To A Waterfall.[11]

Wild is your airy sweep, Billows that foam from yonder mountain side-- Dashing with whitened crests and thundering tide To seek the distant deep!

Now to the verge ye climb, Now rush to plunge with emulous haste below; Sounding your stormy chorus as ye go-- A never ending chime!

Leaping from rock to rock, Unwearied your eternal course ye hold; The rainbow tints your eddying waves unfold, The hues of sunset mock!

Why choose this pathway rude, These cliffs by gray and ancient woods o’ergrown? Why pour your music to the echoes lone Of this wild solitude?

The mead in green array, With silent beauty woos your loved embrace; Would lead you through soft banks, with devious grace, Along a gentler way.

There, as ye onward roam, Fresh leaves would bend to greet your waters bright:-- Why scorn the charms that vainly court your sight, Amid these wilds to foam?

Alas! our fate is one-- Both ruled by wayward fancy!--All in vain I question both! My thoughts still spurn the chain-- Ye--heedless--thunder on!

THE SEA KINGS.

“They are rightly named Sea Kings,” says the author of the Inglingasaga, “who never seek shelter under a roof, and never drain their drinking horn at a cottage-fire.”

Our realm is mighty ocean, The broad and sea-green wave That ever hails our greeting gaze-- Our dwelling place and grave! For us the paths of glory lie Far on the swelling deep; And brothers to the tempest, We shrink not at his sweep!

Our music is the storm blast In fierceness revelling nigh, When on our graven bucklers gleam His lightnings glancing by. Yet most the flash of war-steel keen Is welcome in our sight, When flies the startled foeman Before our falchions’ light.

We ask no peasant’s shelter, We seek no noble’s bowers; Yet they must yield us tribute meet, For all they boast is ours. No castled prince his wide domain Dares from our yoke to free; And, like mysterious Odin, We rule the land and sea.

Rear high the blood-red banner! Its folds in triumph wave-- And long unsullied may it stream The standard of the brave! Our swords outspeed the meteor’s glance-- The world their might shall know, So long as heaven shines o’er us, Or ocean rolls below.

THE WAVES THAT ON THE SPARKLING SAND.

The waves that on the sparkling sand Their foaming crests upheave, Lightly receding from the land, Seem not a trace to leave. Those billows in their ceaseless play, Have worn the solid rocks away.

The summer winds, which wandering sigh Amid the forest bower, So gently as they murmur by, Scarce lift the drooping flower. Yet bear they, in autumnal gloom, Spring’s withered beauties to the tomb.

Thus worldly cares, though lightly borne, Their impress leave behind; And spirits, which their bonds would spurn, The blighting traces find. ’Till altered thoughts and hearts grown cold, The change of passing years unfold.