X.

A SAND-ROCK on a storm-girt shore,
On it their might the waters pour,
Yet only seem to sink again
Into the bosom of the main.
Unmoved by tempest and by tide,
In its own strength it seems to bide,
And loves its sterner form to wrap
In treasures rich from Nature's lap.
Wild flower and shrub their beauty throw
To the sunlit waves below;

And all things whisper peace and calm,
Nor dreams the mind of lurking harm.
The bolder tree its roots has sent
Deep into Nature's battlement,

And holds its own 'midst storm and blast,
That shake and bend the quivering mast;
No beauty wanting that should tell
Of scenes the wanderer loves so well,

Who draws from Nature's richest book

The whispered wisdom of each humblest nook;
Untouched may all remain, and be
A living source of minstrelsy.
Untouched, alas! the fretting wave
But decks thy beauty for the grave;
No tide in softest summer noon
But brings thee nearer to thy doom.
The wave-worn cavern, with its might
Of pier and arch, all, all too slight
To stay the mass that seeks to glide
Into the bosom of the rolling tide.
A moment's pause- -a thunder's sound-
And thou a flitting vision found;

A tangled ruin on the shore,

Thy beauty gone, thy pride no more.

England! perchance this fate is thine :
Thy pride has been bold heights to climb;
Thy fate thou durst not read, but know,
Power is changing as yon waves below.
Hard things are writ of thee and thine,
Thou boaster of a free-born line;

Thy spear and sword thou well may'st wield,

But hold not wealth to be thy shield;
Nor boast thyself on island rock,-
Rock-like, the oppress'd just cry to mock;
Nor hold the avenger likely to be slow,—
Mammon thy God, and all the world thy foe.

RUINED though the temple be,

Enter yet, and frame thy prayer ; No living man thy form shall see,

But the God of Heaven is there.

Roofless stands its shattered wall, Newt and toad their dwelling hold; Shrink not from the threatened fall, Turn not from the broken fold.

'Tis as though God's hand would shew What the careless soul must reap; Where care and reverence cease to flow,

There crawl the creatures of the deep.

XII.

I KNEW a soul that dreamt of living fame,
And sought by daring deeds to raise a name;

But there stood one who laughed the thought to scorn,
And with a sneer,-" Shall aught of mortal born
Escape the mortal's lot of endless toil,

Or from the slavish burden back recoil?

Go, gather gold, the scope of this world's strife,
Nor for aught else hold on thy span of life."

I knew a brain that sought to search and scan
All knowledge nurtured by his fellow-man :
Again the Spirit, with a demon's leer,

Whispered the thought that nursed the coward fear;
Unnerved he fell from 'midst the sacred few,

And joined with downcast eye the worldly crew.

I knew a heart that loved fair Nature's wild,
And basked in sunshine like a southern child ;