DEEP, DEEP WITHIN THE OCEAN'S BREAST.

I came again, a river,

Princely, calm, and clear,

Flowed from out the troubled lake,
Like pure love from fear.

Heaven and earth were showed therein,

The dark source defiled

To the ocean's large embrace

Sent a noble child.

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DEEP, DEEP WITHIN THE OCEAN'S BREAST

DEEP, deep within the ocean's breast
A coral isle was shrined,

Round which light, water-swayèd nymphs
Float with white arms entwined.

The centre of this little isle

Was fixed a stony tree;
An outer growth encircled this,
Like foliage, quiveringly.

In rigid pride the coral stone
Surveyed its firm estate,

And said, with gratulating tone,
"I floated, too, of late.

"But now no chance or change can come

To me; mature in form,

I take my place with things of fate :

I cool no more nor warm.

"Yes, I have been the sport of waves,

And like this mass around

I toiled and felt,

nor knew the rest,

Blest Neptune! which I've found.

"Come, all of ye Sea-Nymphs, admire
My beautiful repose!"

Out gushed the voice of one Sea-Nymph,—
"Give me the form which grows.

'I better please myself to watch
Life than a handsome death,
And, born of a quick element,
Like something which has breath.

"So, I'll just feast my eyes awhile
On what goes on round you,
And never tire of watching this

Till it grows stony too."

How in the ocean's deepest depth

Is human life repeated!

By coral beds, who 've done with change,
How hardly youth is greeted!

EYES not down-dropped nor over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity, -
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by

Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane

ISABEL.

Of her still spirit,-locks not wide dispread,
Madonna-wise on either side her head,-

Sweet lips, whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity,
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,
Revered Isabel, the crown and head,

The stately flower of female fortitude,

Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead.

The intuitive decision of a bright

And thorough-edgèd intellect, to part

Error from crime, a prudence to withhold, The laws of marriage charactered in gold Upon the blanchèd tablets of her heart,A love still burning upward, giving light an accent very To read those laws, In blandishment, but a most silver flow

low

Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
Right to the heart and brain, though undescried,
Winning its way with extreme gentleness
Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride,—
A courage to endure and to obey,

A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,
Crowned Isabel, thro' all her placid life,
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.

The mellowed reflex of a winter moon,
A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,
Till in its onward current it absorbs

With swifter movement and in purer light

The vexed eddies of its wayward brother,-
A leaning and upbearing parasite,

Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,
With clustered flower-bells and ambrosial orbs
Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other,
the world hath not
Shadow forth thee:-

another

(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee, And thou of God in thy great charity) Of such a finished, chastened purity.

SUNDAY. - Herbert.

O DAY most calm, most bright!
The fruit of this, the next world's bud;
The endorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time; care's balm and bay:-
The week were dark but for thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way.

The other days and thou

Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow:
The working days are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone
To endless death. But thou dost pull
And turn us round, to look on one,
Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still;
Since there is no place so alone
The which he doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars are

On which heaven's palace archèd lies:

HYMN OF PAN.

The other days fill the
up spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden; that is bare

Which parts their ranks and orders.

HYMN OF PAN.- Shelley.

FROM the forests and highlands
We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands,

Where loud waves are dumb,
Listening to my sweet pipings.
The wind in the reeds and rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle-bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings

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