TO THE WIND. Waiting thy rest, sad hours I've spent, Not for myself, well sheltered here, My heart is on the tide, Whose billows thou wilt towering rear, And thou wilt toss them at thy will, Thou wilt ingulf the moon in clouds, And strive to snap the straining shrouds, And joy, as evils come in crowds, Yet, Spirit of gigantic form, Not infinite thy sway; For thou, even as the feeblest worm, Must His behest obey, Who spoke, amid Gennesar's storm, To thy proud heart dismay! 115 To Him, whose crouching slave thou art, To bid thee play a gentler part, And smoothe the sailor's way— And whisper "home" around his heart, J. LONGMUIR. FROM "HYMN TO THE NIGHT WIND." DISTURBED, arise The monsters of the deep, and wheel around To madness, tearing up the yellow sands THE WATER-SPOUT. And to a quiet calm the elements, Subsiding from their fury, have dispersed, 117 Recumbent on the murmuring deep-thy smiles All unrepentant of the savage wreck. (4) D. M. MOIR. THE WATER-SPOUT. TALL IDA'S Summit now more distant grew, Swells, when the raging whirlwind sweeps the stream. The swift volution, and the enormous train, The nitre fired; and, while the dreadful sound The sea subsides, the whirlwinds rage no more. FALCONER. THE ROCK IN THE ATLANTIC. IN the sleepless Atlantic, remote and alone, beat; Its echoing bulwarks with sea-drift are strewn, And dark are the waters that roll at its feet. Let the shrill winds of ocean go forth as they may, It wars with the surges, and knows not of rest; Its pinnacles drip with the fast falling spray, And billows are breaking in foam on its breast. But though breakers and whirlwinds around it may sweep, That hermit of ocean lives conquering on, And the mariner sees it still fronting the deep, As it flung back the surf in the years that are gone: THE ROCK IN THE ATLANTIC. 119 All worn, but unshaken, that desolate rock, Fast rooted where islands and earthquakes are born, Looks fearlessly down on the breaker's rude shock, And laughs the vain force of the tempest to scorn. O thou who reverest a Master above! And sighest for glories immortal and high, Be strong in believing, and steadfast in love, When passion is loud and the tempest is nigh; When infidels bid thee be false to thy Lord, When they laugh at the faith that ennobles and saves, When they scoff at His people, and rail at His word Be thou to their wildness that rock in the waves. Ay! stand like that sea-cliff, nor ask thou to shun The work of obedience, the cares, or the cost: There are treasures of infinite price to be won, There are treasures of infinite price to be lost. With the wiles of the tempter, his vengeance or mirth, Strive thou as the bold and the faithful have striven, And the sorrows and toils of thy warfare on earth Shall be paid in the peace and the raptures of heaven. REV. DR J. G. LYONS |