But o blithe breeze ! and O great seas !

Though ne'er, that earliest parting past, On your wide plain they join again,

Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,

One purpose hold, where'er they fare ; O bounding breeze, O rushing seas,

At last, at last, unite them there!

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

THE PILGRIMS.

UPON

PON the white sea-sand

There sat a pilgrim-band,
Telling the losses that their lives had known,

While evening waned away

From breezy cliff and bay, And the strong tides went out with weary moan.

One spake, with quivering lip,

Of a fair-freighted ship, With all his household, to the deep gone down;

And one had wilder woe,

For a fair face long ago
Lost in the darker depths of a great town.

There were who mourned their youth

With a most loving truth, For its brave hopes and memories ever green;

And one upon the west

Turned an eye that would not rest, For far-off hills whereon his joy had been.

Some talked of vanished gold,

Some of proud honors told, Some spake of friends that were their trust no more;

And one of a green grave,

Beside a foreign wave,
That made him sit so lonely on the shore.

But when their tales were done,

There spake among them one,
A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free, -

“ Sad losses have ye met,

But mine is heavier yet,
For a believing heart hath gone from me.”

“ Alas !” these pilgrims said,

“For the living and the dead, For fortune's cruelty and love's sure cross,

For the wrecks of land and sea !

But, however it came to thee, Thine, stranger, is life's last and heaviest loss !"

FRANCES BROWN.

“ SPOKEN.”

COUNTING the hours by bells and lights,

We rose and sank ;
The waves, on royal banquet-heights,

Tossed off and drank
Their jewels made of sun and moon,
White pearls at midnight, gold at noon.

Counting the hours by bells and lights,

We sailed and sailed;
Six lonely days, six lonely nights,

No ship we hailed.
Till all the sea seemed bound in spell,
And silence sounded like a knell.

At last, just when by bells and lights

Of seventh day The dawn grew clear, in sudden flights

White sails away To east, like birds, went spreading slow Their wings, which reddened in the glow.

No more we count the bells and lights:

We laugh for joy!
The trumpets with their brazen mights

Call, Ship ahoy !”
We hold each other's hands; our cheeks
Are wet with tears ; but no one speaks.

In instant comes the sun, and lights

The ship with fire;
Each mast creeps up to dizzy heights,

A blazing spire ;
One faint “ Ahoy,” then all in vain
We look; we are alone again.

I have forgotten bells and lights,

And waves which drank Their jewels up; those days and nights,

Which rose and sank,

Have turned like other pasts, and fled,
And carried with them all their dead.

But every day that fire-ship lights

My distant blue,
And every day glad wonder smites

My heart anew,
How in that instant each could heed,
And hear the other's swift “God-speed ! ”

Counting by hours thy days and nights

In weariness,
O patient soul, on godlike heights

Of loneliness,
I passed thee by ; tears filled our eyes ;
The loud winds mocked and drowned our cries.

The hours go by, with bells and lights ;

We sail, we drift ;
Our souls, in changing tasks and rites,

Find work and shrift.
But this I pray, and praying know,
Till faith almost to joy can grow,

That hour by hour the bells, the lights,

Of sound, of flame,
Weave spell which ceaselessly recites

To thee a name,
And smiles which thou canst not forget
For thee are suns which never set.

H. H.

SEEN AND UNSEEN.

THE
HE wind ahead, the billows high,

A whited wave, but sable sky,
And many a league of tossing sea
Between the hearts I love and me.

The wind ahead : day after day
These weary words the sailors say ;
To weeks the days are lengthened now,-
Still mounts the surge to meet our prow.
Through longing day and lingering night
I still accuse Time's lagging flight,
Or gaze out o'er the envious sea,
That keeps the hearts I love from me.

Yet, ah, how shallow is all grief !
How instant is the deep relief!
And what a hypocrite am I
To feign forlorn, to 'plain and sigh !

The wind ahead ? The wind is free !
Forevermore it favoreth me,
To shores of God still blowing fair,
O’er seas of God my bark doth bear.

This surging brine I do not sail,
This blast adverse is not my gale;
'Tis here I only seem to be,
But really sail another sea,