SONG OF THE SEA WAVES.

BY MRS. ABDY.

I STOOD beside the sunny sea,
My heart from fear and care was free;
I smiled the lavish store to greet
Of shells and sea-weed at my feet,
And thought the billows, as they broke,
These words of cheering promise spoke,—
"Earth's bounties shall be poured on thee,
Like these bright treasures of the sea!"

Again I stood the waves to view;
Their early promise had been true.
But now, dark clouds o'erspread the sky,
The winds arose, the billows high
Beat wildly on the rocky beach;
And this, alas! appeared their speech,-
"Life's troubled way shall prove to thee,
Even as this high and stormy sea!"

Time passed-my bitter doom I bore.
I stood beside the waves once more;
Soft moonlight on the waters shone,
And now, methought, in soothing tone
They said, "The Lord, whose mighty will
Has made the troubled waves be still,

Shall bid thy weary heart to be

Calm as this tranquil, moonlit sea!"

FEARED and hated throughout his reign, the Emperor Tiberius was no more, and Rome rejoiced. His soul, write the Latin chroniclers, had crossed the Stygian river, but, unpurified from the stains of earth, and loaded with crimes, was excluded from Elysium. Caligula had assumed the imperial purple-a prince at first apparently just and merciful, but who soon, in riot, profligacy, and cruelty, surpassed even his predecessor.

On the banks of the classic Anio, about twenty miles northeast of Rome, a man of a stern and melancholy countenance was pacing to and fro. The sun was setting over the Sabine hills, and the yellow light tinged with glory the tall columns of the Temple of Neptune, the marble villas lately occupied by Mecenas and Horace, and other splendid edifices which Rome's wealthy sons had erected in that enchanting region; but neither flowing river, architectural beauty, nor that sky where the golden clouds seemed to form a radiant vista through which happy souls might glide into heaven, had power to charm away the anxious thoughts, or soften the gloom, of the pensive meditator. He was stricken with years, yet his figure was stately, and his hair, untouched by the frosty hand of Time, was black as jet. He wore a patrician tunic, and the thongs of his sandals were fastened with clasps of gold. His eyes had lost nothing of their fire, but, unlike the eyes of youth, they wan

dered not from object to object, but where they settled there they remained, in still reverie and unmitigated sadness.

And this was he who had governed Judæa under Tiberius,— this was Pontius Pilate.

Little, in an historical point of view, is known of Pilate after his recall from the East and the death of Tiberius: we learn, however, from Josephus, that having incurred the displeasure of that emperor a short time before he died, he was banished from Rome. He was an avaricious and wealthy man; and, like many other statesmen and generals in a similar position, though exiled from the Capitol, he might have been permitted to enjoy his riches. Pilate now occupied a villa in the neighbourhood of Tibur; he was surrounded by choice spirits, for here the warrior, the poet, and the sage-and many others whose finances allowed, and who were not enamoured of the dust of the city-luxuriated during the warm summer months.

The villa of the ex-governor of Judæa, in beauty and in splendour, outshone most of its rivals. As his late imperial master had done, he endeavoured to drown thought in the fascination of the senses; but vainly did he put into practice all the theories of Epicurus: wine flowed, woman smiled, and music breathed its witching spells, to no purpose. The joys that ravish others found no echo in his breast; the light without only added to the gloom within. He bore a brand on his brow more black than that of Cain; and the serpent which once twined its envenomed folds around the limbs of the Laocoon, was more sparing in the torments it inflicted than that black snake of remorse which, in tumult and in quiet, in cities or in solitude, coiled around his heart, poisoning all the springs of joy.

Pilate seated himself beneath the plane-trees, and gazed on the Anio; it glided softly between its wooded and templecrowned banks, laughing in the sun; the flowers along the margin stooped to moisten their thirsty lips in the limpid

waters. His shadow fell there; he saw his own features in the crystal mirror, and he drew back as if a demon had started up from below.

“I knew not whom I condemned,” he whispered to himself; and these were the words that man of sorrow had repeated over and over, by night and by day, since that fatal time when in the council-chamber at Jerusalem he yielded to the cry of the mad multitude, and suffered the Holy and the Innocent to be led to death.

But who is she yonder, gathering flowers by the Temple of the Sybil,—a fairy thing, sportive as the summer breeze, with cheeks of bloom and eyes of light-delicate, yet glowing as the visions of celestial nymphs that crowded the poetic dreams of love-sick Anacreon, and the sweet-tongued Tibullus? Can such an incarnation of joy and loveliness emanate from so dark a source? Can that fair girl be Pontius Pilate's daughter?

She returned to the solitary muser, and placed before him the flowers which she had collected. Though no smile lit the father's face, his countenance softened, and his eyes were bent upon his child in tenderness.

"I have been praying, father," she said, taking his hand, and pressing it to her lips.

"For whom?"

"For you."

"And where have you been praying?"

"In the shrine of the Sybil."

"And whom did you address ?"

"The guardian genius of the place, and the gods of our country."

"Poor child! they will not hear your supplications; you have been bending your knees to shapes of air-beings that exist only in the brain of man. But why should I disturb the illusion? Continue in the faith of your forefathers; I would not