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THE BUCKET.

The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,

The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell; The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it, And e'en the rude bucket which hung in the well!

The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,

The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well!

That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure;

For often, at noon, when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,

And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.

How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips!
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave
it,

Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.

ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.

And now, far removed from the loved situation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,

105

And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well:

The old oaken bucket, the iron bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket, which hangs in his well.

Address to the Ocean.

BY' BYRON.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

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ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control

Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and un

known.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the wild strength he

wields

For earth's destruction, thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth :- there let him
lay.

The armaments which thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make

ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.

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Their clay creator the vain title take

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

The shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay

Has dried up realms to deserts :—not so thou, Unchangeable, save to the wild wave's playTime writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark heaving;-boundless, endless, or sublime—
The image of eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, and alone.

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A PSALM OF LIFE.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear;
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows, far and near,
my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

And laid

A Psalm of Life.

BY H. LONGFELLOW.

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what

Life is real! Life is earnest!

they

And the grave is not its goal; "Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

seem.