And each one, lifted from the sea
To the parching sunshine, dies.

And bird or wave or wind

Brings other seeds to sow;
And on the rock new tenants find
A soil whereon to grow.

And they have other wants

Than the flowers the ocean fed; The hot sun nurses the living plants, And withers up the dead.

And then on the deepening mould
Of many a hundred years,
When the coral rock is green and old,
A stunted shrub appears;

And grasses tall and rank,

And herbs that thickly teem

Out of the soil on a lake's green bank,

Or the margin of a stream.

Long ages pass, those isles

Have grown maturely fair;

Green forests wave, and summer smiles,

And human homes are there.

Philip Gilbert Hamerton.

THE CORAL INSECT.

OIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral train,

Who build in the tossing and treacherous main ; Toil on for the wisdom of man ye mock,

With your sand-based structures and domes of rock;
Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,
And your arches spring up to the crested wave;
Ye're a puny race thus to boldly rear

A fabric so vast in a realm so drear.

Ye bind the deep with your secret zone,
The ocean is sealed, and the surge a stone;
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring,
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king;
The turf looks green where the breakers rolled;
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold;
The sea-snatched isle is the home of men,
And mountains exult where the wave hath been.

But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark?
There are snares enough on the tented field,
Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield:
There are serpents to coil ere the flowers are up;
There's a poison-drop in man's purest cup;
There are foes that watch for his cradle breath,
And why need ye sow the floods with death?
With mouldering bones the deeps are white,
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright;

The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold
With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold,
And the gods of ocean have frowned to see
The mariner's bed in their halls of glee;
Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread
The boundless sea for the thronging dead?

Ye build ye build-but ye enter not in,

Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin;
From the land of promise ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weary eye;
As the kings of the cloud-crowned pyramid,
Their noteless bones in oblivion hid,

Ye slumber unmarked mid the desolate main,
While the wonder and pride of your works remain.

Lydia Huntley Sigourney.

THE CORAL GROVE.

EEP in the wave is a coral grove,

DE

Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove;
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue
That never are wet with falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine
Far down in the green and glassy brine.
The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift,
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift

Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,

For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air.

There, with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter.
There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea.
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own.
And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,

When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore,
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,

The purple mullet and gold-fish rove
Where the waters murmur tranquilly,

Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

James Gates Percival.

Juan Fernandez.

VERSES

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK DURING

HIS SOLITARY ABODE IN THE ISLAND OF JUAN FER

NANDEZ.

I

AM monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O solitude! where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms
Than reign in this horrible place.

I am out of humanity's reach,
Must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own.
The beasts, that roam over the plain,
My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me.

Society, friendship, and love,

Divinely bestowed upon man,

O, had I the wings of a dove,

How soon would I taste you again!