THE OCEAN. (BYRON.)

ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore! upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.2

3

4

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts :—not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play-
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

1 Armada, the great Spanish fleet sent against England by Philip of Spain. See p. 190.

2 Trafalgar, the great battle in which Nelson defeated the French and Spanish fleets, and in which he was killed, October 21, 1805.

3 Assyria, the oldest monarchy in the world. Its capital was Nineveh.

4 Carthage, a powerful state in the north of Africa that disputed the empire of the world with the Romans. The Carthaginians were finally defeated, and their city destroyed, B.C. 146,

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime,
The image of Eternity!

THE DRUM. (JERROLD.)

Douglas Jerrold, a celebrated novelist and dramatic writer, and one of the greatest wits of his day, was born in 1803. He is best known by his plays and the humorous articles contributed to various periodicals. He was one of the first editors of Punch,' whose pages he enlivened with Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures.' He died in 1857.

YONDER is a little drum hanging on the wall;

Dusty wraeths, and tattered flags, round about it fall. A shepherd youth on Cheviot's hills watched the sheep whose skin

A cunning workman wrought, and gave the little drum its din.

O, pleasant are fair Cheviot's hills, with velvet verdure

spread,

And pleasant 'tis, among its heath, to make your summer

bed;

And sweet and clear are Cheviot's rills that trickle to its

vales,

And balmily its tiny flowers breathe on the passing

gales.

And thus hath felt the shepherd-boy whilst tending of

his fold;

Nor thought there was, in all the world, a spot like Cheviot's wold.

And so it was for many a day!--but change with time

will come !

And he (alas for him the day!)—he heard

drum!

'Follow,' said the drummer-boy, 'would you live in story! For he who strikes a foeman down wins a wreath of

glory.'

'Rub-a-dub!' and 'rub-a-dub!' the drummer beats

away

The shepherd lets his bleating flock o'er Cheviot wildly stray.

On Egypt's arid wastes of sand the shepherd now is lying; Around him many a parching tongue for 'Water!' faintly crying:

Oh, that he were on Cheviot's hills, with velvet verdure

spread,

Or lying 'mid the blooming heath where oft he made his

bed;

Or could he drink of those sweet rills that trickle to its

vales,

Or breathe once more the balminess of Cheviot's mountain gales!

At length upon his wearied eyes the mists of slumber

come,

And he is in his home again-still wakened by the drum ! 'Take arms! take arms!' his leader cries, 'the hated foeman's nigh!'

Guns loudly roar-steel clanks on steel, and thousands fall to die.

The shepherd's blood makes red the sand: 'Oh! water,

give me some!

My voice might reach a friendly ear-but for that little drum !'

Mid moaning men and dying men the drummer kept his

way,

And many a one, by 'glory' lured, did curse the drum that day.

'Rub-a-dub!' and 'rub-a dub!' the drummer beat aloudThe shepherd. . . died! and ere the morn the hot sand was his shroud.

-And this is 'glory?'-Yes; and still will man the tempter follow,

Nor learn that glory, like its drum, is but a sound-and hollow!

THE CHRISTIAN PAUPER'S DEATH-BED. (MRS. SOUTHEY.)

Caroline Bowles was born in 1787. She wrote poems and tales for the leading magazines. Chapters on Churchyards,' Solitary Hours,' and The Widow's Tale,' are her chief efforts. She married the poet Southey in 1839, and at his death was left almost destitute. The Government then conferred upon her a pension of 2007. a year, which she enjoyed till her death in 1854.

TREAD Softly-bow the head

In rev'rent silence bow;
No passing-bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.

K