She struck where the white and fleecy waves

Look'd soft as carded wool ;
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side,

Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheath'd in ice,

With the masts, went by the board ; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,

Ho !-ho! the breakers roar'd !

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,

A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair

Lash'd close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,

The salt tears in her eyes ;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,

On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,

In the midnight and the snow !
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's woe !

LONGFELLOW.

HASSAN; OR, THE CAMEL-DRIVER.

In silent horror, o'er the boundless waste,
The driver Hassan with his camels pass'd ;
One cruse of water on his back he bore,
And his light scrip contain'd a scanty store ;
A fan of painted feathers in his hand,
To guard his shaded face from scorching sand.
The sultry sun had gain’d the middle sky,
And not a tree, and not an herb, was nigh:
The beasts, with pain, their dusty way pursue,
Shrill roar'd the winds, and dreary was the view !
With desperate sorrow wild, th' affrighted man
Thrice sigh’d, thrice struck his breast, and thus began :

“ Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,

When first from Schiraz’ walls I bent my way!
Ah! little thought I of the blasting wind,
The thirst or pinching hunger that I find !
Bethink thee, Hassan, where shall thirst assuage,
When fails this cruse, his unrelenting rage ?
Soon shall this scrip its precious load resign;
Then what but tears and hunger shall be thine ?

Ye mute companions of my toils, that bear
In all my griefs a more than equal share !
Here, where no springs in murmurs break away,
Or moss-crown'd fountains mitigate the day,

In vain ye hope the green delights to know,
Which plains more bless’d, or verdant vales, bestow;
Here rocks alone and tasteless sands are found,
And faint and sickly winds for ever howl around.

Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,

When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way! Oh, cease my fears !—all frantic as I go, When thought creates unnumber'd scenes of woe; What if the lion in his rage I meet ! Oft in the dust I view his printed feet, And, fearful ! oft, when day's declining light Yields her pale empire to the mourner night, By hunger roused, he scours the groaning plain, Gaunt wolves and sullen tigers in his train; Before them death, with shrieks, directs their way, Fills the wild yell, and leads them to their prey.

Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!
At that dead hour the silent asp shall creep,
If aught of rest I find, upon my sleep ;
Or some swoll'n serpent twist his scales around,
And wake to anguish with a burning wound.
Thrice happy they, the wise contented poor;
From lust of wealth, and dread of death, secure !
They tempt no deserts, and no griefs they find ;
Peace rules the day, where reason rules the mind.

Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,
When first from Schiraz' walls I bent my way!”

COLLINS.

APRIL.

MINDFUL of disaster past,
And shrinking at the northern blast,
The sleety storm returning still,
The morning hoar, the evening chill,
Reluctant comes the timid spring.
Scarce a bee with airy wing
Murmurs the blossom’d boughs around
That clothe the garden's southern bound :
Scarce the hardy primrose peeps
From the dark dell's entangled steeps :
O’er the field of waving broom
Slowly shoots the golden bloom.

Scant along the ridgy land
The beans their new-born ranks expand;
The fresh-turn'd soil, with tender blades,
Thinly the sprouting barley shades.

The swallow, for a moment seen, Skims in haste the village green ; From the gray moor, on feeble wing, The screaming plovers idly spring.

Fraught with a transient frozen shower, If a cloud should haply lour, Sailing o'er the landscape dark, Mute on a sudden is the lark;

TO MY MOTHER.

But when gleams the sun again,
O'er the pearl-besprinkled plain,
And from behind his watery veil
Looks through the thin-descending hail,
She mounts, and, lessening to the sight,
Salutes the blithe return of light,
And high her tuneful track pursues
'Mid the dim rainbow's scatter'd hues.

WARTON.

TO MY MOTHER.

AND canst thou, mother, for a moment think,

That we, thy children, when old age shall shed

Its blanching honours on thy weary head, Could from our best of duties ever shrink ? Sooner the sun from his bright sphere shall sink,

Than we ungrateful leave thee in that day,

To pine in solitude thy life away, Or shun thee tottering on the grave's cold brink. Banish the thought !-where'er our steps may roam,

O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,

Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee, And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home ;

While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
And smoothe the pillow of thy sinking age.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.