creep those lustres pale, Tracking the motions of the fitful gale. With restless interchange, at once the bright Wins on the shade, the shade upon the light. No favoured eye was e'er allowed to gaze On lovelier spectacles in faery days; When gentle Spirits urged a sportive chase, Brushing, with lucid wands, the water's face; While music, stealing round the glimmering deeps, Charmed the tall circle of the enchanted steeps. -The lights are vanished from the watery plains: No wreck of all the pageantry remains; Unheeded night has overcome the vales; On the dark earth the wearied vision fails; The latest lingerer of the forest train, The lone, black fir, forsakes the faded plain; Last evening sight, the cottage smoke, no more Lost in the thickened darkness, glimmers hoar; And towering from the sullen dark-brown mere, Like a black wall, the mountain-steeps appear.

50

THE HAUNTED LAKE.

-Now o'er the soothed accordant heart we feel

A sympathetic twilight slowly steal,

And ever, as we fondly muse, we find

The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind.
Stay! pensive, sadly-pleasing visions, stay!
Ah, no! as fades the vale, they fade away:
Yet still the tender, vacant gloom remains;

Still the cold cheek its shuddering tear retains.

The song of mountain-streams, unheard by day,
Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way.
Air listens, like the sleeping water, still

To catch the spiritual music of the hill,
Broke only by the slow clock, tolling deep,
Or shout that wakes the ferry-man from sleep;
The echoed hoof nearing the distant shore,
The boat's first motion, made with dashing oar;
Sound of closed gate, across the water borne,
Hurrying the timid hare through rustling corn;
The sportive outcry of the mocking owl,
And, at long intervals, the mill-dog's howl;
The distant forge's swinging thump profound;
Or yell, in the deep woods, of lonely hound.

WORDSWORTH.

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

51

THE HAPPY VALLEY.

T was a valley filled with sweetest sounds,
A languid music haunted everywhere,

Like those with which a summer eve abounds

From rustling corn, and song-birds calling clear, Down sloping uplands, which some wood surrounds, With tinkling rills just heard, but not too near;

Or lowing cattle on the distant plain,

And swing of far-off bells, now caught, then lost again.

The golden-belted bees hummed in the air;
The tall, silk grasses bent and waved along;
The trees slept in the sleeping sunbeam's glare;
The dreamy river chimed its under-song,
And took its own free course without a care;

Amid the boughs did lute-tongued songsters throng,

Until the valley throbbed beneath their lays,
And echo echo chased, through many a leafy maze.

And shapes were there like spirits of the flowers,
Sent down to see the summer-beauties dress,
And feed their fragrant mouths with silver showers;
Their eyes peeped out from many a green recess,
And their fair forms made light the thick-set bowers;
The very flowers seemed eager to caress

Such loving sisters, and the boughs long-leaved

Clustered to catch the sighs their pearl-flushed bosoms heaved.

One, with her warm and milk-white arms outspread,

On tip-toe tripped along a sunlit glade;