His eye was on the Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

The boat is lower'd, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sunk the bell with a gurgling sound,

The bubbles rose and burst around;

Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the rock Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok."

Sir Ralph the Rover sail'd away,

He scour'd the seas for many a day;

And now grown rich with plunder'd store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day,
At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the rover takes his stand,
So dark it is they see no land.

Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising moon."

"Canst hear," said one,
66 the breakers' roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore."
"Now where we are I cannot tell,

But I wish I could hear the Inchcape Bell."

They hear no sound, the swell is strong; Though the wind hath fallen they drift along, Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,"Oh! heavens! it is the Inchcape Rock!"

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair;
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

But even now, in his dying fear,

One dreadful sound could the rover hear,
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell
The fiends in triumph were ringing his knell.

THE OCEAN.

LORD BYRON.

OH! that the desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye elements !-in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted-Can ye not Accord me such a being? Do I err, In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean―roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin—his control Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain, The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,―thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth-there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:—not so thou;— Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' playTime writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here.

DECEMBER.

[From the "Poetical Calendar."]

MR. WILLIAM HEY.

As human life begins and ends with woe,
So doth the year with darkness and with storm;
Mute is each sound, and vanish'd each fair form
That wont to cheer us; yet a sacred glow-
A moral beauty,—to which autumn's show,
Or Spring's sweet blandishments, or summer's bloom,
Are but vain pageants,-mitigate the gloom,
What time December's angry tempests blow.
'Twas when the "Earth had doff'd her gaudy trim,
As if in awe," that she received her lord;
And angels jubilant attuned the hymn,

Which the Church echoes still in sweet accord,

And ever shall, while Time his course doth fill,

66

Glory to God on high! to men peace and good will."

46

DIED AT THE STATION-HOUSE.

JAMES B. TOMALIN.

MR. COMBE MARKED THE SHEET OFF, "DIED AT THE STATIONHOUSE."-Southwark police report.

"DIED at the station-house."

Ah, Mr. Combe!

You've marked off many a sorrowful doom,

But that dark record of sin and woe

Can hardly a sadder entry show.

"Drunk and incapable"-so it ranShunned of woman and scorned of man; Outcast hawker from bar to bar,

Where the poison-fire and the gas-lights are:

Thrust forth, " insensible," into the night,
When the time was come to put out the light;
Nameless and homeless-her last abode,
Save one, the pavement of Cornwall Road.

"Turned out drunk.” Only think, Mr. Combe, There's something worse than an "inn's worst room". The bleak outside of the closed inn-door,

And never a bench but the stony floor.

There she was found, alone with Death,
Listening close to the struggling breath:
"Her face was downwards"- —so they say
Who gently raised and bore her away-

And, yet, we can fancy that face, Mr. Combe,
With an upward eye, and an innocent bloom
Of maiden honour and gladsome health,
Prodigal outlay of Nature's wealth,