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TO THE WIND.

Waiting thy rest, sad hours I've spent,
But still thou mak'st me quail.

Not for myself, well sheltered here,
By calm and warm fireside,
Nor for my little ones I fear—

My heart is on the tide,

Whose billows thou wilt towering rear,
To show thy power and pride.

And thou wilt toss them at thy will,
And chase the headlong wave,
But nothing reck tho' sailor's skill
Should fail his bark to save-
That driven sea the hold will fill,
And make his home a grave.

Thou wilt ingulf the moon in clouds,
And hide the leading star;

And strive to snap the straining shrouds,
And break the bending spar,

And joy, as evils come in crowds,
To crush the hardy tar.

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!

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To Him, whose crouching slave thou art,
With fervent soul I pray,

To bid thee play a gentler part,

And smoothe the sailor's way—

And whisper "home" around his heart,
And bear him to its bay.

J. LONGMUIR.

FROM "HYMN TO THE NIGHT WIND."

DISTURBED, arise

The monsters of the deep, and wheel around
Their mountainous bulks unwieldy, while aloft,
Poised on the feathery summit of the wave,
Hangs the frail bark, its howlings of despair
Lost on the mocking storm. Then frantic, thou
Dost rise, tremendous Power, thy wings unfurled-
Unfurled, but not to succour, nor to save;
Then is thine hour of triumph: with a yell,
Thou rushest on; and, with a maniac love,
Sing'st in the rifted shroud; the straining mast
Yields, and the cordage cracks. Thou churn'st the
deep

To madness, tearing up the yellow sands
From their profound recesses, and dost strew
The clouds around thee, and within thy hand
Takest up the billowy tide, and dashest down
The vessel to destruction-she is not!
But, when the morning lifts her dewy eye,

THE WATER-SPOUT.

And to a quiet calm the elements,

Subsiding from their fury, have dispersed,
There art thou, like a satiate conqueror,

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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,
And Jove's high hill was rising to the view:
When on the larboard quarter they descry
A liquid column towering shoot on high;
The foaming base the angry whirlwind's sweep,
Where curling billows rouse the fearful deep:
Still round, and round, the fluid vortex flies,
Diffusing briny vapours o'er the skies.
This vast phenomenon, whose lofty head,
In heaven immersed, embracing clouds o'erspread,
In spiral motion first, as seamen deem,

Swells, when the raging whirlwind sweeps the

stream.

The swift volution, and the enormous train,
Let sages versed in Nature's lore explain.
The horrid apparition still draws nigh,
And white with foam the whirling billows fly.
The guns were primed; the vessel northward veers,
Till her black battery on the column bears:

The nitre fired; and, while the dreadful sound
Convulsive shook the slumbering air around,
The watery volume, trembling to the sky,
Burst down, a dreadful deluge from on high!
The expanding ocean trembled as it fell,
And felt with swift recoil her surges swell;
But soon this transient undulation o'er,

The sea subsides, the whirlwinds rage no more.

FALCONER.

THE ROCK IN THE ATLANTIC.

IN the sleepless Atlantic, remote and alone,
Is a rock which the wild waves all wrathfully

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.

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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

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