its sport; 167 I cannot spare the luxury of believing That all things beautiful are what they seem, Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing Would, like the Patriarch's, soothe a dying hour; With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing, As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlit bower; With look, like patient Job's, eschewing evil; With motions graceful as a bird's in air, — Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil That e'er clenched fingers in a captive's hair! That in thy breast there springs a poison fountain, Deadlier than that where bathes the And in thy wrath, a nursing cat-o'mountain Is calm as her babe's sleep compared with thee! And there's one rare, strange virtue in And underneath that face, like summer thy speeches, The secret of their mastery, they are short. The monarch mind, the mystery of commanding, The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon, Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, balding The hearts of millions till they move as one, Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have Hatred—of missionaries and cold water; I LOVED to hear the war-horn cry, For I was so ambitious then, I stood and saw the morning light, I sailed with storm upon the deep, I love to dream of tears and sighs, And e'en the form we loved to see, But Mary had a gentle heart, Sae changed, and yet sae sweet and fair, And when she couldna stray out by, But ilka thing we said or did But death's cauld hour cam' on at last, And may it be, whene'er it fa's, SAMUEL FERGUSON. THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 'tis at a white heat now: The bellows ceased, the flames decreased, though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound; And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round, All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare; Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there. The windlass strains the tackle-chains, the black mound heaves below; And, red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at every throe: It rises, roars, rends all outright, 0 Vulcan, what a glow! 'Tis blinding white, 't is blasting bright; the high sun shines not so! The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery, fearful show, The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy, lurid row Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe; As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow Sinks on the anvil, — all about the faces fiery grow, "Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out, leap out"; bang, bang, the sledges go: Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low; A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow; The leathern mail rebounds the hai; the rattling cinders strew The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant "Ho!" Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load! Let's forge a goodly anchor; a bower, thick and broad: For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode, And I see the good ship riding all in a perilous road; The low reef roaring on her lea; the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains; But courage still, brave mariners, the bower yet remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high, Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing, here am I!" Swing in your strokes in order; let foot and hand keep time, Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime: But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be, The Anchor is the Anvil King, and royal craftsmen we! Strike in, strike in, FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER PROUT). 171 -the sparks begin to | O broad-armed fisher of the deep, whose dull their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped: Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array For a hammock at the roaring bows, or Our anchor soon must change the lay of In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last; A shapely one he is, and strong as e'er from cat was cast. O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea! O deep sea-diver, who might then behold The hoary monsters' palaces! methinks And send him foiled and bellowing back, To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn; And for the ghastly-grinning laugh his jaws to scorn; shark to To leap down on the kraken's back, where mid Norwegian isles He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles, Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls; Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonished shoals Of his back-browsing ocean calves; or, Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, Towrestle with the sea-serpent upon cerulean sands. The sports can equal thine? Dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable line; And night by night 't is thy delight, thy glory day by day, Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play; But, A shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave,fisher's joy is to destroy, thine office is to save. - O lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst With sounds like breakers in a dream To shed their blood so freely for the love Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave So freely for a restless bed amid the tossing wave; O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, Honor him for their memory, whose bones he goes among! FRANCIS MAHONY (FATHER [1805-1865.] THE BELLS OF SHANDON. WITH deep affection The Shandon bells, |