Then day's bright star with blunted rays

Seems struggling through the sea-fog pale, And doubtful in the heavy haze

Is dimly seen the nearing sail; Till from the land a fresher gale

Disperses the white mist, and clear, As melts away the gauzy veil,

The sun-reflecting waves appear; So brighter genuine virtue seems to rise From Envy's dark invidious calumnies. What glories on the sun attend,

When the full tides of evening flow, Where in still-changing beauty blend

With amber light the opal's glow;
While in the east the diamond bow

Rises in virgin lustre bright;
And from the horizon seems to throw

A partial line of trembling light
To the hush'd shore; and all the tranquil deep
Beneath the modest moon is soothed to sleep.
Forgotten then the thundering break

Of waves that in the tempest rise, The fallen cliff, the shatter'd wreck,

The howling blast, the sufferer's cries; For soft the breeze of evening sighs,

And murmuring seems in Fancy's ear
To whisper fairy lullabies,

That tributary waters bear
From precipices, dark with piny woods,
And inland rocks and heathy solitudes.
The vast encircling seas within

What endless swarms of creatures hide
Of burnish'd scale and spiny fin!

These providential instincts guide,

And bid them know the annual tide,

When from unfathom'd waves, that swell Beyond Fuego's stormy side,

They come, to cheer the tribes that dwell In Boreal climes; and through his half year's night Give to the Lapland savage food and light.

From cliffs that pierce the northern sky,

Where eagles rear their sanguine brood, With long awaiting patient eye,

Baffled by many a sailing cloud, The Highland native marks the flood,

Till bright the quickening billows roll, And hosts of seabirds, clamouring loud,

Track with wild wing the welcome shoal, Swift o'er the animated current sweep, And bear their silver captives from the deep.

Sons of the North! your streamy vales

With no rich sheaves rejoice and sing ; Her flowery robe no fruit conceals,

Though sweetly smile your tardy spring ; Yet every mountain, clothed with ling,

Doth from its purple brow survey Your busy sails, that ceaseless bring

To the broad frith and sheltering bay Riches, by Heaven's parental power supplied, The harvest of the far embracing tide.

And where those fractured mountains lift

O'er the blue wave their towering crest, Each salient ledge and hollow cleft

To sea fowl give a rugged nest. VOL. I.

SS

But with instinctive love is dress'd

The Eider's downy cradle; where
The mother-bird her glossy breast

Devotes, and, with maternal care
And plumeless bosom, stems the toiling seas
That foam round the tempestuous Orcades.

From heights, whence shuddering sense recoils,

And cloud-capp'd headlands, steep and bare, Sons of the North! your venturous toils

Collect your poor and scanty fare. Urged by imperious Want, you dare

Scale the loose cliff where gannets hide, Or, scarce suspended, in the air

Hang perilous; and thus provide The soft voluptuous couch, which not secures To Luxury's pamper'd minions sleep like yours..

Revolving still, the waves that now

Just ripple on the level shore
Have borne perchance the Indian's prow,

Or half congeal’d, mid ice rocks hoar,
Raved to the Walrus' hollow roar;

Or have, by currents swift, convey'd To the cold coast of Labrador

The relics of the tropic shade; And to the wondering Esquimaux have shown Leaves of strange shape,and fruits unlike their own.

No more then let the incurious say,

No change this world of water shows, But as the tides the moon obey,

Or tempests rave, or calms repose.

Show them, its bounteous breast bestows

On myriads life; and bid them see In every wave that circling flows

Beauty and use and harmonyWorks of the Power Supreme, who pour'd the flood Round the green peopled earth, and call'd it good!

CHARLOTTE SMITH,

THE SWALLOW.

THE gorse is yellow on the heath,

The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,
The oaks are budding, and beneath
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,

The silver wreath of May.
The welcome guest of settled spring,

The swallow, too is come at last;
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,

And hail'd her as she pass’d. Come, summer visitant, attach

To my reed roof your nest of clay, And let my ear your music catch, Low twittering underneath the thatch

At the gray dawn of day.
As fables tell, an Indian sage,

The Hindostani woods among,
Could, in his desert hermitage,
As if 'twere mark'd in written page,

Translate the wild bird's song.

I wish I did his power possess,

That I might learn, fleet bird, from thee, What our vain systems only guess, And know from what wide wilderness

You came across the sea.

I would a little while restrain

Your rapid wing that I might hear Whether on clouds, that bring the rain, You sail'd above the western main,

The wind your charioteer. In Afric does the sultry gale

Through spicy bower and palmy grove Bear the repeated cuckoo's tale? Dwells there a time the wandering quail,

Or the itinerant dove ? Were you in Asia ? 0, relate

If there your fabled sister's woes
She seem'd in sorrow to narrate;
Or sings she but to celebrate

Her nuptials with the rose.
I would inquire how, journeying long

The vast and pathless ocean o'er, * You ply again those pinions strong, And come to build anew among

The scenes you left before; But if, as colder breezes blow,

Prophetic of the waning year, You hide, though none know when or how, In the cliff's excavated brow,

And linger torpid here;