25.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea.

A WET sheet and a flowing sea,

A wind that follows fast,

And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast;

And bends the gallant mast, my boys,

While, like the eagle free,

Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.

O for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;

But give to me the snoring breeze,
And white waves heaving high;
And white waves heaving high, my boys,
The good ship tight and free —
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.

There's tempest in yon horned moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;

And hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud;

The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashing free

While the hollow oak our palace is,

Our heritage the sea.

1847 Edtrion.

26.

SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT.

Song.

THE lark now leaves his wat❜ry nest,
And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings;
He takes this window for the east;

And to implore your light, he sings:
"Awake, awake! the morn will never rise,
Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes.

"The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, The ploughman from the sun his season takes; But still the lover wonders what they are,

Who look for day before his mistress wakes. Awake, awake! break thro' your veils of lawn! Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn." 1810 Edition.

27.

JOHN DRYDEN.

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687.

I.

FROM harmony, from heav'nly harmony
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap

Of jarring atoms lay,

And cou'd not heave her head,

The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead.

Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,

And Music's power obey.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony

This universal frame began:

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.

II.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell!
When Jubal struck the corded shell,

His list'ning brethren stood around,
And, wond'ring, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.

Less than a God they thought there could not

dwell

Within the hollow of that shell,

That spoke so sweetly and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell!

III.

The trumpet's loud clangour

Excites us to arms,

With shrill notes of anger

And mortal alarms.

The double double double beat

Of the thund'ring drum

Cries, Hark! the foes come;

Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.