The Beacon.

THE scene was more beautiful far to the eye,

Than if day in its pride had arrayed it: The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky Looked pure as the spirit that made it:

The murmur rose soft, as I silently gazed

On the shadowy waves' playful motion,

From the dim distant hill, till the light-house fire blazed Like a star in the midst of the ocean.

No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast
Was heard in his wildly-breathed numbers;
The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest,
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers:

One moment I looked from the hill's gentle slope,
All hushed was the billows' commotion,

And o'er them the light-house looked lovely as hope,--
That star of life's tremulous ocean.

The time is long past, and the scene is afar,
Yet when my head rests on its pillow,
Will memory sometimes rekindle the star

That blazed on the breast of the billow:

In life's closing hour, when the trembling soul flies,
And death stills the heart's last emotion;

O, then may the seraph of mercy arise,

Like a star on eternity's ocean!

P. M. JAMES.

Mortality.

O WHY should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,

Be scattered around and together be laid;

And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.

The child that a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection that proved,
The husband that mother and infant that blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwelling of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure,-her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those that beloved her and praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep,
The beggar that wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint that enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner that dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;

So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that hath often been told.

For we are the same that our fathers have been;
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,-
We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun,
And we run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think; 'From the death we are shrinking from, they too would

shrink;

To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling;
But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but their story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers may come;
They joyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died, ay! they died! and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'T is the wink of an eye, 't is the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,—
O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

WILLIAM KNOX.

The Whistler.

"You have heard," said a youth to his sweetheart, who stood

While he sat on a corn-sheaf, at daylight's decline,— "You have heard of the Danish boy's whistle of wood: I wish that the Danish boy's whistle were mine."

"And what would you do with it? Tell me," she said, While an arch smile played over her beautiful face.

"I would blow it," he answered, "and then my fair maid Would fly to my side and would there take her place.”

"Is that all you wish for? Why, that may be yours
Without any magic!" the fair maiden cried:
"A favor so slight one's good-nature secures;

And she playfully seated herself by his side.

"I would blow it again," said the youth; "and the charm Would work so that not even modesty's check

Would be able to keep from my neck your white arm." She smiled and she laid her white arm round his neck.

"Yet once more I would blow; and the music divine

Would bring me a third time an exquisite bliss,— You would lay your fair cheek to this brown one of mine; And your lips stealing past it would give me a kiss.”

The maiden laughed out in her innocent glee,— "What a fool of yourself with the whistle you 'd make! For only consider how silly 't would be

To sit there and whistle for what you might take."

ROBERT STORY.

We'll Go to Sea no More.

O, BLITHELY shines the bonny sun

Upon the Isle of May,

And blithely comes the morning tide
Into St. Andrew's Bay.

Then up, gudeman, the breeze is fair,
And up, my braw bairns three;
There 's goud in yonder bonny boat
That sails sae weel the sea!

When haddocks leave the Firth o' Forth,

An' mussels leave the shore,

When oysters climb up Berwick Law,
We'll go to sea no more,—
No more,

We'll go to sea no more.

I've seen the waves as blue as air,
I've seen them green as grass;
But I never feared their heaving yet,
From Grangemouth to the Bass.
I've seen the sea as black as pitch,
I've seen it white as snow;
But I never feared its foaming yet,
Though the winds blew high or low.
When squalls capsize our wooden walls,
When the French ride at the Nore,
When Leith meets Aberdour half way,
We'll go to sea no more,-
No more,

We'll go to sea no more.

I never liked the landsman's life,
The earth is aye the same;
Gie me the ocean for my dower,
My vessel for my hame.

Gie me the fields that no man plows,
The farm that pays no fee;

Gie me the bonny fish that glance

So gladly through the sea.

When sails hang flapping on the masts

While through the waves we snore, When in a calm we 're tempest-tossed, We'll go to sea no more,—

No more,

We'll go to sea no more.

The sun is up, and round Inchkeith
The breezes softly blaw;