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AN ITALIAN BOAT SONG.

BY E. L. BULWER.

THE moon shines bright,
And the bark bounds light,

As the stag bounds over the lea;

We love the strife

Of the sailor's life,

And we love our dark blue sea.

Now high, now low,

To the depths we go,

Now rise on the surge again;

We make a track

O'er the ocean's back,

And play with his hoary mane.

Fearless we face

The storm in its chase,

When the dark clouds fly before it ;

And meet the shock

Of the fierce siroc,

Though death breathes hotly o'er it.

The landsman may quail
At the shout of the gale,
Peril's the sailor's joy;
Wild as the waves
Which his vessel braves,

Is the lot of the sailor boy.

THE BRIDAL DIRGE.

BY BARRY CORNWALL.

THE bride is dead! The bride is dead!
Cold and frail, and fair she lieth:
Wrapped is she in sullen lead;
And a flower is at her head;

And the breeze above her sigheth,
Thorough night and thorough day,
"Fled away!-Fled away!"

Once, but what can that avail,—
Once, she wore within her bosom
Pity, which did never fail,
A hue that dashed the lily pale;
And upon her cheek a blossom,
Such as yet was never known!
-All is past and overthrown!

Mourn the sweetest bride is dead, And her knight is sick with sorrow, That her bloom is "lapped in lead :" Yet he hopeth, fancy-fed,

He may kiss his love to-morrow. But the breezes-what say they? "Fled away! Fled away!"

TO THE PICTURE OF A DEAD GIRL.

BY T. K. HERVEY.

THE same and, oh! how beautiful!-the same
As memory meets thee through the mist of years!-
Love's roses on thy cheeks, and feeling's flame
Lighting an eye unchanged in all-but tears!
Upon thy severed lips the very smile,

Remembered well, the sunlight of my youth;
But gone the shadow that would steal, the while,
To mar its brightness, and to mock its truth!
Once more I see thee, as I saw thee last,
The lost restored, the vision of the past!

How like to what thou wert-and art not now!
Yet, oh! how more resembling what thou art?
There dwells no cloud upon that pictured brow,
As sorrow sits no longer in thy heart;

Gone where its very wishes are at rest,

And all its throbbings hushed, and aching healed ;— I gaze, till half I deem thee to my breast,

In thine immortal loveliness, revealed;

And see thee, as in some permitted dream,

There where thou art what here thou dost but seem!

I loved thee passing well;-thou wert a beam

Of pleasant beauty on this stormy sea,
With just so much of mirth as might redeem
Man from the musings of his misery;
Yet ever pensive, like a thing from home!
Lovely and lonely as a single star!

But kind and true to me, as thou hadst come
From thine own element-so very far,
Only to be a cynosure to eyes

Now sickening at the sunshine of the skies!

LYRE.

N

134

TO THE PICTURE OF A DEAD GIRL.

It were a crime to weep!-'tis none to kneel,
As now I kneel, before this type of thee,
And worship her, who taught my soul to feel
Such worship is no vain idolatry:

:

Thou wert my spirit's spirit-and thou art,
Though this be all of thee time hath not reft,
Save the old thoughts that hang about the heart,
Like withered leaves, that many storms have left;
I turn from living looks-the cold, the dull,
To any trace of thee the lost, the beautiful!

Broken, and bowed, and wasted with regret,
I gaze and weep-why do I weep alone?
I would not-would not if I could-forget,
But I am all remembrance-it hath grown
My very being!-Will she never speak?
The lips are parted, and the braided hair
Seemed, as it waved upon her brightening cheek,
And every thing-but breath-are there!
Oh, for the voice that I have stayed to hear,
Only in dreams,-so many a lonely year!

It will not be ;-away, bright cheat, away!
Cold, far too cold to love!-thy look grows strange;
I want the thousand thoughts that used to play,
Like lights and shadowings, in chequered change:
That smile!-I know thou art not like her now,-
Within her land-where'er it be of light,
She smiles not while a cloud is on my brow,—
When will it pass away-this heavy night!
Oh! will the cool, clear morning never come,
And light me to her, in her spirit's home!

THE LAUNCH OF THE NAUTILUS.

BY THE REV. E. BARNARD.

Up with thy thin transparent sail,
Thou tiny mariner !—The gale
Comes gently from the land, and brings
The odour of all lovely things
That Zephyr, in his wanton play,
Scatters in Spring's triumphant way;-
Of primrose pale, and violet,

And young anemone, beset

By thousand spikes of every hue,
Purple and scarlet, white and blue:
And every breeze that sweeps the earth
Brings the sweet sounds of love and mirth;
The shrilly pipe of things unseen
That pitter in the meadows green;
The linnet's love-sick melody,
The laverock's carol loud and high;
And mellowed, as from distance borne,
The music of the shepherd's horn.

Up, little Nautilus !-Thy day
Of life and joy is come:-away!
The ocean's flood, that gleams so bright
Beneath the morning's ruddy light,
With gentlest surge scarce ripples o'er
The lucid gems that pave the shore;
Each billow wears its little spray,
As maids wear wreaths on holiday;
And maid ne'er danced on velvet green
More blithely round the May's young queen,
Than thou shalt dance o'er yon bright sea
That wooes thy prow so lovingly,
Then lift thy sail!-'Tis shame to rest,
Here on the sand, thy pearly breast.

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