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ST ELMO'S FIRE, ETC.

105

So subtly and so delicately framed

As almost to elude the naked eye,

Formed, it appeared, of light and airy clouds.
With slow gradation it increased its size,
Till it the bulk of a huge mass attained,
Contracting and enlarging as it drew
From ocean's surface its ascending streams.
Its motion fluctuated with the waves,
While at its broad extending summit grew
A spacious cloud, that spread as it absorbed
The watery element that gave it birth.
As the leech fastening on the heifer's lip
(Whilst heedless drinking in the gelid pool)
Slakes to satiety its thirst for blood,
And while the more the vital element

It sucks, the more its bloated surface swells-
Enlarging and extending as it fills—
So this mysterious column, thus supplied,
Itself distended, and its aqueous cloud;
When fully saturated from the sea,
Its pedestal subsided in the waves,
And in a rainy torrent it dissolved,
Beating against the surface of the deep.
The stolen waters faithful it restored,

But

pure and sweet as from the crystal fount.

CAMOENS.

PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA.

ALL day with fruitless strife they toiled,
With eve the ebbing currents boiled
More fierce from strait and lake;
And midway through the channel met
Conflicting tides that foam and fret,
And high their mingled billows jet,
As spears, that, in the battle set,
Spring upward as they break.

Then, too, the lights of eve were past,
And louder sung the western blast

On rocks of Inninmore;

Rent was the sail, and strained the mast, many a leak was gaping fast,

And

And the pale steersman stood aghast,
And gave the conflict o'er.

'Twas then that One, whose lofty look
Nor labour dulled nor terror shook,
Thus to the Leader spoke:—
"Brother, how hopest thou to abide
The fury of this wildered tide,
Or how avoid the rock's rude side,

Until the day has broke?

Didst thou not mark the vessel reel,

With quivering planks and groaning keel, At the last billow's shock?"

PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA.

107

That elder Leader's calm reply

In steady voice was given,"In man's most dark extremity

Oft succour dawns from Heaven.
Edward, trim thou the shattered sail,
The helm be mine, and down the gale
Let our free course be driven."
The helm to his strong arm consigned,
Gave the reefed sail to meet the wind,
And on her altered way,

Fierce bounding, forward sprung the ship,
Like greyhound starting from the slip
To seize his flying prey.
Awaked, before the rushing prow,
The mimic fires of ocean glow,

Those lightnings of the wave;

Wild sparkles crest the broken tides,
And, flashing round, the vessel's sides
With elvish lustre lave,

While, far behind, their livid light
To the dark billows of the night
A gloomy splendour gave.
It seems as if Old Ocean shakes

From his dark brow the livid flakes

In envious pageantry,

To match the meteor light that streaks

Grim Hecla's midnight sky,

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THE ICEBERG.

;—our anchored vessel slept

"TWAS night;

Out on the glassy sea;

And still as heaven the waters kept,
And golden bright, as he,

The setting sun, went sinking slow
Beneath the eternal wave;

And the ocean seemed a pall to throw
Over the monarch's grave.

There was no motion in the air
To raise the sleeper's tress,

And no wave-building winds were there,
On ocean's loveliness;

But ocean mingled with the sky
With such an equal hue,

That vainly strove the 'wildered eye

To part their gold and blue.

And ne'er a ripple of the sea
Came on our steady gaze,

Save when some timorous fish stole out
To bathe in the woven blaze :-
When, floating in the light that played,
All over the resting main,

He would sink beneath the wave, and dart
To his deep, blue home again.

THE ICEBERG.

Yet while we gazed that sunny eve,
Across the twinkling deep,

A form came ploughing the golden wave,
And rending its holy sleep;

It blushed bright red, while growing on
Our fixed, half-fearful gaze;

109

But it wandered down, with its glow of light, And its robe of sunny rays.

It seemed like molten silver, thrown
Together in floating flame;

And, as we looked, we named it then

The fount whence all colours came:

There were rainbows furled with a careless grace,
And the brightest red that glows;
The purple amethyst there had place,
And the hues of a full-blown rose.

And the vivid green, as the sunlit grass
Where the pleasant rain hath been;
And the ideal hues, that, thought-like, pass
Through the minds of fanciful men ;
They beamed full clear, and that form moved on,
Like one from a burning grave;
And we dared not think it a real thing,

But for the rustling wave.

The sun just lingered in our view,

From the burning edge of ocean,

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