Its slow, strange progress mark; As it moves tow'rds them by the breeze 5 Near, and more near-and can it be, 6()" God of the Mariner! protèct (°) Ha! she has struck-she grounds—she stànds ·· Still as if held by giant hands. 7 "Quick, man the boat!"—away they sprang, The stranger ship to aid; And loud their hailing voices rang, And rapid speed they made: The vessel stood-none answering spoke. 8 'Twas fearful-not a sound arose- Which filled each heart with fear; 9 He was alone-the damp, chill mould A pen in his hand had meekly told Seventy days," the record stood, "Had they been in the ice, and wanted food." 10 They took his book, and turned away, The wife, in her death-sleep, gently lay, Who, seated beside his young heart's pride, 11 Oh, wedded love! how beautiful, How pùre a thing thou art: Whose influence even in death can rule, Can cheer life's roughest walk, and shed 12 There was a solemn, sacred feeling And softly from the cabin stealing, 13 And to their boat returning, each That Charnel Ship, which years before, 14 They left her in the icebergs, where A monument of death and fear, 'Mid Ocean's solitude! And, grateful for their own release, Thanked God, and sought their homes in peace. EXERCISE 49. Life.-A Spanish Poem.-EDINBURGH Review. 1 Oh! while we eye the rolling tide, Let us the present hour employ, 2 Let no vain hope deceive the mind— Our golden dreams of yore were bright, 3 Our lives like hasting streams must be, That into one ingulfing sea, Are doomed to fall The sea of death, whose waves roll on, 4 Alike the river's lordly tide, Death levels poverty and pride, 5 Our birth is but a starting place; There all those glittering toys are bought, 6 Say then how poor and little worth Dreams of a sleep that death must break, EXERCISE 50. Death and the Drunkard.-ANONYMOUS. 1 His form was fair, his cheek was health; His wife the fount of ceaseless joy; How laughed his daughter, played his boy; Till half its contents decked his head. 'Tis gone! but all the fault was his. 2 The social glass I saw him seize, 3 In the bowl's bottom Bankruptcy I placed he drank with tears and glee. He only sought the bowl the more. The dropsy in the cup I mixed; I sent the mad wretch to restrain. 4 On the bowl's bottom then myself.. 5 Haggard his eyes, upright his hair, 6 Death speaks-ah, reader, dost thou hear? Hast thou no lurking cause to fear? Has not o'er thee the sparkling bowl Constant, commanding, sly control? EXERCISE 51. The Plague in London.-ROTHElan. In its malignancy, it engrossed the ill of all other maladies, and made doctors despicable. Of a potency equal to death, it possessed itself of all his armouries, and was itself the death of every other mortal distemper. The 5 touch, yea, the very sight of the infected, was deadly; and its signs were so sudden, that families seated in happiness at their meals have seen the plague spot begin to redden, and have wildly scattered themselves forever. The cement of society was dissolved by it. Mothers, 10 when they saw the sign of the infection on the babes at their bosom, cast them from them with abhorrence. Wild places were sought for shelter;-some went intc ships and anchored themselves afar off on the waters. But the angel that was pouring the vial had a foot on the 15 sea, as well as on the dry land. No place was so wild, that the plague did not visit-none so secret that the quick-sighted pestilence did not discover, none could fly that it did not overtake. It was as if Heaven had repented the making of man20 kind, and was shovelling them all into the sepulchre. Justice was forgotten, and her courts deserted. The terrified jailers fled from the felons that were in fetters— the innocent and the guilty leagued themselves together, and kept within their prisons for safety;-the grass grew 25 in the market-places;-the cattle went moaning up and down the fields, wondering what had become of their keepers; the rooks and the ravens came into the towns, and built their nests in the mute belfries;-silence was universal, save when some infected wretch was seen 30 clamouring at a window. For a time all commerce was in coffins and shrouds; |