barism, I am lost in an exulting admiration. Look at the bold barriers of Palestine! See how the infant liberties of Greece were sheltered from the vast tribes of the uncivilized north by the heights of Hamus and Rhodope! Behold how the Alps describe their magnificent crescent-inclining their opposite extremities to the Adriatic and Tyrrhene Seas-locking up Italy from the Gallic and Tuetonic hordes, until the power and spirit of Rome had reached their maturity, and until she spread far her laws and language, and planted the seeds of many mighty nations!

Thanks be to God for mountains! Their colossal firmness seems almost to break the current of time itself: the geologist in them searches for traces of the earlier world, and it is there too that man -resisting the revolutions of lower regions-retains through innumerable years his habits and his rights, while a multitude of changes has remoulded the people of Europe, while languages, laws, dynasties and creeds have passed over it, the children of the Celt and the Goth, who fled to the mountains a thousand years ago, are found there now, and show us in face and figure, in language and garb, what their fathers were: that there the fiery heart of freedom is still found and will be so for ever.-W. HoWITT.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses ;
I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses.

With graceful sweeps I sing and flow
To join the brimming river;

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

TENNYSON.

THE SEA.

He views the ships that come and go,
Looking so like to living things.
Oh, 'tis a proud and gallant show
Of bright and broad-spread wings.
Flinging a glory round them, as they keep

Their course right onward through the unsounded deep.

And where the far off sand-bars lift

Their backs in long and narrow line,
The breakers shout, and leap, and shift,
And send the sparkling brine

Into the air; then rush to mimic strife
Glad creatures of the sea! how all seems life!

DANA.

SEA-SIDE THOUGHTS.

Whether we consider the ocean as rearing its tremendous billows in the midst of the tempest, or as stretched out into a smooth expanse-whether we consider its immeasurable extent, its mighty movements, or the innumerable beings which glide through its rolling waves-we cannot but be struck with astonishment at the grandeur of that Omnipotent Being who holds its waters in the hollow of his hand," and who has said to its foaming surges, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."-Dick's Christian Philosopher.

Beautiful, sublime, and glorious,

Mild, majestic, foaming, free:
Over time itself victorious:

Image of eternity.

Sun, and moon, and stars, shine o'er thee,
See thy surface ebb and flow,

Yet attempt not to explore thee

In thy soundless depths below.

Whether morning's splendours steep thee
With the rainbow's glowing grace;
Tempests rouse, or navies sweep thee,
"Tis but for a moment's space.

Earth-her valleys and her mountains,
Mortal man's behest obey:

Thy unfathomable fountains,

Scoff his search and scorn his sway.

Such art thou, stupendous ocean!
But if overwhelm'd by thee,
Can we think, without emotion,
What must thy Creator be?

BERNARD BARTON.

THOUGHTS ON THE SEA.

The joy of song, which hath such deep control, Now on my mind a shadowy world hath brought, Stirring the hidden depths of heart and soul

With glorious thought;

For it brings with it images of thee,
Immeasurable sea!

The mind in its immensity expands

To take within its range so vast a theme, And clothes the thoughts with hues of other lands, As in a dream,

Giving to words a light, a power, a sense

Of passionate influence.

Oft when a boy, upon thy breast I lay

Floating or swimming-changing with my whims, Feeling the warmth of the bright sun-beam play

Upon my limbs;

Or diving through the waves with glee as wild
As an unconscious child.

Alone I've stood beside thy sounding shore,
List'ning to the wild music of thy voice;

And while the moaning winds would sigh and roar,
I would rejoice;

I love to be familiar with each sound
Which echoed far around.

But soon I had a boat with swelling sail,
And many a day reposed beneath the sky,
Catching the breeze until it prov'd a gale,

And waves were high;
And when the storm was raging in its height
I felt a deep delight.

I've heard the sea-gull screaming o'er my head,
I've seen the stormy petrel on my track,
But none had power to stop me where I led
Or keep me back;
And I maintain'd companionship with thee,
Unfathomable sea.

A HYMN OF THE SEA.

The sea is mighty, but a mightier sways

His restless billows. Thou whose hands have scoop'd
His boundless gulfs and built his shores, Thy breath,
That moved in the beginning o'er his face,
Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient waves
To its strong motion roll and rise and fall.
Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up,
As at the first, to water the great earth,
And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms
Watch its broad shadow floating on the wind;
And in the dropping shower with gladness hear
Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth
Over the boundless blue, where, joyously,
The bright crests of innumerable waves
Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands
Of a great multitude are upward flung
In acclamation. I behold the ships

Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,
Or stemming towards far lands, or hastening home
From the old world. It is Thy friendly breeze
That bears them with the riches of the land,
And treasures of dear lives, till, in the port,
The shouting seamen climbs and furls the sail.

These restless surges eat away the shores
Of earth's old continents: the fertile plain
Welters in shallows; headlands crumble down;
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drown'd city. In the middle sea,
Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age
He builds beneath the waters, till, at last,
His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check
The long wave rolling from the southern pole
To break upon Japan. Thou bidd'st the fires
That smoulder under ocean, heave on high
The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks-
Places of refuge for the storm-driven bird.

The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts

With herb and tree: sweet fountains gush: sweet airs
Ripple the living lakes, that, fringed with flowers,
Are gather'd in the hollows. Thou dost look

On thy creation, and pronounce it good.
Its valleys, glorious with their summer green,
Praise thee in silent beauty; and its woods,
Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join

The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.-BRYANT.