And blending with the rose's bloom Models of cannoned ships of war, And Nelson at the Nile, Were round his cabin hung, his hours, When lonely, to beguile. And there were charts and soundings, made And storm-stones from the sky; Old Simon had an orphan been- E'en from his childhood was he seen A haunter of the quay; Four years on board a merchantman He knew-from pastoral St. Lucie To palmy Trinidad. But sterner life was in his thoughts, To crown a British tar; 'Twas then he went-a volunteer- On board a man-of-war. Through forty years of storm and shine He ploughed the changeful deep; From where, beneath the tropic line, To where frost rocks the polar seas I recollect the brave old man- He comes again-his varnished hat, Yon turfen bench the veteran loved, For from that spot he could survey The broad expanse That element where he so long Had been a rover free! And lighted up his faded face, It was a music to his ear To list the sea-mew's wail! Oft would he tell how, under Smith, They joined the men on land, And when he told how through the Sound, With Nelson in his might, They passed the Cronberg batteries, To quell the Dane in fight, His voice with vigour filled again His veteran eye with light! But chiefly of hot Trafalgar The brave old man would speak; And when he showed his oaken stump, While his eye filled-for wound on wound Ten years, in vigorous old age, We missed him on our seaward walk; The children went no more To listen to his evening talk 'Twas harvest-time;-day after day Thus did he weaken and he wane, He made them prop him in his couch, And now he watched the moving boat, As ray by ray the mighty sun Welcome as homestead to the feet Of pilgrim, travel-tired, Death to old Simon's dwelling came A thing to be desired; And, breathing peace to all around, The man of war expired. MOIR. THE FUNERAL AT SEA. DEEP mists hung over the mariner's grave, And heavily heaved on the gloomy sea The ship that sheltered that homeless one, As though his funeral hour should be When the waves were still and the winds were gone. And there he lay, in his coarse, cold shroud, No sound from the church's passing-bell Not a whisper then lingered upon the air: O'er his body one moment his mess-mates bent; But the plunging sound of the dead was there, And the ocean is now his monument. But many a sigh, and many a tear, Shall be breathed and shed, in the hours to come,When the widow and fatherless shall hear How he died, far, far from his happy home. FINN. THE NATIVITY. A STAR appeared, and peaceful threw It caught the faithful Magi's view, It led the wondrous way From far-famed Persia's smiling bowers, Each heart throughout the gazing throng While slowly moved that star along And softly fixed its mellow light There-unknown to rich and great, The Prince of Peace, so young, so fair, While near, with kind parental care, His mother watch was keeping. The Magi viewed the Bless'd of Heaven, CAMPBELL. THE LOSS OF THE SALDANAH. [The Saldanah frigate, of thirty-eight guns, sailed from Lough Swilly, in the north of Ireland, on a cruise, November 30, 1811, and encountering a dreadful gale, was four days after driven ashore, and wrecked on the rocks at the mouth of the bay or lough which she had recently left, when, of three hundred persons on board, not one escaped.] "BRITANNIA rules the waves!" Heard'st thou that dreadful roar? |