THE MEETING OF THE SHIPS.

Two barks met on the deep mid-sea,
When calms had stilled the tide;

A few bright days of summer glee
There found them side by side.

And voices of the fair and brave
Rose mingling thence in mirth;
And sweetly floated o'er the wave
The melodies of earth.

Moonlight on that lone Indian main

Cloudless and lovely slept ;

While dancing step, and festive strain
Each deck in triumph swept.

THE MEETING OF THE SHIPS.

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And hands were linked, and answering eyes

With kindly meaning shone ;

-Oh! brief and passing sympathies,

Like leaves together blown!

A little while such joy was cast
Over the deep's repose,

Till the loud singing winds at last

Like trumpet music rose.

And proudly, freely on their way

The parting vessels bore ;

-In calm or storm, by rock or bay,
To meet-Oh! never more!

Never to blend in victory's cheer,

To aid in hours of woe:

And thus bright spirits mingle here,

Such ties are formed below!

THE ROCK OF CADER IDRIS.

A LEGEND OF WALES.

It is an old tradition of the Welch Bards, that on the summit of the mountain Cader Idris, is an excavation resembling a couch; and that whoever should pass a night in that hollow, would be found in the morning either dead, in a state of frenzy, or endowed with the highest poetical inspiration. This song one of a "Selection of Welch Melodies, arranged by John Parry, and published by Mr. Power."

is

THE ROCK OF CADER IDRIS.

A LEGEND OF WALES.

I lay on that rock where the storms have their

dwelling,

The birth-place of phantoms, the home of the

cloud;

Around it for ever deep music is swelling,

The voice of the mountain-wind, solemn and loud. 'Twas a midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming, Of wild waves and breezes, that mingled their

moan;

Of dim shrouded stars, as from gulphs faintly

gleaming,

And I met the dread gloom of its grandeur alone.

I lay there in silence-a Spirit came o'er me;

Man's tongue hath no language to speak what I

saw;

Things glorious, unearthly, pass'd floating before

me,

And my heart almost fainted with rapture and

awe!

I viewed the dread beings, around us that hover,

Tho' veil'd by the mists of mortality's breath;

And I called upon darkness the vision to cover,

For a strife was within me of madness and death.

I saw them—the powers of the wind and the ocean, The rush of whose pinion bears onward the storms; Like the sweep of the white-rolling wave was their motion,

I felt their dim presence,-but knew not their

forms!