That rude simplicity of bent plank, that can breast its way through the death that is in the deep sea, has in it the soul of shipping. Beyond this, we may have more work, more men, more money; we cannot have more miracle.

For there is first an infinite strangeness in the perfection of the thing as work of human hands. I know nothing else that man does which is perfect but that. All his other doings have some sign of weakness, affectation, or ignorance in them. They are over-finished or under-finished; they do not quite answer their end, or they show a mean vanity in answering it too well.

But the boat's bow is naïvely perfect; complete without an effort. The man who made it knew not that he was making anything beautiful as he bent its planks into those mysterious, ever-changing curves. It grows under his hands into the image of a sea-shell, the seal, as it were, of the flowing of the great tides and streams of ocean stamped on its delicate rounding. He leaves it when all is done, without a boast. It is simple work, but it will keep out water, and every plank, thenceforward, is a fate, and has men's lives wreathed in the knots of it, as the cloth-yard shaft had their deaths in its plumes.

Then, also, it is wonderful on account of the greatness of the thing accomplished. No other work of human hands ever gained so much. Steam-engines and telegraphs, indeed, help us to fetch and carry, and talk; they lift weights for us with less trouble than would have been needed otherwise ; this saving of trouble, however, does not constitute a new faculty, it only enhances the powers we already possess. But in that bow of the boat is the gift of another world. Without it, what prison wall would be so strong as that white and wailing fringe of sea? What maimed creatures were we, all chained to our rocks, Andromeda-like, or wandering by the endless shores, wasting our incommunicable strength, and pining in hopeless watch of unconquerable waves! The nails that fasten together the planks of the

boat's bow are the rivets of the fellowship of the world. Their iron does more than draw lightning out of heaven, it leads love round the earth.

Then, also, it is wonderful on account of the greatness of the enemy that it does battle with. To lift dead weight, to overcome length of languid space, to multiply or systematize a given force; this we may see done by the bar, or beam, or wheel, without wonder. But to war with that living fury of waters, to bare its breast, moment after moment, against the unwearied enmity of ocean; the subtle, fitful, implacable smiting of the black waves, provoking each other on endlessly, all the infinite march of the Atlantic rolling on behind them to their help, and still to strike them back into a wreath of smoke and futile foam, and win its way against them, and keep its charge of life from them. Does any other soulless thing do as much as this?

JOHN RUSKIN.

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN.

COME, dear children, let us away;

Down and away below!

Now my brothers call from the bay;

Now the great winds shorewards blow;
Now the salt tides seawards flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!

This way, this way!

Call her once before you go

Call once yet!

In a voice that she will know :

'Margaret! Margaret!'

Children's voices should be dear

(Call once more) to a mother's ear :

Children's voices wild with pain—
Surely she will come again!
Call her once, and come away;

This way, this way!

'Mother dear, we cannot stay!'

The wild white horses foam and fret.
Margaret! Margaret !

Come, dear children, come away down!
Call no more!

One last look at the white-walled town

And the little grey church on the windy shore,
Then come down!

She will not come though you call all day.
Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday

We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,

Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;

Where the spent lights quiver and gleam;
Where the salt weed sways in the stream;
Where the sea-beasts ranged all round
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail, and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
?

When did music come this way
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday

(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.

She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.

She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea;
She said: 'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray

In the little grey church on the shore to-day.
"Twill be Easter-time in the world-ah me!

And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.'
I said: 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves!
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!'
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, were we long alone?

'The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.

Long prayers,' I said, 'in the world they say.

Come!' I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-walled town.
Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still,
To the little grey church on the windy hill.

prayers,

From the church came a murmur of folk at their
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gazed up the aisle through the small-leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear;
'Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here.
Dear heart,' I said, 'we are long alone.
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.'
But ah, she gave me never a look,

For her eyes were sealed to the holy book!

Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door.

Come away, children, call no more!

Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!

Down to the depths of the sea!

She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: 'O joy, O joy,

For the humming street, and the child with its toy,
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well—
For the wheel where I spun,

And the blessed light of the sun.'
And so she sings her fill,

Singing most joyfully,

Till the shuttle falls from her hand,

And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;

And her eyes are set in a stare ;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,

A long, long sigh;

For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away, children,
Come, children, come down!

The hoarse wind blows colder ;

Lights shine in the town.

She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar,