THE MERMAID AND THE SAILOR.

A mermaid on a dolphin's back,

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,

That the rude sea grew civil at her song.-Shakspeare.

"OH COME," a Mermaid sung, " and dwell
With me, in a bright and a sparry cell;

I'll choose thee beneath the deep waves a spot,
And I'll deck for my lover a beautiful grot.
And the pleasures of earth, and the wealth of the sea,
They all shall belong, my own Sailor, to thee!"

But the Sailor replied, "Thy prayers must fail,
For I have a cot in my native vale ;

And an aged mother awaits me there,
With daily hope and with nightly prayer,
And she asks of Heaven one only joy,
To behold once more her Sailor-boy!"

“O thou shalt walk our fairy strands, Among silver billows and golden sands, And thou shall roam in the coral caves,

And see the tall ships as they lie in their graves;

48

THE MERMAID AND THE SAILOR.

And I'll show thee what wond'rous things there be,

That lie in the depths of the fathomless sea!"

"O, no! for I would rather roam

In the humble walks of my village home,
I would not but hear my mother's voice!
I would not but bid her heart rejoice!
For all the mines of wealth that sleep

In the bottomless caves of the ocean deep!"

"Treasures I'll bring thee from many a wreck,

And I'll braid, with fresh diamonds, thy hair and thy neck. I'll sooth thee to rest with my softest lute,

And the songs of my sea-nymphs shall never be mute,

And I'll feast thee with joys, O! far above

The noblest bliss of a mortal love."

"Nay tempt me no more," the sailor replied,

"I have promised my Mary to make her my bride, And she waits, e'en now, on yonder strand

With a seraph smile, and a lily hand,

And a look all love, and a heart all truth,

To welcome home her sailor youth!"

THE MERMAID AND THE SAILOR.

“Then meet her and perish!"—the syren cried,
And she plunged deep down-in the foaming tide.
And she rear'd again her awful form,

And she woke the winds, and she hurl'd the storm,
And the tall ship sunk, and the wild waves bore
That sailor's corse to his Mary's door!

E

49

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

I HUNG my harp upon the bough
That droops o'er fabled Lethe's streams,
And swore, with many a firmest vow,
To wake no more its idle themes.

But soon as e'er my harp was hung
In silence, lone, neglected there,
Its chords were swept, its strains were sung,
By hands unseen-by forms of air.

First Music, on the zephyr's wing,

Came floating thro' the twilight shade ;

And waking every softest string,

Breathed sweetest strains through all the glade.

Next Sorrow's self, in seraph guise,

Found in its lays, awhile, relief; And own'd, amid its plaintive sighs, Her only joy-the joy of grief.

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

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Next Pity woke the sleeping wire,

And fill'd with sweetest tones the grove;

But soon to Love resigned the lyre,

For Pity is akin to Love.

Love took the lyre at Pity's call,
And as he swept the varied chords,
He softly tuned each sweetest fall

To gentlest sighs, and whisper'd words.

Last Memory came; with mellow'd tone,
She swept the strains that long were fled,
And taught the sleeping strings alone
To breathe of joy and transport dead.

And now, if strains so lone and mute,

Awake, perchance, some pleasing measure,

They only breathe, like Echo's lute,

Of vanished joy and parted pleasure.