And now that night hath stay'd thy race
Smiles wander o'er thy placid face,
As if thy dreams were gay.”

And can it be that for me alone
The main and heavens are spread?
Oh! whither, in this holy hour
Have those fair creatures fled
To whom the ocean plains are given
As clouds possess their native heaven?
The tiniest boat that ever sail'd
Upon an inland lake

Might through this sea without a fear

Her silent journey take,

Though the helmsman slept as if on land,

And the oar had dropp'd from the rower's hand.

How like a monarch would she glide,

While the hush'd billow kiss'd her side

With low and lulling tone,

Some stately ship, that from afar
Shone sudden, like a rising star,
With all her bravery on!

List! how in murmurs of delight
The blessed airs of heaven invite

The joyous bark to pass one night
Within their still domain !

O grief! that yonder gentle moon
Whose smiles for ever fade so soon,

Should waste such smiles in vain.

Haste! haste! before the moonshine dies,

Dissolved amid the morning skies,

While yet the silvery glory lies
Above the sparkling foam;

Bright mid surrounding brightness, Thou

Scattering fresh beauty from thy prow,
In pomp and splendour come!

And lo! upon the murmuring waves
A glorious shape appearing!

A broad-wing'd vessel through the shower
Of glimmering lustre steering!

As if the beauteous ship enjoy'd

The beauty of the sea,

She lifteth up her stately head

E'er wore his crown as loftily as he

Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation from the indwelling life,
A visible token of the upholding love
That are the soul of this wide universe.

My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on
In silence round me-the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finish'd yet renew'd
For ever. Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.

Lo! all grow old and die-but see, again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses-ever gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch-enemy Death-yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant's throne-the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe

Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.

There have been holy men who hid themselves Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived The generation born with them, nor seem'd Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks Around them; and there have been holy men Who deem'd it were not well to pass life thus. But let me often to these solitudes Retire, and in thy presence reassure My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink,

And tremble, and are still. O God! when thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill
With all the waters of the firmament

The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep, and throws himself
Upon the continent and overwhelms
Its cities-who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride and lays his strifes and follies by?
Oh, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchain'd elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.

MIDNIGHT AT SEA.

We suspect that few of our readers are acquainted with the Isle of Palms, by JOHN WILSON, who is better known as Christopher NORTH of Blackwood's Magazine, where he has published, in the form of prose, as much true poetry as any of his contemporaries. So thoroughly poetical is his temperament, that he cannot write half a dozen sentences without some flash of genius that reveals the poet. Withal, the Isle of Palms, his longest and best poem, has not achieved popularity; but it contains many fine passages, of which the following is a specimen.

Ir is the midnight hour :-the beauteous Sea,
Calm as the cloudless heaven, the heaven discloses,
While many a sparkling star, in quiet glee,
Far down within the watery sky reposes.

As if the Ocean's heart were stirr'd

With inward life, a sound is heard,

Like that of dreamer murmuring in his sleep;
'Tis partly the billow, and partly the air,
That lies like a garment floating fair

Above the happy Deep.

The Sea, I ween cannot be fann'd

By evening freshness from the land,

For the land it is far away;

But God hath will'd that the sky-born breeze
In the centre of the loneliest seas
Should ever sport and play.
The mighty Moon she sits above,
Encircled with a zone of love,
A zone of dim and tender light

That makes her wakeful eye more bright:
She seems to shine with a sunny ray,
And the night looks like a mellow'd day!
The gracious mistress of the main

Hath now an undisturbed reign.

And from her silent throne looks down, children of her own,

As upon

On the waves that lend their gentle breast
In gladness for her couch of rest!

My spirit sleeps amid the calm
The sleep of a new delight;

And hopes that she ne'er may wake again,

But for ever hang o'er the lovely main

And adore the lovely night.

Scarce conscious of an earthly frame,

She glides away like a lambent flame,
And in her bliss she sings;

Now touching softly the Ocean's breast,
Now mid the stars she lies at rest,

As if she sail'd on wings!

Now bold as the brightest star that glows

More brightly since at first it rose,

Looks down on the far-off flood;

And there all breathless and alone,

As the sky where she soars were a world of her own, She mocketh the gentle Mighty One

As he lies in his quiet mood.

"Art thou," she breathes, "the tyrant grim

That scoffs at human prayers,

Answering with prouder roaring the while,

As it rises from some lonely isle,

Through groans raised wild, the hopeless hymn

Of shipwreck'd mariners ?

Oh! thou art as harmless as a child

Weary with joy and reconciled

For sleep to change its play;

And now that night hath stay'd thy race
Smiles wander o'er thy placid face,
As if thy dreams were gay."

And can it be that for me alone
The main and heavens are spread?
Oh! whither, in this holy hour
Have those fair creatures fled
To whom the ocean plains are given
As clouds possess their native heaven ?
The tiniest boat that ever sail'd
Upon an inland lake

Might through this sea without a fear

Her silent journey take,

Though the helmsman slept as if on land,

And the oar had dropp'd from the rower's hand.

How like a monarch would she glide,

While the hush'd billow kiss'd her side

With low and lulling tone,

Some stately ship, that from afar
Shone sudden, like a rising star,
With all her bravery on!
List! how in murmurs of delight
The blessed airs of heaven invite

The joyous bark to pass one night
Within their still domain !
O grief! that yonder gentle moon
Whose smiles for ever fade so soon,

Should waste such smiles in vain.

Haste! haste! before the moonshine dies,

Dissolved amid the morning skies,

While yet the silvery glory lies

Above the sparkling foam;

Bright mid surrounding brightness, Thou

Scattering fresh beauty from thy prow,
In pomp and splendour come!

And lo! upon the murmuring waves
A glorious shape appearing!

A broad-wing'd vessel through the shower

Of glimmering lustre steering!

As if the beauteous ship enjoy'd

The beauty of the sea,

She lifteth up her stately head