There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands,

Deck'd with flags and streamers gay,
In honour of her marriage-day,

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,

Ready to be

The bride of the gray old sea.

Then the Master,

With a gesture of command,

Waved his hand;

And at the word

Loud and sudden there was heard,

All around them and below,

The sound of hammers, blow on blow,

Knocking away the shores and spurs :
And see! she stirs !

She starts, she moves,

she seems to feel

The thrill of life along her keel,

And, spurning with her feet the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,

She leaps into the ocean's arms!

And, lo! from the assembled crowd

There rose a shout, prolong'd and loud,
That to the ocean seem'd to say,

"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray;
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms!"

How beautiful she is! how fair

She lies within those arms that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!

Through wind and wave, right onward steer!

The moisten'd eye, the trembling lip,
Are not the signs of doubt or fear.

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast and sail and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge, and what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!

Fear not each sudden sound and shock;
'Tis of the wave, and not the rock;
"Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee;
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

IN thy western halls of gold
When thou sittest in thy state,
Bards, that erst sublimely told
Heroic deeds, and sang of fate,

With fervour seize their adamantine lyres,

Whose chords are solid rays, and twinkle radiant fires.

Here Homer with his nervous arms
Strikes the twanging harp of war;

And even the western splendour warms,
While the trumpets sound afar:

But, what creates the most intense surprise,
His soul looks out through renovated eyes.

Then, through thy temple wide, melodious swells
The sweet majestic tones of Maro's lyre:
The soul delighted on each accent dwells, -
Enraptured dwells, not daring to respire,
The while he tells of grief around a funeral pyre.

"Tis awful silence then again;
Expectant stand the spheres ;
Breathless the laurell'd peers,

Nor move, till ends the lofty strain,

Nor move, till Milton's tuneful thunders cease,
And leave once more the ravish'd heavens in peace.

Thou biddest Shakespeare wave his hand,

And quickly forward spring

The Passions, a terrific band,

And each vibrates the string

That with its tyrant temper best accords,

While from their Master's lips pour forth th' inspiring words.

A silver trumpet Spenser blows,
And, as its martial notes to silence flee,
From a virgin chorus flows

A hymn in praise of spotless Chastity.
'Tis still! Wild warblings from th' Eolian lyre
Enchantment softly breathe, and tremblingly expire.

Next Tasso's ardent numbers

Float along the pleasèd air,

Calling youth from idle slumbers,

Rousing them from Pleasure's lair:

Then o'er the strings his fingers gently move,
And melt the heart to pity and to love.

But, when Thou joinest with the Nine,
And all the powers of song combine,
We listen here on Earth:

The dying tones that fill the air,

And charm the ear of evening fair,

From thee, great God of Bards, receive their heavenly birth.

ST. PETER'S CHURCH AT ROME.

BUT lo! the dome,

LORD BYRON.

-the vast and wondrous dome,

To which Diana's marvel was a cell,

Christ's mighty shrine above His martyr's tomb!
I have beheld th' Ephesian miracle,

Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
Th' hyæna and the jackal in their shade:

I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell

Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd Its sanctuary the while th' usurping Moslem pray'd:

But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
Standest alone, with nothing like to thee,—
Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
Since Zion's desolation, when that He
Forsook His former city, what could be,
Of earthly structures in His honour piled,
Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,

Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

Enter its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
Expanded by the genius of the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only find

A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by His brow.

Thou movest, but increasing with th' advance,
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,
Deceived by its gigantic elegance;

Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonize,
All musical in its immensities;

Rich marbles, richer paintings, shrines where flame
The lamps of gold, the haughty dome which vies

In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame Sits on the firm-set ground, and this the cloud must claim.

Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break,

To separate contemplation, the great whole;

And as the ocean many bays will make,
That ask the eye, so here condense thy soul
To more immediate objects, and control
Thy thoughts, until thy mind hath got by heart
Its eloquent proportions, and unroll

In mighty graduations, part by part,

The glory which at once upon thee did not dart,

Not by its fault, but thine. Our outward sense
Is but of gradual grasp; and as it is

That what we have of feeling most intense
Outstrips our faint expression; even so this
Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice

Fools our fond gaze, and, greatest of the great,
Defies at first our nature's littleness,

Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate.