The sparkling juice now pour, SAINT PERAY. With fond and liberal hand; Hurrah! with three times three; Then fill the wine-cup high, The sparkling liquor pour; For we will care and grief defy, From off the wine departs, The precious draught shall find a homeA dwelling in our hearts. ROBERT FOLKESTONE WILLIAMS. SAINT PERAY. ADDRESSED TO H. T. P. WHEN to any saint I pray, It shall be to Saint Peray. He alone, of all the brood, Ever did me any good: Many I have tried that are Humbugs in the calendar. On the Atlantic, faint and sick, Next, in pleasant Normandie, All the ancient kings repose; In my wanderings, vague and various, But I was a fool to try him; Naught I said could liquefy him; And I swear he did me wrong, Keeping me shut up so long 191 In that pest-house, with obscene In Sicily at least a score- Worn with travel, tired and lame, Never gave me aught-but fleas— But in Provence, near Vaucluse, Hard by the Rhone, I found a Saint Gifted with a wondrous juice, Potent for the worst complaint. Though till then I had not heard With such magic into mine, Rest he gave me, and refection— Bright forebodings for the morrow— Now, why should any almanack Whate'er I see is linked with thoughts The busy deck is hushed, no sounds are wak of you. No life is in the air, but in the waters Are creatures, huge, and terrible, and strong; ing But the watch pacing silently and slow; The waves against the sides incessant break ing, And rope and canvas swaying to and fro. The sword-fish and the shark pursue their The topmast sail, it seems like some dim pin slanghters, War universal reigns these depths along. nacle Cresting a shadowy tower amid the air; While red and fitful gleams come from the binnacle. The only light on board to guide uswhere ? My friends, my absent friends! Far from my native land, and far from you. On one side of the ship, the moonbeam's shimmer In luminous vibrations sweeps the sea, But where the shadow falls, a strange, pale glimmer Seems, glow-worm like, amid the waves to be. All that the spirit thinks of thought and feel ing, Takes visionary hues from such an hour; But while some phantasy is o'er me stealing, I start remembrance has a keener power: My friends, my absent friends! From the fair dream I start to think of you. A dusk line in the moonlight-I discover What all day long vainly I sought to catch; Or is it but the varying clouds that hover Thick in the air, to mock the eyes that watch? No; well the sailor knows each speck, appearing, Upon the tossing waves, the far-off strand; To that dark line our eager ship is steering. Her voyage done-to-morrow we shall land. LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON. When, round the bowl, of vanished years And when, in other climes, we meet With some we've left behind us! As travellers oft look back at eve When eastward darkly going, To gaze upon that light they leave Still faint behind them glowing,— So, when the close of pleasure's day To gloom hath near consigned us, We turn to catch one fading ray Of joy that's left behind us. THOMAS MOoan THE MAHOGANY TREE. CHRISTMAS is here; Little care we; Once on the boughs Birds of rare plume Sang, in its bloom; THE JOURNEY ONWARDS. As slow our ship her foamy track Against the wind was cleaving, Her trembling pennant still looked back To that dear isle 't was leaving. So loth we part from all we love, From all the links that bind us; So turn our hearts, as on we rove, To those we've left behind us! Night birds are we; Here we carouse, Singing, like them, Perched round the stem Of the jolly old tree. Here let us sport, |