Behind the shadowing mast, the brave and fair
Looked o'er the side, and counted, as they dript,
The pearls that sparkled from the chiming oars,
Or talked of home, and pressed each other's hands.
Sudden a shock startled that happy dream!
The blinded helmsman, reeling from his cup,
Looked round in vain. Another shock! ah me!
And the White Ship groaned like a living thing,
As the black waters rushed within her planks,
And mingled with the screams, and shouts, and
fears

That filled all hearts and ears.

But soon a boat

Was hauled to th' side; within it stepped the

prince,

And ere the rest could follow, the brave crew
Which manned it pushed away; a look he cast
On the now reeling ship, and at the side-
Her clasped hands raised within the calm moonlight,
And nothing saying,-the young Countess stood:
"Back! back again!" we heard Prince William say,

66

My sister must be saved, or I will die."

Henry. Thank God for that!

Mariner. And back he forced the boat,

But when within the spring of desperate men
The small boat came, leaping as if from death,
But finding death more surely by their leap,
Knight, noble, seamen,―aye, the timorous maid,-
Rushed struggling from the wreck; and with a

plunge

SHIPWRECK ON A HIDDEN ROCK.

189

Down went the tiny bark, and the white sea
Was streaked with pallid faces, uttering cries
That ne'er shall leave these ears; and 'mong them
all,

Clasping his sister, with a look to heaven,

Sank William.

Henry. This you saw ?

Mariner. I did, my liege;

And grasped the loosened cordage of the ship,
That still lay quivering on the fatal rock,

And gained the mast. There all the night I stood.
Alone amid that desert of blank sea,

Till the cold sun arose; and nothing moved—
Moveless and silent all; distant or near,

No sound, but ever the unruffled tide
Lay 'neath the heaven a sheet of steel or glass.
Henry. Stay here and be my friend.

the tale

Manly, as to a man. Hubert, these lips

You tell

Have smiled their last; the salt sea holds my joy. From Knight's "Half Hours."

REV. J. WHITE.

SHIPWRECK ON A HIDDEN ROCK.

HER giant form

O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm.

Majestically calm would go

'Mid the deep darkness, white as snow,

But gently now the small waves glide,
Like playful lambs o'er a mountain side.
So stately her bearing, so proud her array,
The main she will traverse for ever and aye.

Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast!-
Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer! this hour is her

last.

Five hundred souls in one instant of dread

Are hurried o'er the deck;

And fast the miserable ship

Becomes a lifeless wreck.

Her keel hath struck on a hidden rock,

Her planks are torn asunder,

And down come her masts with a reeling shock,

And a hideous crash like thunder.

Her sails are draggled in the brine,

That gladdened late the skies,

And her pendant, that kissed the fair moonshine,

Down many a fathom lies.

Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues

Gleamed softly from below,

And flung a warm and sunny flush
O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow,

To the coral rocks are hurrying down

To sleep amid colours as bright as their own.
Oh! many a dream was in the ship

An hour before her death;

And sights of home with sighs disturbed
The sleepers' long-drawn breath.

SHIPWRECK ON A HIDDEN ROCK.

191

Instead of the murmur of the sea,
The sailor heard the humming tree
Alive through all its leaves,
The hum of the spreading sycamore
That grows before his cottage-door,
And the swallow's song in the eaves.
His arms enclosed a blooming boy,
Who listened, with tears of sorrow and joy,
To the dangers his father had passed;

And his wife, by turns she wept and smiled,

As she looks on the father of her child

Returned to her at last,

He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll,
And the rush of waters is in his soul.
Astounded the reeling deck he paces,
'Mid hurrying forms and ghastly faces :-
The whole ship's crew were there!
Wailings around and overhead,
Brave spirits stupified or dead,
And madness and despair.
Now is the ocean's bosom bare,
Unbroken as the floating air;
The ship hath melted quite away,
Like a struggling dream at break of day:

No image meets my wandering eye

But the new-risen sun and the sunny sky.

Though the night-shades are gone, yet a vapour

dull

Bedims the waves so beautiful;

While a low and melancholy moan

Mourns for the glory that hath flown.

PROFESSOR WILSON.

THE WRECK OF AN INDIAMAN.

ALL night the booming minute-gun
Had pealed along the deep,
And mournfully the rising sun
Looked o'er the tide-worn steep.
A bark, from India's coral strand,
Before the raging blast,
Had veiled her top-sails to the sand,

And bowed her noble mast.

The queenly ship!-brave hearts had striven,

And true ones died with her!

We saw her mighty cable riven,

Like floating gossamer;

We saw her proud flag struck that morn,

A star once o'er the seas,

Her anchor gone, her deck uptorn,

And sadder things than these!

We saw her treasures cast away;
The rocks with pearls were sown;
And, strangely sad, the ruby's ray
Flashed out o'er fretted stone;