And e'en the form we loved to see, We canna lang, dear though it be, Preserve it as a token. But Mary had a gentle heart, It rises, roars, rends all outright, 0 Vulcan, what a glow! 'Tis blinding white, 't is blasting bright; the high sun shines not so! The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery, fearful show, The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy, lurid row Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe; Sae changed, and yet sae sweet and fair, As, quivering through his fleece of flame, And growing meek and meeker, Wi' her lang locks o' yellow hair, Ere angels cam' to seek her. And when she couldna stray out by, But ilka thing we said or did But death's cauld hour cam' on at last, And may it be, whene'er it fa's, SAMUEL FERGUSON. THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 't is at a white heat now: The bellows ceased, the flames decreased, though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound; And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round, All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare; Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there. The windlass strains the tackle-chains, the black mound heaves below; And, red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at every throe: the sailing monster slow Sinks on the anvil, all about the faces fiery grow, "Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out, leap out"; bang, bang, the sledges go: Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low; A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow; The leathern mail rebounds the hai!; the rattling cinders strew The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant "Ho!" And I see the good ship riding all in a perilous road; The low reef roaring on her lea; the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains; But courage still, brave mariners, the bower yet remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high, Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing, here am I!" Swing in your strokes in order; let foot and hand keep time, Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime: But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be, The Anchor is the Anvil King, and royal craftsmen we! Strike in, strike in, FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER PROUT). 171 the sparks begin to | O broad-armed fisher of the deep, whose dull their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped: Our anchor soon must change his bed of For a hammock at the roaring bows, or In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last; A shapely one he is, and strong as e'er from cat was cast. O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea! O deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou? The hoary monsters' palaces! methinks what joy 't were now To go plumb plunging down amid the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails! Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn; And for the ghastly-grinning shark to laugh his jaws to scorn; To leap down on the kraken's back, where mid Norwegian isles He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles, Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls; Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonished shoals Of his back-browsing ocean calves; or, Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, To wrestle with the sea-serpent upon ceru lean sands. The sports can equal thine? Dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable line; And night by night 't is thy delight, thy glory day by day, Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play; But, A shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave, fisher's joy is to destroy, thine office is to save. O lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst thou but understand With sounds like breakers in a dream To shed their blood so freely for the love Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave So freely for a restless bed amid the tossing wave; O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, Honor him for their memory, whose bones he goes among! FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER [1805-1865.] THE BELLS OF SHANDON. WITH deep affection I often think of The Shandon bells, Whose sounds so wild would CAROLINE ELIZABETH NORTON. As if, whate'er the spirit's key, The heart soon grows to mournful things; And drew their sap all kingly yet! Is broken from some mighty thought; And sculptures in the dust still breathe The fire with which their lines were wrought; And sundered arch, and plundered tomb, Still thunder back the echo, "Rome." Yet gayly o'er Egeria's fount The ivy flings its emerald veil, And flowers grow fair on Numa's mount, And light-sprung arches span the dale; And soft, from Caracalla's baths, The herdsman's song comes down the breeze, While climb his goats the giddy paths To grass-grown architraves and frieze; And gracefully Albano's hill Curves into the horizon's line, And sweetly sings that classic rill, And fairly stands that nameless shrine; And here, O, many a sultry noon And starry eve, that happy June, CAROLINE ELIZABETH NORTON. BINGEN ON THE RHINE. A SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears; But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed away, And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might say. 173 "Tell my mother that her other son shall comfort her old age; For I was still a truant bird, that thought his home a cage. For my father was a soldier, and even as a child My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild; And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard, I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's sword; And with boyish love I hung it where the "Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping head, When troops come niarching home again with glad and gallant tread, But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast eye, For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die; And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my name To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame, "I saw the blue Rhine sweep along; I heard, or seemed to hear, The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet and clear; And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting hill, The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening calm and still; And her glad blue eyes were on me, as we passed, with friendly talk, Down many a path beloved of yore, and well-remembered walk! And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine, But we'll meet no more at Bingen, loved Bingen on the Rhine." His trembling voice grew faint and hoarse, his grasp was childish weak, His eyes put on a dying look, he sighed, and ceased to speak; His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled,The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land is dead! EDWARD LORD LYTTON. THE SABBATH. FRESH glides the brook and blows the gale, Six days' stern labor shuts the poor This holy respite to the breast, Six days of toil, poor child of Cain, Thy strength thy master's slave must be; The seventh the limbs escape the chain, A God hath made thee free! The fields that yester-morning knew Thy footsteps as their serf, survey; On thee, as them, descends the dew, The baptism of the day. Fresh glides the brook and blows the gale, How motionless and still! So rest, O weary heart!-but, lo, The church-spire, glistening up to heaven, To warn thee where thy thoughts should go Lone through the landscape's solemn rest, Rise, mingling with the sky! When rich and poor, with juster rule, Of power from old dominion hurled, Shall share the altered world. Alas! since time itself began, That fable hath but fooled the hour; Each age that ripens power in man But subjects man to power. Yet every day in seven, at least, One bright republic shall be known; |