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St. Michael's Mount.

ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT.

HILE summer airs scarce breathe along the tide,

WHIL

Oft pausing, up the mountain's scraggy side

We climb, how beautiful, how still, how clear

The scenes that stretch around! The rocks that rear
Their shapes in rich fantastic colors dressed,
The hill-tops where the softest shadows rest,
The long-retiring bay, the level sand,
The fading sea-line and the farthest land,
That seems, as low it lessens from the eye,
To steal away beneath the cloudless sky!

But yesterday the misty morn was spread
In dreariness on the bleak mountain's head;
No glittering prospect from the upland smiled,
The driving squall came dark, the sea heaved wild,
And, lost and lonely, the wayfarer sighed,

Wet with the hoar spray of the flashing tide.

How changed is now the circling scene! The deep Stirs not; the glancing roofs and white towers peep Along the margin of the lucid bay;

The sails descried far in the offing gray

Hang motionless, and the pale headland's height
Is touched as with sweet gleams of fairy light!
O, lives there on earth's busy stirring scene,
Whom nature's tranquil charms, her airs serene,
Her seas, her skies, her sunbeams, fail to move
With stealing tenderness and grateful love!
Go, thankless man, to misery's care, — behold

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Captivity stretched in her dungeon cold!
Or think on those who, in yon dreary mine
Sunk fathoms deep beneath the rolling brine,
From year to year amid the lurid shade,
O'er-wearied ply their melancholy trade;
That thou may'st bless the glorious sun, and hail
Him who with beauty clothed the hill and vale,
Who bent the arch of the high heavens for thee,
And stretched in amplitude the broad blue sea!
Now sunk are all its murmurs; and the air
But moves by fits the bents that here and there
Upshoot in casual spots of faded green:
Here straggling sheep the scanty pasture glean,
Or on the jutting fragments that impend,
Stray fearlessly, and gaze as we ascend.

Mountain, no pomp of waving woods hast thou,
That deck with varied shade thy hoary brow;
No sunny meadows at thy feet are spread,
No streamlets sparkle o'er their pebbly bed!
But thou canst boast thy beauties: ample views
That catch the rapt eye of the pausing Muse;
Headlands around new-lighted; sails and seas,
Now glassy-smooth, now wrinkling to the breeze;
And when the drizzly winter, wrapped in sleet,
Goes by, and winds and rain thy ramparts beat,
Fancy can see thee standing thus aloof,
And frowning, bleak and bare and tempest-proof,
Look as with awful confidence, and brave
The howling hurricane, the dashing wave;
More graceful when the storm's dark vapors frown
Than when the summer suns in pomp go down!
William Lisle Bowles.

ST. MICHAEL'S CHAIR.

ERRILY, merrily rung the bells,

MER

The bells of St. Michael's tower,

When Richard Penlake and Rebecca his wife

Arrived at St. Michael's door.

Richard Penlake was a cheerful man,
Cheerful and frank and free;

But he led a sad life with Rebecca his wife,
For a terrible shrew was she.

Richard Penlake a scolding would take,
Till patience availed no longer;

Then Richard Penlake his crab-stick would take,
And show her that he was the stronger.

Rebecca his wife had often wished
To sit in St. Michael's chair;
For she should be the mistress then
If she had once sat there.

It chanced that Richard Penlake fell sick;
They thought he would have died:
Rebecca his wife made a vow for his life,
As she knelt by his bedside.

"Now hear my prayer, St. Michael! and spare

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Richard Penlake repeated the vow;
For woundily sick was he:

"Save me, St. Michael! and we will go,
Six marks to give to thee."

When Richard grew well, Rebecca his wife
Teased him by night and by day:
"O mine own dear! for you I fear,
If we the vow delay."

Merrily, merrily rung the bells,

The bells of St. Michael's tower,

When Richard Penlake and Rebecca his wife Arrived at St. Michael's door.

Six marks they on the altar laid,
And Richard knelt in prayer:
She left him to pray, and stole away
To sit in St. Michael's chair.

Up the tower Rebecca ran,

Round and round and round: 'T was a giddy sight to stand atop, And look upon the ground.

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A curse on the ringers for rocking
The tower!" Rebecca cried,

As over the church battlements
She strode with a long stride.

'A blessing on St. Michael's chair!"
She said, as she sat down:

Merrily, merrily rung the bells,

And out Rebecca was thrown.

Tidings to Richard Penlake were brought,
That his good wife was dead:

"Now shall we toll for her poor soul
The great church-bell?" they said.

"Toll åt her burying," quoth Richard Penlake, "Toll at her burying," quoth he;

"But don't disturb the ringers now,

In compliment to me.”

Robert Southey.

I

St. Minver.

THE PADSTOW LIFEBOAT.

SING no more of belted knights,

Or the pure blood they boast;
My song is of the sterner stuff

That guards our native coast:
The hearts of oak that grow all round
The islands where we dwell,

Whose names have less of Norman sound,
And easier are to spell.

At nine A. M., wind west-northwest,

And blowing half a gale,

Round Stepper Point a schooner came,

But under close-reefed sail.

"T is a wild place to fetch, the waves Break on the Doombar sands,

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