THE UNTOMBED MARINERS.

THE waves rolled long and high

In the fathomless Biscay,

And the rising breeze swept sullen by

And the day closed heavily.

Our ship was tight and brave,

Well trimmed and sailing free,

And she flew along on the mountain wave,

An eagle of the sea.

The red cross fluttering yet,

We lowered the noble sign,

For the bell had struck, it was past sunset,

And the moon began to shine.

Her light was fitful, flung

From a sky of angry gloom,

Thick hurrying clouds o'er the waters hung,

Their hue was of the tomb.

Yet now and then a gleam

Broke of her silent ray,

And lit around her softened beam

Some spot of that plumbless bay.

O'er the bulwark's side we heard

The proud ship break the spray,

While her shrouds and sheets by the wild winds stirred, Made music mournfully.

And we talked of battles past,

Of shipwreck, rock, and shore,

Of ports where peril or chance had cast

Our sail the wide world o'er.

The watch looked by the lee,
A shapeless log was seen,
A helmless ship it appeared to be,
As it lay the waves between.

Oh 'twas a fearful sight

That helpless thing to see,

Swimming mastless and lone at high midnight,
A corpse on the black, black sea!

There were souls, perchance, on board,

And heaving yet their breath,

Men whose cry amid their despair was heard

Not to meet ocean-death.

Our chief on deck upsprung,

We lay to in that hollow deep

Below as our voices and trampling rung

The sleepers sprang from sleep.

The boat we loosed and lowered,

There were gallant hearts to go,

The dark clouds broke that the moon embower'd, And her light shone cheering through.

And we watched that little boat

Pull

up the mountain wave,

Then sink from view like a name forgot,

Within an ancient grave.

They go-they climb the hull,

As the waters wash the deck,

They shout, and they hear but the billows dull
Strike on that lonely wreck.

The skeleton of men

Lay blanched and marrowless there, But clothed in their living garb as when That reft ship was their care.

Lashed to their planks they lay,

The ropes still round them tied,

Though drifted long leagues in that stormy bay, Since they hoped, despaired, and died.

Tombless in their decay,

'Mid the watery solitude,

Days dawned upon them and faded away,

Cold moons their death-sleep viewed.

ΣΑ

Their names no trace may tell,

Nor whither their passage bound,

And our seamen leave the desolate hull

With death and darkness round.

They tread their deck again,

And silent hoist their boat

They think of the fate of the unknown men
Who for years may wildly float.

Those bones, that ocean bier,
They well may sadly see,

For they feel that the gallant ship they steer,
Their sepulchre may be.

There is grief for beauty's woe,

Laurels strew the hero's hearse

Are there none will the generous tear bestow

For those untombed mariners ?

THE INVITATION.

THOU, who on some dark mountain's brow

Hast toil'd thy life away till now,
And often from that rugged steep
Beheld the vast extended deep,
Come from thy forest, and with me
Learn what it is to go to sea.

ΑΝΟΝ.

There endless plains the eye surveys
As far from land the vessel strays ;
No longer hill nor dale is seen,
The realms of death intrude between,
But fear no ill; resolve, with me
To share the dangers of the sea.

But look not there for verdant fields-
Far different prospects Neptune yields;
Green seas shall only greet the eye,
Those seas encircled by the sky,
Immense and deep-come then with me
And view the wonders of the sea.

Yet sometimes groves and meadows gay
Delight the seamen on their way;

From the deep seas that round them swell,
With rocks the surges to repel,

Some verdant isle, by waves embrac'd,
Swells to adorn the wat'ry waste.

Though now this vast expanse appear
With glassy surface calm and clear;
Be not deceived-'tis but a show,
For many a corpse is laid below-
Even Britain's lads-it cannot be
They were the masters of the sea!

Now combating upon the brine,
Where ships in flaming squadrons join,
At every blast the brave expire

'Midst clouds of smoke, and streams of fire;