A STRANGER HERE.

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To light, unchanging, and eternal,

From mists that sadden this bleak waste, To scenes that smile for ever vernal,

From winter's blackening leaf I haste.

Earth, what a sorrow lies before thee,

None like it in the shadowy past ;— The sharpest throe that ever tore thee, Even tho' the briefest and the last!

I see the fair moon veil her lustre,
I see the sackcloth of the sun;
The shrouding of each starry cluster,
The threefold woe of earth begun.

I see the shadows of its sunset;

And wrapped in these the Avenger's form;

I see the Armageddon-onset ;

But I shall be above the storm.

There comes the moaning and the sighing,

There comes the hot tear's heavy fall,

The thousand agonies of dying;

But I shall be beyond them all.

OCEAN TEACHINGS.

"This great and wide sea."-PSALM Civ. 25.

THAT rising storm! It has awakened me;
My slumbering spirit starts to life anew;
That blinding spray-drift, how it falls upon me,
As on the weary flower the freshening dew.

That rugged rock-fringe that girds in the ocean,
And calls the foam from its translucent blue,
It seems to pour strange strength into my spirit,—
Strength for endurance, strength for conflict too.

And these bright ocean-birds, these billow-rangers, The snowy-breasted,-each a winged waveThey tell me how to joy in storm and dangers,

When surges whiten, or when whirlwinds rave.

And these green-stretching fields, these peaceful hollows,

That hear the tempest, but take no alarm,

OCEAN TEACHINGS.

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Has not their placid verdure sweetly taught me
The peace within when all without is storm?

And thou keen sun-flash, through the cloud-wreath bursting,

Silvering the sea, the sward, the rock, the foam, What light within me has thy pure gleam kindled? 'Tis from the land of light that thou art come.

And of the time how blithely art thou telling,
When cloud and change and tempest shall take

wing;

Each beam of thine prophetic of the glory,

Creation's daybreak, earth's long-promised spring.

Even thus it is, my God me daily teacheth
Sweet knowledge out of all I hear and see;
Each object has a heavenly voice within it,
Each scene, however troubled, speaks to me.

For all upon this earth is broken beauty,

Yet out of all what strange, deep lessons rise? Each hour is giving out its heaven-sent wisdom, A message from the sea, the shore, the skies.

NO MORE SEA.

Καὶ ἡ θάλασσα σὐκ ἔστιν ἐτι.—(REV. xxi. 1.)

SUMMER Ocean, idly washing

This grey rock on which I lean; Summer Ocean, broadly flashing With thy hues of gold and green; Gently swelling, wildly dashing

O'er yon island-studded scene; Summer Ocean, how I'll miss thee,Miss the thunder of thy roar,

Miss the music of thy ripple,

Miss thy sorrow-soothing shore,Summer Ocean, how I'll miss thee,

When "the sea shall be no more." Summer Ocean, how I'll miss thee, As along thy strand I range;

Or as here I sit and watch thee

In thy moods of endless change

NO MORE SEA.

Mirthful moods of morning gladness,
Musing moods of sunset sadness;
When the dying winds caress thee,
And the sinking sunbeams kiss thee,
And the crimson cloudlets press thee,

And all nature seems to bless thee !—
Summer Oceau, how I'll miss thee,—
Miss the wonders of thy shore,
Miss the magic of thy grandeur,
When "the sea shall be no more!"

And yet sometimes in my musings,
When I think of what shall be ;

In the day of earth's new glory,
Still I seem to roam by thee.

As if all had not departed,

But the glory lingered still;
As if that which made thee lovely,
Had remained unchangeable.

Only that which marred thy beauty,-
Only that had passed away,
Sullen wilds of Ocean-moorland,

Bloated features of decay.

Only that dark waste of waters,

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