THE BEACON LIGHT.-J. G. Saxe.) "Go seaward, son, and bear a light!" Up spoke the sailor's wife,

"Thy father sails this stormy night
In peril of his life!

"His ship, has sailed to foreign lands,
This hour may heave in sight;
O, should it wreck upon the sands!
Go, son, and bear a light!"

He lights a torch and seaward goes ;
Naught boots the deed, I doubt;
The rain it rains, the wind it blows!
And soon the light goes out.

The boy comes back: "O mother dear!
Bid me not go again;

No torch can live, 'tis very clear,

Before the wind and rain !"

"No sailor's blood hast thou, I trow,
To fear a stormy night;

Let rains descend, let tempests blow!
Go, son, and bear a light!"

Once more he lights the torch, and goes
Towards the foaming main;

The rain it rains, the wind it blows!
Out goes the torch again!

The boy comes back: "O mother dear!
The storm puts out the light;
The night is drear and much I fear
The woman dressed in white!"

"No sailor's blood hast thou, I trow,
To tremble thus before

A mermaid's face-take heart of grace,
And seek again the shore!"

The boy comes back: "O mother dear!
Go thou unto the strand;

My father's voice I sure did hear

In tones of stern command!"

And now the mother lights the torch ;
And, see! the kindling rays

Have caught the thatch! from roof to porch
The hut is all ablaze!

"What hast thou done!" the urchin cries;

"O piteous sight to see!

Cold is the night; O wretched plight!
Nor house nor home have we!"

"No sailor's blood hast thou, I wis.
When torches fail to burn,
A blazing hovel—such as this
May serve as good a turn!"

Joy to the sailor! see! he clears
The shoals on either hand,
Thanks to the light! and now he steers
In safety to the land!

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. (Longfellow.)

IT was the schooner Hesperus, that sailed the wintry sea; and the skipper had taken his little daughter, to bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairyflax, her cheeks like the dawn of day, and her bosom white as the hawthorn buds that ope in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm, his pipe was in his mouth, and he watched how the veering flaw did blow the smoke now west, now south. Then up and spake an old sailor, had sailed the Spanish Main: "I pray thee, put into yonder port, for I fear a hurricane. Last night, the moon had a golden ring, and to-night no moon we see !" The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, and a scornful laugh laughed he. Colder and louder blew the wind, a gale from the north-east; the snow fell hissing in the brine, and the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain the vessel in its strength; she shuddered and paused like a frighted steed, then leaped her cable's length. "Come

hither! come hither! my little daughter, and do not tremble so; for I can weather the roughest gale that ever wind did blow." He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat, against the stinging blast; he cut a rope from a broken spar, and bound her to the mast. "O father! I hear the church-bells ring, oh say, what may it be?" "'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"-and he steered for the open sea. "O father! I hear the sound of guns, oh, say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live in such an angry sea!" "O father! I see a gleaming light, oh, say, what may it be?" but the father answered never a word,-a frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, with his face turned to the skies, the lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow on his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clasped her hands, and prayed that saved she might be; and she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave on the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drear, through the whistling sleet and snow, like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept towards the reef of Norman's Woe. And ever, the fitful gusts between, a sound came from the land; it was the sound of the trampling surf, on the rocks and the hard sea-sand. The breakers were right beneath her bows, she drifted a dreary wreck, and a whooping billow swept the crew like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves looked soft as carded wool; but the cruel rocks, they gored her side like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, with the masts, went by the board; like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank: "Ho! ho!" the breakers roared! At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, a fisherman stood aghast, to see the form of a maiden fair lashed close to a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast, the salt tears in her eyes; and he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, on the billows fall and rise.-Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, in the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, on the reef of Norman's Woe!

SPRING-FLOWERS.—(William Howitt.)

BUT O ye spring-flowers! O ye early friends!
Where are ye, one and all?

The sun still shines, and summer rain descends;
They call forth flowers, but 'tis not ye they call.
On the mountains, by the fountains,

In the woodlands dim and grey,

Flowers are springing, ever springing;
But the spring-flowers, where are they?

Then O ye spring-flowers! O ye early friends!
Where are ye, I would know.

When the sun shines, when the summer rain descends,
Why still blow flowers, but 'tis not ye that blow ?
On the mountains, by the fountains,

By the woodlands dim and grey,

Flowers are springing, ever springing;
But the spring-flowers, where are they?

O then ye spring-flowers! O ye early friends!
Are ye altogether gone

Up with the soul of nature, that ascends
Up with the clouds and odours, one by one?
O'er the mountains, o'er the fountains,

O'er the woodlands dim and grey,

Flowers are springing, ever springing
On heaven's highlands, far away!

Hotter and hotter glows the summer sun,
But you it cannot wake ;

Myriads of flowers, like armies marching on,
Blaze on the hills, and glitter in the brake.
On the mountains, round the fountains,
In the woodlands dim and grey,
Flowers are springing, ever springing;
But the spring-flowers, where are they?

O no more! O never, never more!
Shall friend or flower return,
Till deadly winter, old, and cold, and frore,
Has laid all nature lifeless in his urn.

O'er the mountains and the fountai: s,
Through the woodlands dim and grey,

Death and winter, dread companions,
Have pursued their destined way.

Then O ye spring-flowers! O ye early friends,
Dead, buried, one and all;

When the sun shines, and summer rain descends,
And call forth flowers, 'tis ye that they shall call.
On the mountains, by the fountains,

In the woodlands dim and grey,

Flowers are springing, souls are singing
On heaven's hill, and ye are they !

THE SANDS OF DEE. (Canon Kingsley.) By kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan and Co. "O MARY, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

Across the sands of Dee!"

The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
And all alone went she.

The creeping tide came up along the sand,
And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see.

The blinding mist came up and hid the land,
And never home came she.

O, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair?
A tress of golden hair,

Of drownèd maiden's hair,

Above the nets at sea.

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair,
Among the stakes of Dee!

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,

The cruel, crawling foam,

The cruel, hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea;

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
Across the sands of Dee.